This is a question that Josh Marshall asked at the main TPM web site.

 

First, the idea that government is working as a nanny state making all our decisions. This is a standard conservative argument. I do not have a problem with it. Here is an excerpt of what Palin said yesterday about "Uncle Barmey Frank" yesterday

 

 

That philosophy of government taking more, which is a misuse of the power to tax. It leads to government moving into the role of taking care of you and government and politicians and kind of moving in as the other half of your family to make decisions for you. Now they do this in other countries where the people are not free. Government as part of the family, taking care of us, making decisions for us. I don't know what to think of having in my family Uncle Barney Frank or others to make decisions for me. I and John McCain tend to want to trust the American people with their income, their businesses, their things. With a pro-tax, bigger government mentality, and that's what you would get if we had unchecked powers there in congress and the white house, if liberal leaning, bigger government persons were in charge of the house, the senate and heaven forbid the white house too.

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The Uncle Barney Frank rhetoric works on a subtle and more disgusting level.

 

 Barney Frank is a high profile Gay Democratic Congressman. In cases of child molesting, the term funny uncle is a derogatory term for a family member who molests children. Conservatives believes gays are predatory child molesters and what better way to make that point than to make gay Congressman Barney Frank the uncle. That is why you do not hear Aunt Nancy Pelosi or Uncle Harry Reid. They are not gay and the dog whistle politics of Democrats as child molesters would not work.

 

That is why it is Uncle Barney Frank. It is an added bonus that Frank was a major part of the bailout plan. You can keep it as a nanny state reference to the national media while using the funny uncle subtext of gays as child molesters to appeal to the homophobic GOP base. It is the same as  Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad references that was a dog whistle toward the Southern base that Obama likes young blonde white women while claiming to the national media it was about Obama being a celebrity.