Financial crisis, recession make for strange bedfellows

Say one thing about the financial crisis: it's certainly scrambled -- or at least temporarily suspended -- the usual economic coalitions.

Economic liberals, like U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, and Chairman of the pivotal House Financial Services Committee -- a person in Washington you would not normally run to, to ask for assistance for large banks and key corporations -- in general favors the U.S. government's record fiscal and monetary interventions.