Massa Resigns over "Tickle Fights"

There are some stories that are so bizarre that when you first hear about them, your first instinct is to just ignore them, but the story of NY congressman Eric Massa resigning under the cloud of an ethics investigation over what amounts to accusations that he sexually harassed male staffers is too titalating to ignore for long. Massa stepped down over the weekend citing health concerns and made the accusation that Democrats, including White House Chief of Staff Rom Emmanuel, forced him out due to his opposition to the current health care reform package.

Last night Massa appeared on the Glenn Beck Show and confirmed two things. First that the allegations are true and second, that he is completely out of touch with reality.
The Washington Post reported this morning:

Just seven minutes into Glenn Beck's hour-long interview of Eric Massa on Tuesday evening, things had already gone very wrong.

Conservatives had hopes that the now-former Democratic congressman from Upstate New York, who resigned abruptly under an ethics cloud, would deliver the goods about corruption and strong-arm tactics in the Obama White House and Congress. But instead, Massa served up an icky new confession.

"Now they're saying I groped a male staffer," he volunteered. "Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday."

Beck looked aghast. "Was your wife at that one?" the Fox News Channel host asked.

"No, this was in a townhouse; we all lived together, all the bachelors and me," Massa explained. "My chief of staff had a conniption and said, 'You can't live there, that's not congressional.' "

Beck tried to move the conversation in a different direction, but his guest resisted. "Let me show you something," Massa proposed, proffering a book with photos of bawdy Navy rituals from the days when he was a sailor.

"You're going to show me tickle fights?" Beck inquired.
"I'm going to show you a lot more than tickle fights," Massa promised. Beck put on his reading glasses, then judged that the images should not be shown on television. "It looks like an orgy in 'Caligula,' " Massa asserted.

I wish my 50th birthday party had been that much fun. We're supposed to believe that after-hours life on Capital Hill is like one of those 1950's "physique" magazines where oiled up young men in posing straps were photographed innocently rough-housing in elaborately staged settings that usually included such macho staples as sailor hats and lots of rope, cowboy hats, boots and cap guns or Grecian columns and lots of draped faux satin, as if it's an every day occurrence.

If that's true, I'm moving back to DC.

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