By now I am sure that you've heard about the Wall Street Journal report on Maxine Waters. Maxine Waters is arguably one of the most brain-dead politicians in Washington today. Do you remember her recent attempt to grill bank CEOs? Yeah, it is hard to watch, ain't it?

It is pretty well-known that Maxine Waters has close ties with OneUnited Bank, which happens to be a minority-owned institution (at least that is the politically correct way to say it). And when I say "close ties" I mean that Maxine and her husband have large financial stakes in the bank and her husband used to be a director. While enjoying the benefits of her family ties to OneUnited Maxine was publicly boosting OneUnited's executives and criticizing its government regulators during congressional hearings. Last fall, according to The Wall Street Journal, Maxine helped secure the bank a meeting with Treasury officials.

Here's more ....

In January, Ms. Waters acknowledged she made a call to the Treasury on OneUnited's behalf. The bank's capital, which was heavily invested in shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was all but wiped out with the federal takeover of the two mortgage giants, and the bank was seeking help from regulators.

OneUnited eventually secured bailout funds under the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was set up later that month.

In a brief interview in January, Ms. Waters said she was unaware the bank received $12 million of TARP money, which arrived in December. OneUnited was "just a small" bank, she said.

A provision designed to aid OneUnited was written into the federal bailout legislation by none other than Barney Frank, the chairman of the financial-services panel. Mr. Frank has said he inserted the provision to help the only African-American owned bank in his home state. He said in an interview that Ms. Waters's interest "had zero impact on the outcome because I would have done it anyway."

All together now ... "Yeah, right."