The Unmasking

Last night, I watched the hour-long interview that Glenn Beck held on Tuesday evening with former Congressman Eric Massa. It made me feel like I needed to clarify my previous post on Massa.

After I wrote my last post, I started hearing conservative pundits (who had previously seemed to be defending Massa) suddenly turn tail and go on the attack; for instance, noting that Massa's objection to the healthcare bill was due to the absence of a public option. There was also a clip of Massa (somewhat obnoxiously) declaring that he didn't care what his constituents wanted: he was going to vote the way he pleased.

So, okay, Massa's a pretty liberal guy. He holds some beliefs that would seem to be impossible contradictions (in particular he told Beck that he's in favor of a single-payer system, and that he wants to cover the uninsured without changing the world for everyone else. How can you implement a single-payer system and not change my health-insurance world? You can't.) That doesn't change his allegations that he was ushered out of office on the back of intimidation and overblown "scandal."

Here's my opinion on Massa: I believe every negative thing he has to say about Rahm Emanuel and his tactics; I believe that, while in poor judgment, his behavior at that wedding was exactly what he said it was, because if there were more we would have heard it by now; I believe that his bad luck in this situation is directly related to his opposition to the healthcare bill (whether because it's too liberal or not liberal enough, his reasons for voting "no" are irrelevant in this case); I believe that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership let him twist in the wind because he's not valuable to them right now; and I believe that he is an awful coward.

He's a coward for resigning his office; he's a coward for bleating about corruption and yet refusing to name names. His answer on this subject to Beck was: "We need campaign finance reform, or else nothing's going to change." This prompted Beck to apologize to his viewing audience for wasting their time; Beck felt that Massa had nothing new to say and Massa's evasion on Beck's request for Massa to put a face on his charges of corruption made Beck frustrated and annoyed.

I, however, do not feel in the slightest that my time was wasted. This interview cleared everything up for me: Massa will never be a hero because he doesn't have the courage and the strength of his convictions, and yet part of the mask has been torn off the White House and the rest of the progressive political machine.

Too bad no one's paying attention.