Tickling their fancy
Eric Massa, conservative media hero for a day
Tickling their fancy
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
There's an old saying in politics: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." But given the way some of our conservative media superstars have embarrassed themselves during the past 48 hours, perhaps the old saying needs to be amended: "If the enemy of my enemy is a blithering idiot, I would be wise to distance myself from the idiot, lest I look like an idiot as well."
Well, it's too late for Glenn Beck to heed that advice.
Yesterday, on his Fox News TV show, Beck devoted a full hour to his new best friend, Eric "Tickle Fight" Massa. By the end of the hour's hilarity (which appeared to have been scripted by Seth Rogen), Beck needed a squeegee to wipe all the egg from his face.
As you probably know by now, Massa is the unhinged New York Democrat who served 431 days in Congress until he quit his seat on Monday. He had first suggested last week that he was leaving because of a cancer scare, but later revised his story, claiming that he was being railroaded by an unwarranted House Ethics Committee probe of his behavior toward a male aide (he said he was merely guilty of talking like a "salty old sailor"). Then, over the weekend, he revised his story yet again, this time claiming that House Democratic leaders and Obama lieutenant Rahm Emanuel had conspired to craft a bogus ethics probe as a pretext for kicking him off Capitol Hill - because of his opposition to health care reform.
Bingo! That version of the story made him an instant conservative media hero; if he was the enemy of the enemy, then surely he must be the conservatives' friend. On Monday, The Drudge Report home page was all Massa all the time. Rush Limbaugh went into overdrive, declaring on the air: "We're doing our part here to make it a national story...This guy is as fired up as anybody...This guy is going to have so much support from people." And Beck was all atwitter, Twittering his fans to say that Massa would be featured on his Tuesday show for the full hour because "all Americans need to hear him."
But even before Beck put him on the air, there were intimations of trouble. Some conservatives, to their credit, expressed concern that perhaps it was foolish to embrace a guy who was under investigation for feeling up a male staffer; in comments posted yesterday on the Politico website, ex-Bush deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel dismissed Massa as "an egotistical creep that we'd all be better off hearing from less," and Republican strategist Bradley Blakeman warned his brethren that "it will be a huge mistake to use this pitiful man for political gain."
Then came the news yesterday, courtesy of an afternoon story on the Washington Post website, that Massa has actually been under investigation for a year, with respect to "a pattern of behavior and physical harassment" of multiple male staffers. Give the GOP's recent headaches with Mark Foley and Larry Craig, why would conservatives want to embrace another alleged miscreant - from the other party, no less? Even Limbaugh slammed on the brakes yesterday and began to distance himself from his Monday hero.
But not Beck. His show was a kick to watch yesterday, even without popcorn. Beck sat there expecting Massa to stick with his tale about how he was supposedly forced out of his seat by the pro-health reform liberal conspiracy...but here's what Massa said instead:
"I wasn't forced out. I forced myself out. I failed. I didn't live up to my own codes. I own this. I take full and complete responsibility for my misbehavior."
Well, that's not what a Fox News hero was supposed to say. Massa was supposed to deliver a stinging indictment of Chicago-style liberal hardball. He was supposed to provide new details about how Emanuel had yelled at him about his health care stance while both men were naked in a communal congressional shower (another weekend claim), but instead he admitted on the air that nobody else witnessed the alleged incident (and even if it happened, so what?).
And Massa was certainly not supposed to blather on about his longtime penchant for...how did he put it..."tickle fights."
By this point, Beck wore the look of a pedestrian seeking to evade a street-corner lunatic. But Massa was unstoppable: "Now they're saying I groped a male staffer. Yeah, I did. Not really grope him. I tickled him 'til he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday...I should have never allowed myself to be as familiar with my staff as I was. I never translated my days in the Navy to being a congressman." He said that "tickle fights" are common in the Navy (this guy will not be appearing in any Navy recruiter ads), and he even brought some visual aids to the show, promising Beck that "I'm gonna show you a lot more than tickle fights...It looks like an orgy in Caligula."
During Massa's brief reign as a conservative media hero, Beck apparently chose to overlook the fact that Massa had actually compiled a liberal record in the House. He was rudely reminded of this when Massa suddenly turned on him: "Stop calling Americans names. Calling fellow Americans names. Pejorative, insulting, 'socialist,' 'communist,' whatever the case may be - colorful names designed to emote emotions." Massa even committed a Fox News heresy, by going after the tea-party movement: "You can't show up at a tea party rally and claim that the entire budget deficit happened this year."
At the end of the hour, Beck gave up and told his audience, "America, I've got to shoot straight with you. I think I've wasted your time." Actually, he didn't. He showed how badly an agitprop entertainer can embarrass himself when he overplays his hand and allows a political corpse to tickle his fancy.
Massa was able to spend a few days as a dead man talking, but, fortunately for the Democrats, he'll barely be remembered by the time we count the final votes on health care. And perhaps those chastened conservatives who sought to annoint him as a hero would like to distance themselves by singing these lyrics, courtesy of the punk rock band Social Distortion:
With friends like you, who needs enemies?
You ain't right, you ain't never gonna be...
You shake my hand, while you're pissing on my leg
I'm cuttin you loose, I don't need this misery
Your time's run out, I've got nothing left for you...
