The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

My conservative reader sends another Massa booking: Massa's going on Larry King Live tomorrow.

A conservative reader sends this National Review item, which contains a Glenn Beck tweet about Massa's appearance on his show tomorrow.

Courtesy of Michael Parks.

Proving that he's a better man than me, Evan Dawson goes through the major claims in Eric Massa's radio rant. Evan also tells me that Glenn Beck's program is all about Massa today.

There's a progressive group who call themselves "firebaggers", which is a combination of FireDogLake, the blog where the movement originated, and "teabagger". This group opposes passage of the healthcare reform bill because it doesn't include provisions like single-payer. By the FireDogLake definition, Massa is a "firebagger". The rhetoric used by firebaggers and teabaggers on healthcare reform is remarkably similar, even though they oppose the bill for completely different reasons.

Also, the link for Massa's rant is now, unsurprisingly, dead. Of course, I saved a copy of the file. I've transcoded it (i.e., made it smaller and easier to download), and here it is (22MB MP3)

Commenter Up in Prattsburgh points to this story in the Hornell Evening Tribune, where Hornell Mayor Shawn Hogan says he won't run for the 29th seat.

An anonymous commenter points out the audio of Eric Massa's radio WKPQ program. Massa does four things in the program.

1. He describes the behavior that he thinks led to the ethics investigation.

Massa says that he was at a wedding over New Year's Eve. His wife had gone to bed, ill, and he was hanging out with the bachelors of his staff. He had danced with the bride and a bridesmaid. After he was done dancing, his staff made a few comments about what he ought to do with the bridesmaid. Massa tousled the hair of one of his staff members and said, "Maybe I ought to fuck you." Massa says he then went to bed at the hotel where the reception was held.

Massa thinks that another staff member facilitated this staff member's complaint of Massa's inappropriate behavior.

2. He identifies a real ethics issue that he thinks was the subject of another investigation.

He says that one of his staffers had sent out a fundraising letter that shouldn't have been sent out. He said he heard of an investigation around Feb 9, and believes that the investigation was due to that letter.

3. He accuses House leadership of getting rid of him.

He notes that even though Steny Hoyer says he contacted his office, he's never talked to the man in his life. He accuses House leadership of masterminding an ethics investigation to get rid of him so the healthcare reform bill will pass.

4. He launches into an impassioned denial of the accusations made by Bob Lonsberry's anonymous sources concerning alleged harassing homosexual behavior committed by Massa during his Navy service.

Massa tells a couple of Navy stories that aren't related to Lonsberry's accusations. He accuses Lonsberry of being ignorant of the fact that it is a setup.

Massa references a couple of stories during this discussion. One was by Laurie Kellman of the AP, this might be it. The other is from Roll Call, and it points out that Massa's resignation makes it more likely that the HCR bill will pass.

Massa then goes off on a long discussion, noting that he has gay staff members. He says he won't be ashamed of his actions, other than inappropriate verbal language.

"If you don't believe they came after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the healthcare bill, then you live in a world that is so innocent that you don't understand what's going on in Washington, DC."

The audio drops out a bit, but it sounds like Massa waved around a CAT scan that shows some tissue that can either be a tumor or scar tissue.

He says "a pox on both parties", and that if he ever runs again, it will be as an Independent.

Saying this is a must-listen is the understatement of four years following Massa.

Sean Carroll has a good run-down of the Democrats and Republicans who could run for the 29th seat. Sean covered the Southern Tier before moving to WHAM, so he knows the players in both regions.

Commenter Up in Prattsburgh, and conservative blogger Lucy at Mustard Street ask the same question: was Massa outed by his party as payback for his independence?

Today's Joe Dunning column reports that Massa was called on the carpet by President Obama at least three times, which also might lead you to think that there might be some truth to this speculation.

I think the chances of the leadership doing it are pretty low. Every observer of this district believes that this race is now the Republicans to lose. And if we know one thing about Republican behavior in the House, they invariably vote against anything the Democrats want to pass.

So, having Massa in Congress was no treat for Speaker Pelosi and President Obama, but it was far better for them than having Randy Kuhl in the seat. Politicians don't get to be President or Speaker without an exquisite sense of which side of their bread is buttered. Massa was on the butter side for both of them.

Corning Leader Editor Joe Dunning writes about Eric Massa today [pdf] in his Sunday column. (here's the jump [pdf]). It's his usual perceptive take, and well worth a read. Thanks as always to Reader Elmer for keeping us informed.

Sean Carroll has posted a telephone interview with Randy Kuhl. Randy's clearly itching to run, but what's interesting about the piece is how Sean trips Randy up.

Randy touts an online poll in the Hornell Evening Tribune that had a pretty good result for him. Unfortunately, he doesn't know that Sean has an email of Randy telling his supporters to go to the site and vote. Randy finally sorta confesses.

Randy brings up the poll at about 7:45, and the whole thing swirls around the toilet after that.

If you're really up for some punishment, listen to the whole call, because the first thing out of Randy's mouth is that he's shredding documents. It's innocent (he's shredding old law office files), but perhaps not the best way to describe his current activities.