The House of Representatives accepted Eric Massa’s resignation as the congressman from the state of New York today. It was a good riddance. The Democrats are in the middle of passing major health care reform and they don’t need a lewd and loutish congressman to distract them. Massa was a first term congressman from New York; due to his inability to keep his hands to himself, he couldn’t even finish his first term.
The House ethics committee has received allegations that Eric Massa groped at least 3 male staffers and conducted himself improperly with interns as well as full-time aides. Eric Massa claims that his party orchestrated his exit because he refused to vote ‘yes’ and go along with the rest of his party on the health care bill.
Like many who suffer from verbal diarrhea, egotism and self-righteousness, he proceeds to call the White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel the “devil’s spawn” and relating an alleged shower incident at the gym for House members while both of them were undressed (this seems to be a pervasive theme with Massa), more on the verbal diarrhea later. And as for his own responsibility in the investigation, Massa says that the only thing that he is at fault for is his “salty old sailor” mouth. Massa’s resignation and the resignation of his chief of staff Ron Hikel will put them outside of the purview of the House ethics committee and there will be no further investigation on the allegations.
Just because Massa resigned, it does not mean that he will fade quietly into the background. He already has a series of television and radio interviews lined up. And in an unexpected turn of events, he has become sort of a hero to the conservatives. The conservatives are saying that he was sacrificed like a lamb to slaughter because he refused to toe the party line on health care reform. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh vowed to make him into a “national story”. But upon finding out the exact allegations against Massa, Limbaugh said that his comments were misconstrued: "These guys in the media are trying to say I'm one of this guy's champions? I'm not a champion of his…anybody who embraces this guy is in big trouble."
Glenn Beck is having Eric Massa on his show for the “full hour” on Tuesday, which apparently is a huge honor on Fox News; only Sarah Palin gets that kind of reception. But Glenn Beck’s romantic overtures to Massa to join the ‘right’ was a massive failure and a poorly planned operation, it is a direct result of wanting to score ratings by being the first conservative television show host to interview Massa after his resignation. To say that Glenn Beck didn’t do his homework is an understatement.
When Beck asked Massa about the allegations of groping his male staffers, Massa, instead of emphatically and categorically denying all the allegations—since he resigned and there will be no further investigation, he goes on to elaborate on the “groping” incident: “Now they're saying I groped a male staffer. Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday." Then Massa proceeded to explain how some of this “tickle” fight behavior was a common Navy ritual and he even brought proof in the form of photographs from when he was in the Navy. The pictures were deemed too graphic for Beck’s conservative audience and the conversation ended with Massa saying: “It looks like an orgy in Caligula.” It is unclear what he means by that because Caligula was not a place but a Roman emperor known for his licentiousness and lasciviousness. This a perfect match; the host that didn’t do his homework and the guest that didn’t pay attention in world history class.
The trouble didn’t end there, Beck wanted Massa to specifically “name names” in his party because he wanted to out President Obama and his administration as a corrupt communist regime masquerading as a democracy. Eric Massa not only refused to name names, he even told Beck to “stop calling Americans socialists and communists” and told Beck’s conservative audience: "You can't show up at a 'tea party' rally and claim that the entire budget deficit happened this year."
Perhaps the conservatives should take a page out of conservative blogger Michelle Malkin’s book, she tells her readers to not be fooled by the “weapon of Massa distraction,” further stating, “He’s been a progressive zealot and political opportunist his entire career. He’s claimed conspiracy before, is intimately bonded with the nutroots and climbed the political ladder with backing from the odious, anti-war-hoaxer-embracing Gen. Wesley Clark. What Massa dismissively calls his ‘salty old sailor’ talk should raise bright-red flags about possible long-standing predatory behavior.” Now, this is someone who did her homework.
By the way, Massa’s ‘no’ vote on health care reform wasn’t because he felt the government had too much control over health care, in fact, it was the opposite. Massa felt that government will not have enough control over the health care industry because the single payer system or public option was taken out of the bill, that’s why he opposed it. Again, Glenn Beck didn’t do his homework. One would almost feel sorry for Glenn Beck if he wasn’t such a ranting war mongering, fear mongering anti-American buffoon, but at least he was gentleman enough to apologize to his audience for wasting their time.
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