Messy Massa: Another Downed Democrat

When you thought you’d heard it all when it came to politicians and their favorite pastimes (getting involved in scandals), along came Eric Massa and his tickle fights.

While we at USDemocrazy have explored the Democrats’ problems before and have an understanding of scandals (blogging about them, not participating), the big one that broke this week about former New York Democratic Representative Eric Massa has so many facets, we just couldn’t resist dissecting it today.

First, if you hadn’t heard of this guy until just now, the Washington Post starts it off right – explaining Massa’s appearances on both Glenn Beck’s and Larry King’s shows:

He told Beck that he resigned from the House because he made the mistake of “getting too familiar with my staff” members, but he told King that he left primarily for health reasons.

So, Massa already seems conflicted on why exactly he left his post. But, what he did know was that there was an ethics investigation into some alleged actions from back in the day when he served in the Navy about twenty years ago as well as allegations from some of his more recent staffers about inappropriate conduct.

BUT… What he hadn’t mentioned yet was that there’s yet another reason why he resigned.

Apparently, he claims, the investigation into his activities was just a part of a clever ruse.

From one of the Washington Post’s politics blogs,

Saying that he refused to go “quietly into the evening,” Massa told radio listeners in southern New York on Sunday that he was the victim of a “set-up.” The freshman Democrat has long opposed the health-care bill that his party’s leaders want to see passed — on the basis of it being not liberal enough — and he said Sunday that his ouster would lower the number of “yes” votes that Democrats need.

He went to talk to Glenn Beck at FOX news and cited a situation in which White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel confronted the representative in a gym shower and tried to intimidate him into voting for health care in this video.

Saying that “Rahm Emanuel hates me,” Mr. Massa seemed upset that there could be such a person who would bully another into voting a certain way. (Really?)

Fivethirtyeight.com indicated in this post that

…it’s not unreasonable to conclude that House Democrats and the White House (a) realized Massa could present a political problem for them later; and thus (b) wanted him out as soon as possible.

You can see more video of Massa trying to explain his side of the story from the Associated Press here.

Now, the  investigation has been closed because Massa’s resignation puts him outside the jurisdiction of the House ethics committee.

So, whom is this situation most damaging to? The GOP would like to focus on

Massa’s allegations of being strong-armed by Democratic leaders on health-care reform…

because, well, it looks bad for the Dems.

Politico reports that some Republicans would like to see the investigation continue, but with more emphasis on what House leaders like Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) knew before the story broke.

That same Politico article indicates that Pelosi knew about concerns with Massa’s actions amongst his staffers in October, and that Hoyer had reported the issue to Pelosi in early February.

So — is your head spinning in partisan circles right now? Leave a question, comment, or snide remark and help us sort all of this out!!