I was about to type up a whole bunch of what Barney Frank said about the Ethics Committee debacle on Meet the Press today.

But they rushed out a transcript. So without further ado I present the problem with the rule changes.

REP. FRANK:  I want to respond because there's a very central point there. Mr. Blunt says that's the way the rules were until 1997, because there's a pattern here.  The Republicans took power in 1995 on the grounds that things were terribly corrupt and badly run and they were going to change things.  And it is true, initially, they changed them.  And, again, this is very critical. What--the difference is this:  Should you be able, by simply holding your own party loyalists in line, to stop an ethics investigation?  That's what the rule now says.  The Republicans came to power and they changed the rule.  He said it was done with very little thought.

I must say, Mr. Blunt, that's rather dismissive of your Republican revolution.  You say that in 1997--the Republicans came to power in '95 and fairly shortly after that they changed the rule.

But this is the pattern they've had.  They changed the rules because they said they were unfair.  Now, that they've been in power for a while, these rules are inconvenient.  Mr. DeLay was rebuked three times by the committee, admonished three times by the committee.  So they've changed the rules back. So let's understand what he just said, that the Republican revolution came in, changed the rules so that one party couldn't balk an investigation of its own member, and when it began to bite, they changed them back again.  That's the pattern, by the way,that the Republicans have engaged in on a whole lot of things.  But the central point is this:  I agreed with that change.  It used to be, until the Republicans changed it this year, that you could not have your own party dismiss the investigation.  Now, you can.