Ken Berwitz

Is Eric Massa, the disgraced congressperson who resigned yesterday, an oppressed man of principle?  Is he a sympathetic figure?  Or is he a calculating snake?

Here is Bob Lonsberry's take on this question - and it is well worth reading.  But please pay special attention to the two paragraphs I've put in bold print.  Because, though they are buried within the attack on Massa, they contain the most important part of the story:

ERIC MASSA DUPES THE CONSERVATIVES

 

Eric Massa is a snake.

 

But he is a brilliant snake.

 

And in one of the most audacious p.r. moves ever, he has conned Limbaugh, Drudge and Beck – and untold millions of Americans. From a little radio studio beside a swamp, with the help of a couple of deluded backwoods yokels, he has made himself a national star.

 

It is astounding.

 

And proof that in American politics, it’s not how big your lie is, it’s how loud you can yell.

 

And so it is that Eric Massa, who fled the Congress out of fear of what Ethics Committee investigators would find out about him, has wrapped himself in the robes of a patriot martyr.

 

A guy who – until yesterday – belonged to the House Progressive Caucus has, with one nicely disseminated rant, transformed himself into a conservative darling. Limbaugh and Beck have trumpeted him, and Beck has promised him an entire hour of national television tonight. Massa opposed Obamacare because it wasn’t liberal enough – because it didn’t entirely nationalize health care with a single-payer system – and Beck is about to crown him queen of the tea party.

 

It is a media move of astounding proportion. It takes spin to a whole new level.

 

And it shows Massa to be a genius.

 

And, if anybody’s paying attention, a liar.

 

But, nobody is paying attention, and his con is working.

 

But for the record, a few facts.

 

The first is that over the space of five days Eric Massa gave three completely different explanations for why he was leaving the House of Representatives. Each was passionately delivered, each was earnestly intoned, and each was mutually exclusive.

 

That means they can’t all be true.

 

For example, on Wednesday, he announced that he would not seek re-election. He said it was because his cancer was back. He implied that he was dying and that his doctor had told him that his workload was killing him.

 

By Friday, however, it wasn’t cancer anymore, and it wasn’t just no re-election. It was resignation. He said he had to “own this reality,” acknowledged that he had done something that made him unworthy of office, and that his background contained events that congressional investigators would uncover if they looked into him.

 

Let’s review. Wednesday it was cancer, Friday it was personal failing.

 

And Sunday it was a conspiracy.

 

On Sunday, he drove to radio station WKPQ for his weekly show. Coincidentally, both his chief of staff and I have worked at WKPQ. With him were two radio people who have been sympathetic to his cause and his campaigns.

And Eric Massa went off.

 

He claimed that he was being forced out of the House because he voted against health-care reform. In some sort of grand plot involving the chief of staff of the White House and the House majority leader and any number of other mystery Democrats, he was being crucified.

 

It was his courage and independence, he claimed, that had made him a marked man. He dared to stand up to Obama, and to be his own man, and they were crushing him. He was a poor victim of evil Democrats.

 

And he said the f-word once.

 

And that’s why he was quitting the Congress.

 

And no sooner was the show done, with its listenership in the dozens, than somebody started sending links to it all across the media world.

 

By 8 yesterday morning, Fox News Channel had bought the narrative. Here was a Democrat, destroyed by Democrats, for voting against health care.

 

Glenn Beck fell in love next. Then Rush Limbaugh.

 

All accepting the Eric Massa claim that he was the deciding vote on health care, and that by silencing him the Democrats were trying to force big government on the people, and that the public will was being destroyed.

 

The problem, of course, was that it was absolutely untrue – and anybody with a grasp of Google could verify that.

 

Eric Massa was one of 39 House Democrats who voted against health care reform. A third of those Democrats were, like Massa, newly elected. All but one of them was, like Massa, from districts that voted for John McCain. A good chunk of them were, like Massa, in districts which had recently elected Republicans.

 

Of the 39 Democrats who opposed health care reform, Eric Massa had the fifth-smallest margin of electoral victory.

Put another way, he won the seat by the skin of his teeth and if he didn’t mind his P’s and Q’s, he would lose it.

 

So he was expected to vote against health care. His constituents didn’t want it, and he had to oppose it. That was understood by all, including the Democratic leadership of the House.

 

As to the looming vote, at least a dozen of the House Democrats who opposed health care before have already said they oppose it now. That means, not counting Massa, there are a dozen Democrats defying their party.

And what is the party doing to them?

 

Nothing. Other than plenty of sweet talking, and dinner at the White House over the weekend.

 

The claim that Massa is being taken down for voting against health care, while others who did the same thing are being treated kindly and even rewarded, is preposterous.

 

It is an illogical and unbelievable lie.

 

And conservatives eager to find an ally against Obamacare have latched on to it like it was God’s own truth.

And Eric Massa is a hero. Millions of conservatives have embraced a liberal who defies everything they stand for, and he has become the sweetheart of Beck and Limbaugh. Last night, Beck breathlessly Tweeted the news that he had spoken to Massa off the air and was excited to have him for an entire hour on TV tonight.

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody offers him a TV commentator job somewhere. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps getting away with it. If Limbaugh and Beck say he’s OK – and they will have to now, to save face – then millions of people will think he’s OK too.

 

Eric Massa is a brilliant, audacious snake.

 

But he is still a snake.

Yes, Mr. Lonsberry has made some very valid points.  But he barely brushed by the single most important one.

He brushed by the fact that Massa absolutely, unequivocally trashed the Democratic Party.  Specifically Rahm Emanuel, "this administration" (that would be President Obama's) and "the house leadership" (that would be Nancy Pelosi).  While his motive may have been personal gain, let's not forget that the tar-and-feather job on key Democrats went out all over the world.  Here are a few quotes that somehow got left out of Lonsberry's commentary:

"...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 will pass. You connect the dots." 

"Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn.  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."

"I am 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

So if people pay attention to Massa (and, as noted, these quotes have traveled all over the world) they now "know" from a progressive (read that left-wing, formerly Obama-supporting) Democrat that the President (Obama), the house leadership (Pelosi) and the President's chief of staff (Emanuel) are all a bunch of  amoral win-at-any-cost dirtbags. 

THAT is why Limbaugh and Beck were so willing to latch onto what Massa said.  He was, until a few days ago, a member in good standing of the core group that was pushing ObamaCare - not some watered down version, the original one that the sorosian left was so in love with.  But now, for whatever the reasons, he has positioned himself as an inside guy who became disillusioned and is spilling the beans about everyone.

So is he a snake, who is trying to turn a disgraceful exit from congress into some kind of principled position?  And is he a snake for lying about what happened (as Lonsberry correctly points out he must be lying about at least two of his three different stories, maybe all three).

Well, yeah.  But who gives a rat's backside?  Eric Massa's name will be forgotten before the month is out.

The only part of this story that anyone cares about is that a "progressive" Democrat (regardless of who he/she is) has jumped off the wagon and has tossed out a devastating attack on the people who run the Democratic Party,  

And that is the part that Lonsberry, for some reason, is downplaying.