For a guy who loves to talk and loves to be on TV, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank sure is touchy about having his own words from a national TV interview quoted:

“Here’s what he said, my friends, and I quote, ‘focus on an immediate increase in spending,’ we should take him at his word,” McCain went on. “And when he says there are, quote, ‘a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax,’ it’s safe to assume he’s talking about you.”

Frank yesterday dismissed McCain’s words as “an appeal to prejudice” that he said reminded him of past Republican efforts to raise voter concerns about the prospect of congressmen Charles Rangel and John Conyers, who are black, becoming committee chairs.

“I’m flattered by this,” said Frank, who is gay. “But I don’t think I’m the single most important member of the House after Nancy Pelosi. There are also a lot of straight white men who are committee chairmen.”

McCain’s chief speechwriter, Mark Salter, shook his head when asked to respond. “We’re bringing him up for his quotes,” said Salter. “We’re prejudiced against wasteful spenders and tax hikers.”

McCain also knocked Frank for calling for cuts in the defense budget to pay for new domestic spending.

Chairman Frank is a very powerful man in Washington, and about to get a lot more powerful if Obama wins the White House. He said on national television what he wants to do with that power. He can’t hide from what he wants to do to the taxpayers by invoking his sex life.