The BEAST: Buffalo's Best Fiend

Boston-area Congressman Barney Frank, long known as the sole openly gay member of Congress, choked back tears this morning as he admitted to having a love affair with a woman.

"As a young politician, and coming up through the ranks as a gay activist, I always questioned my identity," said Frank at a hastily-arranged news conference from his office in Washington, "but there comes a time in every person's life when they must look deeply into the mirror of one's soul, and now that I've done that, I have to say that I dig chicks!"

Frank added that he feels bad for betraying his constituents and his loved ones, and feels the only proper course of action is to resign.

"My supporters in Brookline and Cambridge have supported me for decades for one reason, and one reason alone... they thought I was gay," he said. "Now, I've let them down. The good news is that being gay isn't as avant garde as it was in the 70's, so if they really want to support someone who rubs the rest of America the wrong way, they can always vote for someone with a sex change, or that bitchy broad from 'The Apprentice'."

But political experts and cynics are wondering if the timing of the announcement wasn't somehow a plot to boost John Kerry's hopes of gaining the White House.

"First Kerry votes for the war in Iraq, then they put on a pro-military convention that would have made Joe McCarthy proud, and now they tell us Barney Frank is straight? Geez, what's next -- dumping John Edwards and putting Dick Cheney on the ticket?" asked Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. "I know they're trying to grab the Joe Six-Pack vote, but this is ridiculous."

Republican leaders are similarly miffed.

"This is not good news for us," complained RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie. "We get at least $50,000 a day in donations every time we show Frank's picture at our rallies and talk about the Democrats in Washington attacking God's values. This is going to hurt unless we can come up with a new scapegoat real soon."

Meanwhile, plans for arranging a special election to fill Frank's seat are being delayed as the Congressman refuses to step down before November.

"Are you crazy?" Frank asked when questioned about why he wasn't officially resigning sooner. "Have you see the hot interns that we get in this office every September when the new college semester starts? I'm not leaving until give each and every one of them the 'Gary Condit' treatment, know what I mean?"

But in a demonstration of agreement seen only at rare points of political harmony, such as the votes on the Patriot Act and the decision to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq, both Republicans and Democrats rallied to have Frank step down sooner.

"Gay or not, he pretended to be gay, and that's just as bad," thundered Gillespie. "Maybe even worse, since you can't really choose to be gay, but you can choose to pretend to be gay."

"Oh, wait," he said, the blood draining from his face as fellow Republicans put their heads in the hands. "Fuck."

"We Democrats cannot stand to see someone who changes his mind on such a drastic issue remain in office," said Senator and Presidential candidate John Kerry. "I mean, come on, how do we know what he really thinks?"

Jake Novak writes for enduringvision.com, “a webpage of satire, and also love.”

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