Barney Frank: Coming to a TV Near You

Barney Frank photo by the World Economic Forum via Flickr

Provided the Mayan Apocalypse passes uneventfully on Friday, we’re facing the Retirement Apocalypse of Congressman Barney Frank just a few weeks after, in which journalists and TV producers will suddenly struggle to find remotely interesting quotes from Democrats. Frank, after all, has served as a one-man media machine.

But wait! Crisis averted! The Associated Press reports this morning that the Frank is not going quietly into the night and taking up a retirement-worthy activity like gardening or building model sailboats. Instead, he’s promising many more years of scene-stealing, hiring Ari Emanuel—the model for Jeremy Piven’s hard-bargaining agent on Entourage—as his agent for TV and entertainment bookings, as well as a possible book deal:

“I’m hoping to get paid well to do what I do now for nothing,” a relaxed Frank said last week from the anonymity of an unmarked temporary office across the street from the Capitol dome.

Put your bets on most of the appearances being on MSNBC and CNN, as his disdain for the conservative Fox News remains high:

“I have no interest in encouraging people to watch it,” he says of Fox News. “They’re so overwhelmingly biased that being a voice there a few minutes a week, an hour a week, it lends a legitimacy they don’t deserve.”

Frank, apparently, is also following the lead of Vice President Joe Biden (who recently appeared on Parks and Rec) and is looking to make cameos on TV shows. But he’s demanding script approval:

“I had a request to do a cameo on a network TV show, but I didn’t like the script,” Frank says, declining to name the show. “So, if they won’t change it, I won’t do it. It was kind of demeaning to politicians.”

There you go: Frank doesn’t want to be involved in demeaning politicians. Unless, of course, he’s the one doing the demeaning.