Ethics In A Democrat Majority Congress and Massa Unleashed

Democrat Rep. Eric Masa has gone nuclear on Congress and the Obama administration. Already having announced his resignation from Congress effective at 5 p.m. today, Massa claims, with some apparent justification, that he is being railroaded out of Congress by the House leadership and Rahm Emanuel because of his refusal to vote "yes" on Obamacare. This from Massa's radio interview on Sunday:

- On the incident that is the subject of the ethics complaint against him:

“On New Year’s Eve, I went to a staff party. It was actually a wedding for a staff member of mine; there were over 250 people there. I was with my wife. And in fact we had a great time. She got the stomach flu,” he said.

Massa explained that he then danced first with the bride, who was not identified, and then with a bridesmaid. He said multiple cameras recorded the incident.

“I said goodnight to the bridesmaid,” Massa continued. “I sat down at the table where my whole staff was, all of them by the way bachelors.”

“One of them looked at me and as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics, and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne, a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid and his points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that,” Massa said. “And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, ‘Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.’ And then [I] tossled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where it wasn’t right for me to be there. Now was that inappropriate of me? Absolutely. Am I guilty? Yes.”

- Massa, as to why he was being "railroaded:"

[Massa] accused Dems of a setup. Massa voted against health care legislation in Nov., and he has not been a reliable vote for Dem leadership. That, he said, has put a target on his back.

"When I voted against the cap and trade bill, the phone rang and it was the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn't heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983," Massa said. "And I gave it right back to him, in terms and words that I know are physically impossible."

"If Rahm Emanuel wants to come after me, maybe he ought to hold himself to the same standards I'm holding myself to and he should resign," Massa said.

Massa slammed House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer for discussing a House ethics committee inquiry, accusing Hoyer of lying in an effort to eliminate an opponent of health care. Hoyer said last week he heard in early Feb. about allegations against Massa, and that he told Massa's office to report the allegations to the ethics committee.

"Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once," Massa said. "Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever."

"I was set up for this from the very, very beginning," he added. "The leadership of the Democratic Party have become exactly what they said they were running against."

Massa bemoaned the state of the nation's politics, which he said is perpetuated by the constant need for money to run for re-election. And, he said, he has been made an example by Dem leadership.

"There is not a single member of the Democratic freshman class [that] is going to vote against this health care bill now that they've got me," he said. "Eric Massa's probably not going to go back to Congress, because the only way I would go back there would be as an independent. A pox on both parties."

- And Massa had some particularly harsh words for Rahm Emanuel, whom he described as "the son of the devil's spawn." You can hear his riff on Emanuel here.

It is not possible, based on what we know today, to dismiss Massa's complaint that he is being railroaded. Ethics in this Democratic congress is an absolute joke. The House Ethics Committee credits the defense of the various Congressman despite all evidence to the contrary. To wit - within the past two weeks, we have been treated to Charlie Rangel being given a slap on the wrists for taking a Carribean vacation paid for by lobbyists when the rules were clear that such is an ethics violation. Rangel's defense, accepted by the Ethics Committee, was that he never received the multiple communications from his staff, by e-mail and letter, informing him of the rule. If only we applied that same degree of deference to incredulous defenses in our criminal courts, we could solve the problem of prison overcrowding immediately.

But it gets better. The same ethics committee cleared seven Congressmen, including Jim Moran and Jack Murtha, of trading pork for campaign contributions despite a series of e-mails and letters that directly spell out what was going on. Indeed, there seems little difference between the evidence used to convict Duke Cunningham and the evidence that most of the seven Congressman were trading pork for campaign contributions. The only substantive difference appears to be that the House Ethics Committee gave preference to the flat denials from the Congressman.

And since when did the Democrat Party become incensed with inappropriate conduct relating solely to sex - whether homosexual or heterosexual (and in the case of Ted Kennedy, throw in homicide). As to the heterosexual scandal, the poster boy is Bill Clinton, though JFK doing Marilyn Monroe in the oval office comes a close second. As to homosexual scandal, in 1990 Barney Frank had one of his gay pick ups running a gay prostitution ring out of Frank's apartment. Barney is still in office. In 1983, Democrat Rep. Gerry Studds received only a censure for bending over a few of the young male paiges. He too continued in office. Even if Massa's comment was more than a mere joke, the history of Democrats is that they don't care. So, it would seem Massa may have some legitimate complaint that he is being railroaded.