Democratic Congressman Barney Frank appeared with Lawrence O'Donnell  last night and took on the Tea Party and their "misunderstanding of the Constitution." Frank suggested it was "insane" to even entertain the idea of a government shutdown when the country was engaged in three wars and also had some unflattering words for Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

O'Donnell wondered whether Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor truly thought that the House alone could make laws? Frank thought Cantor was probably more intelligent than that, but responded "as with Congresswoman Bachmann and some others - when you're talking about people who sometimes inhabit cloud cuckoo land and in cloud cuckoo land, yeah that could be the case." Frank also declared "the Republicans are so frightened by the Tea Party, that their leadership has backed away from an effort to compromise."