“I have tried very hard to show that concern for liberal values of compassion, fairness and opposition to excessive inequality are fully compatible with understanding how the American private sector works.

Those who have become vocally unhappy about my continued tenure are these days concentrated in the angry right wing of our political spectrum. They are the people of whom Congressman Charlie Rangel took note in October [2006] when he said in one campaign speech that he was surprised to hear a Republican Congressional commercial that warned people against voting Democratic for House Members on the grounds that it would lead to chairmanships for Charlie Rangel, John Conyers and Barney Frank. “That’s funny,” Charlie said in his great New York City accent, exaggerated when necessary for comic effect, “I didn’t know that Barney Frank was colored.”

Charlie’s comment effectively captures the bigoted nature of much of what has been directed against us. This of course does not mean that everyone who voted Republican shared those views, but it does mean that people in the leadership of Republican campaign efforts were far too tolerant of this sort of intolerance.”