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Posts Tagged ‘Physical Harassment’

All Out Media Assault on Eric Massa as Beck Interview Approaches

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Former Democratic House Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) Is Under All-Out Assault from the Establishment Media Today

As the hours count down until Glenn Beck uses his 3-4 million viewer platform today to amplify now-resigned Democratic House Rep. Eric Massa’s (D-NY) sensational claims that the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress forced him out of Congress over his opposition to Obamacare, the left-leaning establishment media is engaging in all-out effort to completely destroy Eric Massa in the eyes of the public.   A common beneficiary of Obama White House and Congressional Democratic leaks, the Washington Post, has just gone up with a new story alleging that Massa is under investigation for “groping” several male staffers:

Former Rep. Eric Massa has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the probe.

The allegations surrounding the New York Democrat date back at least a year, and involve “a pattern of behavior and physical harassment,” according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

Massa had said that the allegations were limited to his use of “salty language” with his staff. He apologized for making some inappropriate comments and argued he was being unfairly villified. Days later, Massa accused the White House and Democratic congressional leaders of trying to oust him from office to improve their chances of passing health care reform legislation. Massa could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and no one answered the phone at his home in New York or his campaign office. Staff at his former congressional offices declined to relay messages to him and said they did not know how to reach him.

CNN and MSNBC have been keeping up a steady hourly diet of attacks on Eric Massa all day long, at times asserting he is simply crazy, had “snapped” from the pressure, was “silly” or “ridiculous” or was just lying about the Obama Administration and Congressional Democratic leadership just to save his own skin. Considering Massa was fully embraced by such left-leaning media outlets in the recent past, the latest harsh, anonymously-sourced attacks are all the more jarring. The leaks from Democratic sources on the House Ethics Committee or perhaps the White House, published at 2:49PM today, up the ante somewhat as they attempt to paint Massa as a serial sexual harasser of male staffers based on anonymous sources. All told, the mainstream media appears to be reading directly from White House talking points on Massa, as repeated again by the Washington Post in today’s article:

Also on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed Massa’s charges of a conspiracy to force him from office as “silly and ridiculous” in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America. He urged looking at Massa’s erratic and changing statements about why he was resigning office.

“Last week, he, on Wednesday, was having a recurrence of cancer. On Thursday, he was guilty of using salty language. On Friday, we learned he’s before the Ethics Committee to be investigated on charges of sexual harassment,”Gibbs said. “So, look, I think, clearly, his actions appear to be in the appropriate venue in the Ethics Committees to look at, but we’re focused not on crazy allegations but instead on making this system work for the American people rather than work for insurance companies.”

It is unusual for specific details of Congressional ethics investigations to be leaked so widely, especially in seeming direct, immediate response to the member’s public comments, as the leaks to the Washington Post appear to be in response to Massa’s comments yesterday. Regardless, today’s interview on Glenn Beck’s show is certain to drive the news cycle this evening and perhaps into tomorrow as the Obama Administration and Congressional Democratic leadership struggle to find the votes to push Obamacare through Congress before the Easter recess.

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