Your favorite grumpy uncles are feuding: In an interview with Slate on Wednesday, retired Rep. Barney Frank took aim at Bernie Sanders, saying the Vermont senator “has been in Congress for 25 years with little to show for it.” But Frank didn’t reserve his criticism just for elderly socialists who are running for president — as the architect of the Dodd-Frank Act, which regulated the financial industry, Frank takes issue with the widespread idea that the law was too weak to affect a genuine change in the financial system. That’s why, he says, he never saw The Big Short: “I am told at the end of the movie they say nothing changed, which is nonsense … why would I want to see it?”
Though Frank swears he’s “not a drama critic,” he decries what he sees as “the self-fulfilling prophecy” of cynicism in political art, “whether with Jon Stewart or House of Cards or The Big Short. It basically tells people, ‘Everybody stinks, they’re all no good,’ and that’s one of the reasons people don’t participate.” Defintiely sounds like Barney Frank is more of a West Wing guy.