I do. I do. I do. I'd be a gay man for him, if I could. As chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank today is one of the most powerful forces in Congress.

After 14 terms in office, during which he withstood a vicious, unrelenting neocon slander attack, Frank has stood firm. He has fought for me at every turn against the forces of power and corruption that mark the so-called recent (last thirty years) Republican philosophy. Through most of those years, he was vilified and scorned as too liberal, too weak, and morally bankrupt.

But my, my, how the times, they are a changing.

... Many say they also respect his zest for cutting a deal and, indeed, Mr. Frank still hopes to reach one on the housing legislation. To appeal to the White House, he has made numerous revisions, including dropping a plan to have the government serve as a clearinghouse for auctioning bundles of refinanced mortgages.

Within the administration, where some high-level officials privately refer to him as “scary smart,” no one is underestimating him. After the House approved his bill on Thursday, though without enough votes to override a veto, Mr. Frank quickly went on the offensive, seeking to undercut the administration’s argument that homeowners in trouble should have known better.

“No dumb people got America into this problem,” he snapped. “You had to be really smart to understand collateralized debt obligation derivatives.”

Mr. Frank, who holds degrees from Harvard and Harvard Law School, understands collateralized debt obligations.

What vexes the administration, at times, is that he also holds strong liberal feelings about what he views as the government’s top obligations — to aid the poor and protect victims of discrimination, to police the markets and, in the case of as many as two million Americans at risk of losing their homes, to offer a helping hand if one is needed.