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| Rep. Eric Massa |
Massa announced last Friday that he will resign today, effective at 5:00 p.m. EST. Massa is not the first member of Congress to diss the Obama Administration and Democrat Party leaders, but his words may be the harshest so far from a fellow Democrat. Massa is resigning during his first term in Congress.
The Massa case is weird, however. First he announced that he would not seek re-election because of personal health concerns. Then came word that a male staffer filed an ethics complaint against him, allegedly for sexual harassment. Later, Massa insisted that he was being forced out of Congress because of his opposition to health care legislation.
Before Massa officially goes down at 5:00 p.m. today, however, Massa's final mission seems to have been one of complete destruction of as many fellow Democrats as possible. (We wish him all the best in that endeavor, by the way.)
Massa's resignation comes in the wake of major events in his life. He recently had a CAT scan and was told that "the anomalies in the films may or may not be scar tissue," so he made the decision to prioritize his family and himself ahead of his political career. Massa was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1996.
He bowed out of his bid for re-election and was then informed that "a member of my staff believed I had made statements that made him feel 'uncomfortable.'" That staffer reportedly filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee.
In a phone interview with WKPQ-AM, Massa said that "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, and if he doesn't like that he can come after me personally."
It gets weirder. "Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel," Massa said:
"I was a Congressman, and in my first eight weeks, I was in the Congressional gym and I went down and I worked out, and I went into the showers, which by the way, for the life of me I can't figure out why they took all the shower curtains off the shower stalls in the Congressional shower. I mean, the last thing I want to look at is my fellow colleagues naked, but they don't have any shower curtains down in the gym, and I'm sittin' there showering, naked as a jay bird, 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? By the way, what the heck is he doing in the Congressional gym? He goes there to intimidate members of Congress.... We had words, and he hates my guts. He's hated me since Day One, and now he wins. So, he'll get rid of me, and this [health care] bill will pass, and I don't know what we're going to do with this country."
Arguing politics with naked men is, apparently, something that Rahm Emanuel is comfortable with. The shower encounter was not the first time that Massa and Emanuel have had a tense moment together.
During Massa's 2006 run for Congress, Emanuel visited Eric Massa during a trip to upstate New York. In a video of the visit, Emanuel scolded Massa for seeming too angry. At that time, Emanuel was the National Campaign Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. One of his duties was to inspect the troops, so to speak. During the video, Massa and his staff say "F--- him" about Emanuel at least twice when they are away from him.
My own theory is that Massa has, indeed, been forced out by Emanuel and the Democrat leadership. Consider this: He gets word that he may or may not have scar tissue from his 1996 bout with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Most people would not immediately quit their job because of that, however. Rather, they would hang in there until further tests could be done to determine absolutely what their medical condition is. Remember that Massa has (had) fine health care as a Congressman. Then there is the sudden and terribly (in)convenient charge of sexual harassment. Coincidence? Or conspiratorial action engineered by Rahm Emanuel, who has never liked Massa and saw him as an obstructionist. After the charges broke, Massa changed his story to include his own charges that the Democrats have forced him out, and that he's quitting because he does not want to put his family through the ordeal of a sexual harassment investigation.
Remember, Emanuel is a Chicago politician, as is his boss Obama. In other words, they're thugs, and to this Chicagoan such dirty tactics would not be at all surprising.
We can only hope that Eric Massa continues to criticize Emanuel and the Chicago Thugocracy after his resignation one hour from now.
Massa is just one of a string of New York Democrats embroiled in controversy and scandal. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) just took a leave of absence as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee "who’s currently under investigation for a slew of ethics violations."
NY Governor David Paterson is under pressure to resign because of "allegations that his office had improper contact with the ex-girlfriend of a close gubernatorial aide to pressure her to drop a domestic violence case against the aide; and the second into allegations that the governor lied about whether he sought free World Series tickets from the New York Yankees in violation of state ethics laws."
Massa's Congressional web site is http://massa.house.gov/. It will probably come down after his resignation becomes official late this afternoon. Also, traffic to the site is very heavy today, so if you don't get it at first, just refresh the page.
Related:
- Eric Massa Goes Out Swinging
- Rep. Eric Massa Bashes the Obama Administration
- Rep. Massa and the Chicago Boys
- Departing Rep. Eric Massa goes down swinging - at his fellow Democrats
- Video: Rahm Emanuel inspects Congressman Eric Massa (Must See)
- Ethics clouds over Rangel and Paterson are the talk of political Harlem
- Dems Won't Endorse Rangel, Return His Campaign Donations
- Revolving Door: Rahm Emanuel Employment Summary
- Both right and left want Rahm Emanuel's head
