Barney Frank, Luis Gutierrez, and Danny Davis are all using the TARP program to intervene on behalf of constituent banks and get them aid, even when the individual financial situation of those banks does not justify any grant of aid whatsoever. What’s more: These champions of “progressive” government regulation are also trying to ensure that regulators don’t come calling on their constituent banks.

Money quote:

Politicians’ efforts to intervene on behalf of specific banks during the current crisis recall the savings and loan turmoil of the late 1980s, when members of Congress pressured the government to go easy on struggling thrift institutions. . . .

“This is a disturbing parallel to precisely some of those things that made the savings-and-loan debacle into a political scandal as well as a financial scandal,” said William Black, an associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who was a bank regulator in the S&L crisis.

“Most ethical Congress in history,” according to Nancy Pelosi. And these people have gotten more TARP funds released with which to play. If that doesn’t keep one up at night, I don’t know what will.