There are times in life, and especially in politics, when it helps to step back and take a bemused look at the long view. Just such a moment has arrived for the residents (and I am one) of New York’s 29th congressional district — represented, at least until today, by former Rep. Eric Massa.
Effective as of today, March 9, as the monstrous health care plan crawls toward consummation, our district has no representative in Congress. Google Massa’s congressional web site, and you get a page headed “Current Vacancies.” If you want to see Eric Massa, you can tune in to replays of today’s Glenn Beck Show, where Massa just regaled the TV audience with locker room tales of a nude confrontation with presidential chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and a romper-room birthday tickling fight with a male staffer — text messages, perhaps, to follow? (Credit Glenn Beck, at least he apologized to his audience for Massa’s performance).
Massa, child of a political era in which the only word more important than “is” is “I,” made the obligatory show of taking responsibility, saying “I own this behavior.”
Sorry, Mr. Massa, but you were elected not to serve yourself — but to serve your constituents. Your assessment of Rahm Emanuel – as someone who would tie your kids to the railroad tracks — may be right on target. Your stand against the “healthcare” horror was commendable. But did you have to “own” behavior that made it so easy to eject you from a seat that belongs not to you, but to your district? Not everyone in the 29th District voted for you, but this is a democracy, and once you won that seat, they were all depending on you. There are a lot of decent folks in your former district, working hard to make a living, working harder all the time to pay the sky-high taxes, watching one big-government grab after another, and very worried about where this is all going. There’s quite a mutter going on in the town meetings. Now what?
This Massa guy provides a rare light moment in the looting of our country. How can Rahm ever live down the image of haranguing nude congressmen in some sort of government shower?
Claudia, you ought to count your blessings. I have Senator Angry Clown Franken representing me as well as the liberal race/religion baiter Keith Ellison. I would count myself fortunate indeed if I could instead say that my district was ‘unrepresented’ in congress…
I too am a resident of the currently Representative-less 29th district. Does this mean that if Obama-care passes, I can opt out based on ‘no taxation without representation!!??”
Go Massa!! (no, literally… “GO, Massa.”)
Coming from the reddest of red states, with Congressional Conservative ratings of #1 and #4 assigned to my own Senators, I suppose I should count my blessings.
Comments #2 and #3 were classics. Thanks for laughs guys.
First it was Joseph Smith then the Shakers and now Eric Massa, what is in the water up there?
For all of Massa’s tendencies to spend and grope like the drunken sailor his is, he may have been the last Democratic Rep in Congress who actually REPRESENTED.
The rest seem like robots who do whatever their party overlords command as long as the price is right.
[Y]ou were elected not to serve yourself — but to serve your constituents.
This short statement, more easily read if not understood by our members of the Congress than any piece of legislation passed in recent memory, should be engraved in foot high letters in plain view in each congressional office and in the House and Senate chambers.
It would probably be ignored, but might at least provide a reminder of a concept to which the Honorable Members rarely pay more than lip service.
Massa’s in the col’, col’ ground.
But the “recovering” libertine-arian buffoon, Glenn Beck. jumped the shark!
I am having trouble processing this story. It seems that most men would punch someone who approached them in the shower. Wouldn’t that be the natural response?
Or, if your Churchill:
Clement Attlee was at the urinal in Parliament when Winston Churchill approached, but seeing Atlee, Churchill chose a urinal further away. The former Prime Minister said “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?” to which Churchill responded, “That’s right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it.”
Oops, should be “if you’re Churchill”
We might be neighbors Claudia! The real sad fact–which says more about the tragic state of NYS politics and its knee-jerk leftist ideology than anything else–is that, even after a special election and an almost sure-to-be Republican pick-up in the 29th, this is the district most likely to disappear after redistricting in 2010. So, Green, or Brooks, or Kolb (whoever might be our new rep) will have a short tenure in office…but not as short as Mr. “I’m pantless and ticklish” Eric Massa!
I’m also from NY-29 and glad to see that the “Tickle Monster” is out of office, though I’d would have preferred to have voted him out this fall. And I agree with #4 as well. Well done, Bill and PT.
It’s disappointing to see a US Naval Academy graduate and career Naval Officer be this clueless.
