Well, that didn't take long.

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank hasn't quite broken with Barack Obama, but he criticized the president-elect - and in a way rarely heard from a left-wing Democrat.

Obama, complains Frank, "overestimates his ability to take people, particularly our colleagues on the right, and, sort of, charm them into being nice."

Now, what could have prompted Barney Frank to aim one of his celebrated verbal barbs at Obama?

The issue is the prez-to-be's invitation to evangelical pastor Rick Warren, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

But where some see in that invite a good-faith effort by Obama to reach out to a community whose members, by and large, did not support his candidacy, many gays - including Frank - discern deliberate insult.

They say they are "offended."

It's hard to see why.

During the campaign, Obama was totally unambiguous when it came to the question of same-sex marriage: He's against it, though he opposes efforts to ban it legally (like the recently passed proposition in California), and favors civil unions.

In fact, nearly two out of three Americans, according to a recent Newsweek poll, oppose same-sex marriage.

So why should Obama turn his back on someone who not only reflects his views, but also those of an overwhelming majority of Americans?

Part of the problem for Obama, of course, is that he's currently without a personal pastor, having deep-sixed his longtime spiritual advisor, Jeremiah Wright, during the campaign.

But the growing flap over Rick Warren suggests that if Obama has "overestimated" anything, it's not his ability to charm the right, but his capacity for keeping in check the legion of whiners on the left.