Let me put it this way: below (in no particular order) is my Top Ten List of Democratic Members of the 111th Congress Whose Presence There Personally Offends My Sense of Civics.
David Obey
Jack Murtha
Alan Mollohan
Eric Massa
Charlie Rangel
Russ Carnahan
Carol Shea-Porter
Alan Grayson
Jim Moran
Patrick Kennedy
It’s going great. Thanks for asking!
Moe Lane
Heh. I’ve been referring to Congress as being barons and petty-nobility – very, very, very petty nobility – for some time; but it’s nice that other people have noticed. Eleanor Clift (via Instapundit):
It took just three weeks for upstate New York Democratic Rep. Eric Massa to resign his seat in Congress after accusations surfaced that he had sexually harassed members of his staff. The long trail of unwanted and often abusive advances that preceded his resignation—and why his alleged behavior went unreported for so long—highlights how much Capitol Hill is a feudal society, with each member the lord of his or her own territory.
The kicker is, it’s not even a proper feudal society. A proper feudal society would have seen Speaker Pelosi’s office burned down by her own vassals for her willful sparking of a peasant revolt in said vassals’ fiefdoms. Feudal societies were rambunctious affairs; the average French or English baron would have sneered at the milksops that blindly and meekly followed the Democratic party leadership’s charge over a cliff.
And let’s not get started on the Germans.
Moe Lane
PS: regarding the specifics, somebody should tell these people that the droit du seigneur – the sexual ‘rights’ of a feudal lord over his vassals – DIDN’T ACTUALLY EXIST. Ah, the Democratic party: not only do they not learn from history, many of them didn’t actually take it in the first place…
Crossposted to RedState.
He was the guy that the Democrats put into FL-16 to replace Mark Foley over an inappropriate email scandal… and then Tim Mahoney was the guy that tried to pay off his mistress with campaign money, got then-DCCC Chair and current WH CoS Rahm Emanuel to cover it up in 2007… and who then couldn’t quite make it to Election Day 2008 without anybody noticing. So Madam Speaker threw Mahoney to the wolves, and the media let her. So… sex scandal, leadership finds out, internal cover-up, public revelations, quick abandonment of the now-radioactive Congressman.
Why, yes, that does sound familiar, doesn’t it?
Moe Lane
Full disclosure: I regret Eric Massa’s resignation solely because I was looking forward to seeing his concession speech on Election Night, seeing as he’s an opportunistic progressive sycophant who last year spouted off bizarre nonsense about ‘treason’ to other progressives equally ignorant of the Constitution. Michelle Malkin has two posts nicely summarizing precisely why embracing this guy is a poor life choice for conservatives; my only change is that I prefer the term ‘suckweasel.’ Less likely to get caught by web-blocker software.
All that being said, this sounds like an allegation:
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.”
Somebody is lying, here. Either Massa, or Hoyer: and if it’s Hoyer, it doesn’t matter whether Massa was or was not sexually harassing his staff. The House Majority Leader does not get to abuse the public trust by lying about what he did in a particular investigation. It’s not so much this specific case as it is what happens in less public ones. There’s a word for having two standards of behavior, based on how much media coverage one is expecting: it’s called ‘hypocrisy.’
Fortunately, this is easy to check: all Steny Hoyer has to do is release the documentation showing that he followed House procedures with regard to ethics investigations. Presumably, that includes the kind of notification that he claims and Massa denies, and will stop this potentially disquieting development cold. In fact, I’m kind of surprised that it’s not available yet; which is something that can be fixed, later…
By the way: did you know that Hoyer has a GOP challenger this year? Charles Lollar. We’ve talked: good guy, solid fiscal conservative, and if I lived just a little bit east of where I live now I’d be voting for him in both the primary and the general election.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
You know Eric Massa: he’s the progressive Congressman from NY-29 who doesn’t know what ‘treason’ is. Remember this?
Yeah, they just ate that up with a spoon at the Netroots Nation thing. And now Massa’s retiring, officially for health reasons; but amid… allegations. Which is interesting; because the first, logical assumption that such allegations involved “show us on the doll where the Congressman touched you, son” may be a bit off of the mark. It may be more along the lines of the Congressman attacking a subordinate’s sexual orientation in a manner reminiscent of anti-gay bigots, virulent homophobes, and/or the new Chair of the House Ways & Means committee. At least, that’s how I’m reacting to his admission of ‘salty language‘…
But all of that pales before the real question: when is Massa giving back Rangel’s dirty money? I won’t bother asking why he took it in the first place, as I already know the answer. Besides, as of 3:30 PM EST the man’s irrelevant anyway.
Well. More irrelevant.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
