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.
SPIN BORO MIKE: Hannity is respectful, Beck is respectful, and neither is snarky. Beck leans republican despite his claims to the contrary. He'll knock 9 Dems to 1 'Pub, which is his definition of partyless.— Talvenada- um, not to state the obvious but my Internet life twin appears to be make a lot of unsubstantiated claims. Not to mention he appears to be recycling the same old stuff day and and day out. And BTW, Bush is so last year. Get over it— Alvenada
- POT-FOIL: Respectful Hannity had a laugh track set to a recent speech by Obama. I suppose that was humor. Respectful Beck points out how Obama's Admin. is filled with Commies, and are connected to Chairman Mao. I suppose that was commentary. Respectfully O'Reilly called the son of a 9-11 victim a traitor for being against The Iraq War at its beginning. I suppose that was only his opinion. I watch Fox NEWS to see what they're up to, but sometimes it makes me barf before it's over. Yeah, a slight conservative slant that's barely noticeable!!!— Talvenada
- MOCKvenada: I gave you a chance to not request the 118 Bush-Cheney questionable acts, and you scoffed that I don't have them. I gave you the chance to opt out before I started what I said was going to be 22 days in a row. Twice you've implored me not to stop, and if I did you would brag about your non-sweat-breaking victory. .................... Now, you have the marble stones to say get over Bush??? LOL AND THEN SOME!!!! ................ Point to one act that was repeated, and I'll explain it to you. Just give the numbers. Example: Preemptive war is one thing, and falsifying intel to prove you should go to war is another. Now, call me a liar and say they are one thing. Say it straight without some creative implying statement. I said the acts were questionable, what part of questionable is substantiated? Speak O enlightened one!— Talvenada
- Tal- Hannity has Bob Beckel on his show about every night. They kid around a little bit, argue politics, and yes it is very respectfull. When I watch Olberman it's almost personal . I get the impression that Keith Olberman hates the air that conservatives breath. Olberman thinks conservatives are vile human beings. And maybe that why Fox's ratings are 3 times that of MSNBC. What I find is that people who hate Fox News do not watch Fox news. They get their views of Fox News from the MSNBC pundits.
- SPIN BORO MIKE: Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin and Schultz are the top of the slime mountain. Olbermann, O'Reilly and Maddow are the 2nd tier. I've seen and heard all of them.— Talvenada
- Ten O'clock is lights at the institution. Don't forget your meds and your tin foil hat. Night, night— Alvenada
- Gimme 5 more tommorow there buddy. I'm thinking you could recycle Katrina, maybe throw in a Rove or a Halliburton.— Alvenada
- MOCKYvenada: 18 words, 3 insults and no challenge. LOL!!! At you!!— Talvenada
- MOCKY: You ask for 5 more after you carp about get over Bush, and tell me to take meds? LOL!!!— Talvenada
Comment removed.- Tickle fight! Halliburton, Rove, Scooter, Mr. Roper and Jack Ritter, Run Forest Run!— Alvenada
- MOCKY: Back to your old self posting gibberish to claim my 118 Bush-Cheney badges of honor are gibberish.— Talvenada
- Eric Holder hired 9 attorney's who represented jihadists to post at the Justice Department working in national security and anti-terrroist positions. Is that like hiring a mob attorney to the organized crime unit? Was this reported on MSNBC? CNN? ABC, NBC or CBS? Did Holder let this be known during some committee hearing? NO, it was first reported on Fox News. That must mean they are partisan, right?— tom - wilmington, de
- Tal, you wrote "Point to one act that was repeated, and I'll explain it to you. Just give the numbers." I already did that, and your explanation was jibberish. Here are three more.."8. AFGAN WAR OUTSOURCING to attack a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, while bin Laden became secondary. ..... 26. BIN LADEN'S ESCAPE is self explanatory........62. WENT AFTER SADDAM INSTEAD OF BIN LADEN is self explanatory." Why are these the same thing? Because we attacked Iraq, which was to go after Saddam, which (according to liberals) allowed Bin Laden to escape. Explain away.— tom - wilmington, de
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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