I'm leaving you far behind
Stop wasting all my time.
Massa and Beck? Really?— NEPhilly
At least Beck apologized to the audience for wasting their time. When will we get an apology from Keith Olbermann?— jmc- I liked that Beck said he wasted people's time. At least he knew he missed his target and admitted it. But you;re right- great entertainment, and that's what Beck is, an entertainer. Nothin wrong with that. Olbermann is an entertainer too, he just doesn;t seem to realize it.— tjm333126
- Can't we get back to the more pressing issues, like back waxing?— p-diddy
- Give Dick a break. Dems have had it rough. Obama didn't turn out to be the leftist savior they expected. Someone has to pay- why not a basic cable entertainment show? I mean, it has to be someone's fault right?— tjm333126
Comment removed.- Polman... You wasted your time writing this and I wasted my time reading it.— Phil Checchia
- MOCKY: 4 of 5 more accomplishments from Bush-Cheney, because I gave Tom #81 on the last thread. ........... 82. TORTURE DEATHS that have occurred at various prisons, and I don't mean natural causes. ............... 83. RUMMY'S SIGNATURE MACHINE for soldiers killed in Iraq, and Bush had nothing to say after this was exposed. .............. 84. WIRETAPPING DOCUMENTS WERE MADE UNAVAILABLE FOR VIEW by David Addington, aka Cheney's attack dog. ............. 85. The BIO-CHEM TRAILERS in Iraq that were part of Powell's smoking-gun UN speech on 2/5/03.— Talvenada
- Maybe a larger point can be made here- for those of us who want less govt control of our lives, the Massa scandal is one of the things we point to. How many congressman, republican and democrat, have been caught in either sex scandals or criminal acts over the past few years? There are tons! Personally, I am more inclined to trust my life to myself than I am to these clowns. The desire for power and control are part of the human condition and are unavoidable. The view that govt can be all wise and free of personal desire, acting only and always for the greater good just seems absurd- and has been proven so time and time again. Democrats love to spout off about "corporate special interests" and the like, but are thier special interests any different? We need to start having a conversation about the reality of governance, and stop whining about Glenn Beck or whoever else is the enemy of the state for today. Dick, I'd love to hear some theorhetical reasons why you believe the things you do. This is what goads me most about liberals- they rarely thgouthfully defend their ideology, preffering to shout down anyone who doesn;t share thier views. your poor buddy Will is gonna have a heart attack soon. He's off the hinges!— tjm333126
- This was very insightful column about the desperate measures one side will take to score political and social points against the other. And it's pretty funny when it backfires. When our discourse devolves into scorched earth, this is what happens. And the sad thing is that the polar heroes on either side don't realize the damage they are doing to the country is far worse than the issues on which they and their foes disagree. Conservatives, liberals ... you know it's true, right?— HeywoodEm
- tjm, well said. At least insurance companies are up front about what they are about. Making money. Pretty transparent if you ask me. We all know our congress is bought and paid for by special interests through campaign contributions, but the quid pro quo involved is a much shader proposition. Currently, if an insurance company denies too many patients bills or is otherwise outrageous either govt. regulators, the news media (through bad publicity) and/or free markets (people change companies) take care of it. Now place the govt. in competition with insurance companies (ie. Fannie/Freddie in financials), who regulates them if they become too outrageous? The congress? Can the news media cause a stir with say the IRS or any other govt. agency using bad publicity? Maybe. Can people leave the govt. run system and use the free market to register their displeasure (or pleasure) with the system? Doubtful given govt. subsidies to the poor & govt. interference in the free market. So I say no to govt. run healthcare. I don't want the govt. being involved in that decision. I don't even trust them with all my medical information in one place. I don't trust them to keep their own house in order let alone my healthcare decisions. Sorry, that is the way most Americans feel about this pig of a healthcare bill & the dems are going to pay the price either way in November for dithering away over a year on this nonsense, imho:)— NEPhilly
- Odd, the Polman article above looks strangely similar to one Time did that was posted last night. Hmmm.— CD75
- Beck is a substance abuser. It's pretty clear, just looking at him, that he hasn't kicked an addiction to prescription pain killers.— p-diddy
- I'm not sure why anyone takes this man seriously. Let me tell you an inside story. An old college buddy of mine used to work for Fox News for a couple of years. He started out doing the news crawl. Last year he was placed on Beck's show and even was writing his monologues at one point. Then he was moved off of that as Beck became popular and calling shots - that is to say replacing people with his own self-selected nodding heads. My friend eventually quit, because he realized how brainless and one-dimensional this type of entertainment is. And there you have it - a true human interest story on Glenn Beck. But that's only part of a much larger picture. What I still find truly remarkable are the followers who trust Fox News programming as the only de facto, true news source. If I were to ask someone unitiated in American news media the question "Does it sound plausible that every news source in America is involved in a massive conspiracy to enforce government control and take away your freedoms, while there is only one source that gives you the straight dope (you know, because they tell you that they do)?" To be frank, that sounds as crazy as the delusional folks who insist that 9-11 was an inside job. But hey, my hat is off to Mr. Murdoch, he has indeed outfoxed the market by convincing a large portion of consumers that his product is the only viable product. Brilliant.— puttinonthefoil
- "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." DP, that doesn't come from politics but it applies there. It's from "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu.— pj katauskas
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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