More interesting than last night's VP debate was the exchange between Barney Frank and Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly, in an even more blustery than usual fashion, called Barney Frank out and called him a coward for not admitting fault in the recent near collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

O'Reilly once again did himself no favors by confirming what liberals already think about him: that he is shouts people down, calls them names, and refuses to let them make their points. But Frank was behaving despicably, denying any responsibility for the losses of many Americans after he claimed that Fannie and Freddy were sound, and the future for the companies was favorable.

If you look at the history of connections between Barney Frank and Fannie and Freddy, you see a troubling pattern of obsfucation. In 2003, the Bush administration raised concerns that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac needed more regulation and proposed a new agency to oversee the housing finance industry. Barney Frank responded with the following:

"These two entities--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Even more troubling is the fact that Barney Frank has received more than $40,000 in campaign donations since 1989 and was once romantically involved with a Fannie Mae executive. And finally, we have the July 14, 2008 CNBC statement that sent O'Reilly over the top:

"I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddy are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They're not the best investment these days from the long term standpoint...going back, I think they will do okay going forward... from what's happened to the housing market... I do think their prospects going forward are very solid, and in fact we're going to do some things that are going to improve them."

Shortly after this, the two mortgage entities nearly collapsed and had to be bailed out by the government to the tune of up to $2 billion of taxpayer money. So O'Reilly exploded on Frank and called him a coward. While not, as I said, the most favorable performance by Bill, you can't argue that if anyone deserved to be treated in such a way, it was Barney Frank.