In a Massa Trouble

by Kevin Theis

The lesson here is: be careful what you wish for.

The nation's leading Republicans, who have spent the past year trying to shoot down every single proposal Obama has made regardless of merit, has been looking for a Democratic turncoat. Somebody from Obama's party who will point the finger at Barack and say "He's a bad man!". A Congressman or Senator who will betray the current Administration and turn to the Dark Side.

Well, this week, they finally got their wish. But what they got turns out to be a whole lot more than they bargained for.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet former Representative Erica Massa (D-NY). Note that he is a former Representative as he was forced to quit his Congressional seat for various and sundry reasons, the main one being: Eric like himself a little grabass around the office.

Oh, and not just the usual, "Say, Betty, I hate to see you leave but I love watching you go" kind of banter that is the traditional fodder for harassment complaints. No, you see, Eric likes to grab himself a nice handful of male staff member and give 'em a squeeze. And a tickle. Eric likes to tickle. A lot.

Don't take my word for it. Ask Eric. Here are some quotes from the past week from Massa himself:

At a wedding over New Year's, Massa "..sat at down at the table where my whole staff was, all of them, by the way, bachelors. One of them looked at me and — as they would do after, I don't know, 15 gin and tonics and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne — a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid. His points were clear, and his words were far more colorful than that.

"And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and I said, 'What I really ought to be doing is frakking you,' and then tossled the guy's hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where I shouldn't be there."

"Was that inappropriate of me? Absolutely."

Asked if he was gay, Massa did not deny it, instead saying "Ask the 10,000 sailors I served with in the Navy."

Asked if he ever touched male staffers inappropriately, Massa "...acknowledged that he did "grope" male staffers, but that it was merely a "tickle fight".

And right now I'd like to stop for a moment and allow everyone a chance to recover momentarily as many of you are now, like me, on the verge of hurling. Deep breath. Better? Good. Now, back to business.

Here's where it gets interesting. No sooner was Mr. Massa shown the door for these harassment allegations than- lo and behold- he started to complain that, in fact, he was being pushed out by the Obama administration for his opposition to the health care reform legislation.

Never mind that he is among thirty or so Democratic House members who are bull-headedly opposed to the President's plan but he appears to be they only one being "targeted." Forget that. What happened next was: the GOP pounced. They had their guy! Here was a legislator from the other side of the aisle being thrown under the bus by Obama for speaking his mind. Perfect! Let's make him a victim and attack Obama through this Massa guy!

BIG mistake. See, if you're going to try and hitch your wagon to a rising star (pardon the mixed metaphor), you really should choose a star that is rising. This one is...what is the opposite of rising? Ah yes: this particular star is flaming.

Glenn Beck gave Massa an hour on his show and had to apologize at the end for wasting America's time with this ninny. No one is buying his story, especially because the juiciest bits involve a wet, naked Rahm Emmanuel poking him in the chest. And, no, I'm not kidding.

So Massa will now crash and burn, the GOP will do all it can to distance itself from their new BFF and, with any luck, the health care legislation will finally pass.

We can all now enjoy a collective sigh of relief.