To be more accurate, he compared pro-slavery Dems to Republican “extwemists.”
Via Beltway Confidential:
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., declared House Republicans the “most extreme” group of politicians since the pro-slavery Democrats who seceded from the Union upon the election of President Abraham Lincoln.
“I believe that the results of the election of 2010 were to put people in charge of the House of Representatives who are the most extreme, rigidly ideological group to control one of the major political parties since the Democrats in the south before the civil war,” Frank told Newsmakers yesterday.
“You have extremists in control of the House of Representatives,” he added, before criticizing the GOP for requiring spending cuts to raise the debt limit last year. Frank also cited what he regards as a Republican “assault on the environment” to justify comparing his colleagues to the legislators who started the Civil War.