Barney Frank blasts Chuck Hagel

In a statement issued on his last day in the House of Representatives, Barney Frank excoriated Hagel's 14-year-old attack on gay US Ambassador James Hormel and Hagel's antigay voting record:

'Then-Senator Hagel’s aggressively bigoted opposition to President Clinton’s naming the first openly gay Ambassador in U.S. history was not, as Sen. Hagel now claims, an aberration,' Frank said in a statement. 'He voted consistently against fairness for LGBT people and there does not seem to be any evidence prior to his effort to become Secretary of Defense of any apology or retraction of his attack on James Hormel.  And to those of us who admire and respect Mr. Hormel, Sen. Hagel’s description of him as aggressive can only mean that the Senator strongly objected to Hormel’s reasoned, civil advocacy for LGBT people.'
Added Frank: 'I cannot think of any other minority group in the US today where such a negative statement and action made in 1998 would not be an obstacle to a major Presidential appointment.'