Some Tea Party folks were blasting out emails that we should support this guy as a vote against healthcare. I am happy to say now that I argued with them over it. It is much better to have Massa go and blast the Dems on his way out than to appear to be his allies and get smeared with his dirt when the full story came out.
I agree with Bill #3: Go, Massa, Go.
Far away, never to return.
Well, you could always move to wonderful Maryland, where 90% of the Congressional delegation are knee-jerk Democrats who would never, ever think about doing other than what their leadership commands them to do. My Congressman, John Sarbanes (MD-3) is only marking time till Ben Cardin (MD-D) retires, as that is the seat his father held…and he is in the same seat Cardin held in the House…then of course there’s Babs Mikulski (MD-D) who has never voted against either a tax or entitlement program in her life. Hopefully she will retire as I have heard she is planning to do…
Rich Vail,
Pikesville, MD
Hey, Bill #3. I can loan you (permanently) Maurice Hinchey from NY 22. Go Hinchey!
“There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”
…and a great deal of rue in a nation, too.
Let’s see. Murtha (died before he was indicted), Abercrombie, Wexler, Massa. That is 4. If 431 more quit or die in the next couple of weeks, our lives, liberties, and properties, will be safe.
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In 1866, a judge in New York heard the case of an attorney who was accused of negligence for not reading the most current state statutes before advising a widow on the settlement of her husband’s estate.
“The error arose from want of diligent watchfulness in respect to legislative changes. He did not remember that it might be necessary to look at the statutes of the year before. Perhaps he had forgotten the saying, that ‘no man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.’”
– Gideon J. Tucker, Final Accounting in the Estate of A.B. (1866) [1 Tucker 248 (N. Y. Surr. 1866)]
Great article, but I am tired to read that Dems are called BLUE and Repubs are called RED…A little trip to the library and finger walking thru the World Wide Web, one would find that since the time of Lincoln, the Repubs were considered BLUE and the Dems were considered RED…It continued throughout American history until a certain person by the name of Tim Russert changed it because he did not like any Repubs or Bush for that matter….RED to him denoted EVIL so to him it was befitting to denote the Repubs as RED…So,if we want to go back to basics and bring our country back to where it used to be, lets begin with the symbolic colors of the parties…Remember..Dems were ALWAYS RED..Repubs were ALWAYS BLUE….New York IS A RED STATE…So is California…A little change in perspective can go A LONG WAY!!!!!…Hope this helps out my fellow Americans….
No representative at all is better than what I get – at least your phantom isn’t Jim McDermott (D-Baghdad) in Congress and Patty Murray (D-Institute for Advanced Study) in the Senate. Sheesh.
I’m also a resident of the NY 29th and live in its far northern reaches.
Massa took advantage of support from his old CO, Wesley Clark, Bush/Kuhl fatigue and local progressive activism, to get elected. He didn’t win by much.
I didn’t vote for him and I stand against what he did vote for, the Porkulus Package. Although he voted against the House version of Obamacare, he did that because the public option wasn’t strong enough.
I was at his Victor town hall meeting last August, 2008. 1400 showed up and the auditorium only held 1000 and despite his efforts to smooth talk us, the crowd was overwhelmingly against Obamacare and the public option. Let’s not forget that Massa stated on video, 6 times, that he would vote against the will of his constituents concerning the public option:
http://www.rochesterconservative.com/blog/in-eric-massas-own-words/
Eric Massa was a carpetbagger, who moved to NY to run for the NY 29th seat. He was a progressive representing a conservative district and it was like trying to mix oil and water.
Good riddance Eric Massa! I’m throwing my support behind Corning Mayor Tom Reed, to fill the vacant NY 29th seat.
RV
I have trouble feeling too bad for the people in your district. I have lived in the District of Columbia since 1990, so I haven’t had a congressman or a Senator representing me in 20 years.
I’m throwing my support behind Corning Mayor Tom Reed, to fill the vacant NY 29th seat.
they ruin there nation.This is deal to ruin nation .
Coming from the reddest of red states, with Congressional Conservative ratings of #1 and #4 assigned to my own Senators, I suppose I should count my blessings.