The Eric Massa 'groping' bombshell

The scandal enveloping former congressman Eric Massa grew more unseemly even after the New York Democrat resigned this week, as news leaked that at least two male aides had accused Massa of groping them. Massa says he merely had tickle fights with some housemates who happened to work for him, although previously he said ethics complaints against him were over "salty" language. Massa maintains that his party's leadership orchestrated a campaign to get rid of him over his opposition to the health-care reform bill. Is Massa the victim here, or, after the latest revelations, has he lost all credibility?

Only rabid right-wingers believe Massa now: It's obvious that Eric Massa's "wild accusations" of a Democratic conspiracy are completely phony, says Jed Lewison in Daily Kos. He has no credibility -- except to right-wing kooks don't care about the facts, and think the only reason Congress would ever investigate someone for sexual harassment "is to apply political pressure."

"Strange bedfellows"

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Just because Massa is nuts doesn't mean Democrats aren't out to get him: The right doesn't deny that Eric Massa is, as Rush Limbaugh put it, a "legitimate kook," says Allahpundit in Hot Air. But the Democrats clearly leaked these "new groping claims" for political reasons. If Massa had been an obedient Democrat and voted for ObamaCare, Democrats would be crying "homophobia" at the very mention of Massa's personal predicament.

"Massa chats with Glenn Beck"

Massa's through. Now nobody believes him: As Tuesday began, Eric Massa was still grasping for political survival, says Joe Gandelman in The Moderate Voice. But "by the end of the day," thanks to the fresh allegations and Massa's ever twisting explanations, the poor man had "vaporized bridges with his own party, angered the White House," and managed to burn conservatives who were tempted to embrace him as a "persecuted" victim of allegedly thuggish Democrats. Now he has nowhere to go but home.

"The free falling fortunes of Eric Massa"

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• Eric Massa vs. the Democrats