A reader forwarded me this interview conducted by Colorado-based radio host David Sirota with Harold Ford Jr., which gets pretty ugly toward then end when Sirota accuses the former Tennessee congressman of being an “avatar of the most powerful people in the country.”

Ostensibly, the focus of the sit-down was Ford’s new book, “More Davids Than Goliaths: A Political Education”.

The first half is fairly tame.

But right about the 9-minute mark, Sirota, who is an unabashed liberal, starts grilling Ford, a former Blue Dog Democrat, and challenging him about how he can claim to have been “courageous” in taking on special interests when he is a champion of the financial industry.

I’ve transcribed some of the exchange, which appears after the jump.

Sirota gets the last word, calling Ford “an avatar of the most powerful people in this country,” adding: “In this economy, and you’ve written a book about courage…I don’t really get it.”

SIROTA: “How is it courageous to oppose a tax on Wall Street right now, how is that courageous to go to bat for the most powerful corporations in the country?”
FORD: “I live in a city where the top generator of income and tax revenue is financial services. There are those in the financial services industry over the last 10 years who have made some, who made horrendous choices. “
“There are consumers who took on entirely too much debt, and I served in Congress and we didn’t curb some of the excesses and certainly didn’t take on some of the large behemoths including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

“I served on the financial services committee and we didn’t see some of these things. Again I wish I had all the clarity of vision that you have which you clearly seem to posses.”

“You talk about courage. Throughout the book I talk about my courage when I ran for office. I don’t toot my horn. I just talk about the fact that the courage, that the strength and inspiration and the courage that I drew from my constituents and from soldiers and veterans who served with such hardship.

“I talk about courage, and when you read the book, again, you’ll see what I’m saying…I tried to answer your question. You have an opinion, and I respect, I appreciate your opinion. I don’t agree with any of it. But you’re attacking my integrity.”

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