Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Massa

As has often been the case, when I leave home for a week or so the news on returning is pretty much the same as it was when I left. That would describe last week were it not for the exploits of Eric Massa which made me feel nostalgic over the good old pre 9/11 days when Gary Condit was the talk of the town. I find it interesting that this sort of stuff is considered news when the elected official involved is of relatively minor status. There are 50 governors, 100 senators and 435 congressmen. To expect all 585 of them to set some sort of standard for responsible deportment is silly. Look at who elected them. 


Performance in office is another matter. We can excuse South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s dalliance with Tangerine easier than we can his, or any governor’s disappearing for a few days. I’m not advocating adultery by acknowledging that some of the people whom I most admire are known to have indulged in it. I’ve become educated to the point of feeling that the same standard should apply to homosexuals. To quote the song title, “ ‘tain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it.” 


For Eric Massa to claim that this was all a plot against him by Democrats for his suspected opposition to their health care plan is the antithesis of classy. The same goes for the attempt by prominent Republicans to make hay out of his claim.  My subjective Democratic impression is that Republicans are more inclined towards this sort of thing. It also seems that their culprits, such as Sanford, David Vitter and John Ensign manage to hold onto positions while Democrats, Elliot Spitzer, Charles Rangel and John Massa resign.


The preceding slight effort is just a pretext for setting up the closing line which seems so obvious that somebody in this big country must have said it, but not to my knowledge. Politically speaking Massa’s in the cold, cold ground.

No comments:

Post a Comment