What's up with Massa?

 I watched Glenn Beck and guess what as hard as Beck tried to get Massa to say something that would anger his audience, Massa said absolutely nothing of any importance. Except for Finance Reform..... Beck said it was a waste of his listeners time.   hehehehehehehe


Eric Massa Radio Show

By Jonathan Capehart  |  March 8, 2010; 6:48 PM ET
Once upon a time, I used to advise clients in all manner of trouble on how to minimize the damage to their reputations or how to get in front of bad news by wresting control of the narrative away from their would-be persecutors. Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) is pursuing the latter path to odd effect. The more he talks, the more implausible his conspiracy theory sounds. The more he talks, the more I wonder, what's up with Massa and men?
On Friday, Massa announced he would not seek reelection due to health. All the while, there were rumors that he was giving up his seat because of a sexual harassment allegation leveled by a male staffer. By Sunday, he was on WKPQ radio explaining the (I was just joshin') incident and declaring the implications a smear. But he also said that he was resigning altogether, effective 5:00 p.m. on Monday.
You can listen to the entire radio show here. And when you do, be prepared for some real palace intrigue. Not the back-stabby kind President Obama wants to put the kibosh on in the West Wing. Massa argues forcefully that the reason the ethics committee is investigating him is because of the Democratic leadership's push to pass health-care reform. With Massa out of the way, the bill is sailing to the president's desk. Who knew Massa wielded so much power?
"There's a reason that this has all happened, frankly one that I had not realized," he said on the radio on Sunday. "Mine is now the deciding vote on the health-care bill, and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health-care bill. And now they've gotten rid of me and it'll pass. You connect the dots." There are some dots I'm connecting, but they have nothing to do with health care. They have to do with Massa's sexually charged stories about men.
In that Sunday radio show, he told the story that led to the allegation by the male staffer. The one where he said, "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." Massa also had choice things to say about White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, including an incident in the congressional gym. "I'm sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn't going to vote for the president's budget," Massa said. "Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?”
And then in answer to a critic who dredged up misconduct allegations from the 1980s, Massa shared this story about watch duty on a ship in the Persian Gulf during the first Iraq War. (skip up to 13:47 for this one.) The quarters were tight. "You literally can't move two people in that room without getting into each other's knickers," he said. One night he came back early only to find "[T]he other gentleman was busy remembering his spouse," he said euphemistically. "Instead of embarrassing him, I smacked him on the leg and said, 'If you need any help with that let me know.' and I went to bed." That proved a bit much for the roommate. "He was so hideously embarrassed he moved out of the stateroom because he couldn't take it. Ladies and gentlemen, we were at sea for four months."
Massa will go on Glenn Beck's show tomorrow night for the full hour. This might be asking too much, but I would love it if the Fox News weeper would pull the one-term congressman off the grassy knoll of conspiracy theories and ask him for proof of his allegations that his travails are the result of being targeted by the leadership. I would also like Beck to ask him point-blank about his conduct. Massa told a local reporter on Friday, “It’s not that I can fight or beat these allegations, I’m guilty.” If that's the case then why not go quietly? All this conspiracy talk strikes me as a distraction -- and not a very good one.

Rahm is... "the devil's spawn"

Posted by Glenn Thrush 09:51 AM

Whatever he has done or not done, I will miss Eric Massa, for no other reason than his gift with a phrase.
In an amazing, far-ranging interview/monologue with a Rochester-area radio station, Massa admits making an off-color, sexual comment to a young staffer -- but still claims Democratic leadership ratted him out to kill a health care "no" vote.
That brought him to the subject of Rahm Emanuel and arm-twisting:
 



“Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn,” Massa said, according to City Hall. “He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”
Later in the interview, Massa -- who sits down with Glenn Beck for a one-hour interview on Tuesday -- tells a bizarre story about Emanuel accosting him in the House gym -- in the buff:
"Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel," Massa started. "I was a congressman in my first eight weeks, and I was in the congressional gym, and I went down and I worked out and I went into the showers...I'm sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn't going to vote for the president's budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?”
Massa has never enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Emanuel, who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when Massa first ran for unsuccessfully, without much DCCC support, in 2006.
Massa's near defeat of incumbent Randy Kuhl that year -- he lost by 6,033 votes -- attracted the attention of Emanuel's successor Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who helped Massa defeat Kuhl in a nail-biting rematch in '08.
Massa relationship with House leadership has been in the dumps for months, and only got worse after he bucked Democrats on the health reform vote last fall -- earning him the enmity of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her ally Emanuel who personally lobbied fence-sitters. It's not clear if Massa, who was regarded by Pelosi and the White House as a lost cause, was part of his effort.
But he says he was the subject of Rahm tirade over his decision to oppose leadership on cap-and-trade: "[W]hen I voted against the cap and trade bill, the phone rang and it was the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn’t heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983. And I gave it right back to him, in terms and words that I know are physically impossible. I told him to do things I know the human anatomy cannot do.”
Few tears have been shed over Massa's departure on the Hill. Other members describe him as volatile, argumentative, the antithesis of the a team player -- even though he supported leadership on many other issues, including the repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.