• Two years later, Mr. Frank was at it again. "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems," he said in response to another reform push. And then: "I regard them as great assets."

• Again in June 2003, the favorite of the Beltway press corps assured the public that "there is no federal guarantee" of Fan and Fred obligations.

• A month later, Freddie Mac's multibillion-dollar accounting scandal broke into the open. But Mr. Frank was sanguine. "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis," he said at the time.

Three months later he repeated the claim that Fannie and Freddie posed no "threat to the Treasury." Even suggesting that heresy, he added, could become "a self-fulfilling prophecy."

• In April 2004, Fannie announced a multibillion-dollar financial "misstatement" of its own. Mr. Frank was back for the defense. Fannie and Freddie posed no risk to taxpayers, he said, adding that "I think Wall Street will get over it" if the two collapsed.

Pretty clear. It was not the “private sector” failing as Congressman Frank declared. It was government that failed. Specifically, it was people like Barney Frank that failed the American people. Moreover, he committed these acts for a pure ideological reason—to advance his warped left-wing vision.

But it goes deeper still. By attacking the entire “private sector”, Frank is declaring his opposition to small business and to tens of millions of people who labor for the betterment of their families by saving and investing.

The central issue of the proposed bailout proposed by the Bush Administration—the issue that prompted Barney Frank’s childish and insulting remark—is how to get billions of dollars securities based on the mortgages held by people who cannot afford them out of the system. You can argue over whether to do it or how to do it—but that is the aim of the proposal.

And what does Comrade Frank now insist is a deal-breaker? More money has to be made available to keep these people in the homes they couldn’t afford in the first place! Oh, and of course, many on his side are demanding that state and local governments who have been spending at double-digit increases every year for a decade be bailed out as well. No, they shouldn’t have to cut the feather-bedding or cut back on the silly-expensive union contracts. Barney Frank wants the American taxpayers to bail them out too.

Taking the global view, here is what happened and this is where we are. Knowing the American people were sick and tired of the welfare handouts, the liberals devised a backdoor way to funnel billions of dollars to their welfare clients. It was based on a Ponzi scheme that finally went broke. A lot of people made money along the way but the central rationale was always to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare to low income citizens.

And now that the game is exposed, the first thing these thieves do is blame the “private sector.” They are using the destruction they have caused to justify giving them more power to do even more damage.

That is what is at stake. Will we hand our country over to a group of devious, venal socialists who hate private enterprise, individual responsibility and personal freedom? Or, will we step back from the abyss, clean up the mess and set our house in order?

If he has done nothing else, Barney Frank has at least clarified the issues and made the choice clear for all willing to observe the facts. As valuable a service as this is, it should not be enough to keep him out of a well-deserved jail cell.