We told you earlier about the spat between Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, which was triggered by Fund’s erroneous claim that Frank has been working on a “universal voter registration” bill.
As we reported, Fund is continuing to claim that Frank supports the concept of universal voter registration, which Fund says would overturn state laws and undermine safeguards designed to protect against vote fraud.
And that has Frank teed off all over again.
In a new statement to TPMmuckraker, Frank said:
I have to amend my description of John Fund. He is not only a liar; he is a congenital and habitual liar. Instead of simply acknowledging publicly that he made up a story about me that has no basis in fact, Fund now says that even if I did not literally co-sponsor the fictitious legislation that I really do support the principles behind such a bill if it were to exist. He makes this statement, like his first one, with no evidence whatsoever.Mr. Fund initially claimed that I support a non-existent piece of legislation which allows large numbers of people who are ineligible to vote, including people who are in the United States illegally, to register. I do not support such a practice; I have not supported such a practice; and the only place such a bill exists is in Fund’s very active imagination.
It is not too late for Mr. Fund to formally retract his fictitious claims in the same kind of very public manner in which he lied in the first place and also to inform his fellow right-wingers on talk radio and TV of this fact. I persist in my request that he do this because it is the only way to break the cycle of deception in which a lie is magnified through the conservative media machine.