"On what planet do you spend most of your time?"

Barney Frank lashes out a protester at a town hell

Published August 19, 2009 12:20PM (EDT)

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is known as one of the more outspoken and combative members of Congress. So it should probably come as no surprise that during a heated town hall meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts on Tuesday, Frank dismissed a critic of the Obama Administration with some of the most memorable lines made during the entire healthcare debate.

At the meeting, numerous protesters carried signs depicting President Obama with a Hitler-style mustache. When one such female protester asked Frank a question, he responded with equal parts exasperation and anger.

"When you ask me that question, I'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and ask you a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time?" Frank asked. "You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis ... Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."


By Vincent Rossmeier

Vincent Rossmeier is an editorial assistant at Salon.

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Barney Frank D-mass. Healthcare Reform