| No Massa |
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| Written by LL |
| Tuesday, 09 March 2010 20:34 |
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Forget the Glenn Beck/Michelle Malkin debate on the Massa story, Logical Lady Carol Platt Liebau (whom I absolutely adore) has the definitive word on why conservatives should not be so quick to jump on the Eric Massa bandwagon. ABC News' Rick Klein attacks Congressman Massa as the utterer of "[s]elf-contradicting, borderline paranoid ramblings" in what may -- or may not -- be a preemptive strike against someone who's going to have a lot of critical things to say about Democratic dealmaking in the health care debate.
It strikes me that any conservative who cares about maintaining credibility in the health care debate will resist the impulse to support Massa. Doing so will allow Obama to play "rope a dope." If a damning ethics report is released on the congressman, those who supported him will be used by the White House in an effort to portray the face of opposition to ObamaCare as unprincipled, even a little crazy. Certainly, it's not hard to believe that Massa was run out of the House quickly because he was a "no" vote on ObamaCare. But it's also entirely possible that he committed a number of unsavory acts that are unworthy of a US Representative. If conservatives embrace an unethical congressman simply because some of what he says proves to be of (transient) political advantage to us, how are we any better than Nancy Pelosi embracing Charles Rangel and John Murtha? Eric Massa may or may not have been shoved out of the House because he was a "No" vote on health care - we won't ever know for sure but the odds are slowly leaning toward not and anyway it is irrelavant. What is relavant is that Congressman Massa resigned rather than submit himself to an investigation that would (in his words) "tear his family and his staff apart"...that the ethics issue "is my fault and mine alone". These are not the words of an innocent man run out of town on a rail - these are the words of a career corrup-ocrat who is desperatly trying to save his own skin! |