Eric Massa has enjoyed a brief career as a conservative media hero. Rush Limbaugh devoted an extensive rant to Massa's claim that the allegations of sexual harassment are nothing but a Democratic plot to punish him for opposing health care reform:
He was asked in this appearance: "Well, why don't you rescind your resignation?" He said, "The only way I can do that is if this becomes a national story." So Congressman Massa, we're doing our part here to make it a national story. But he then said, "But you have to understand something, if I don't quit, the ethics investigation continues and they're going to ruin me that way." What would you do if you were him? What would you do, Snerdley, what would you do? They're going to ruin him anyway. He sounds ticked off enough that I would stay. This guy is as fired up as anybody I've ever heard anywhere opposed this, and the process and how they're getting it done. This guy is going to have so much support from people. We'll see. He's got five hours or four hours unless I was missing something here and he's said today that he's going to go ahead and resign and I haven't seen that.
This campaign is starting to look a little dicey. Of course, it was pretty obviously nonsensical from the outset -- as the New York Daily News reported, at the time Massa resigned, his absence did not benefit health care reform. Only the subsequent decision of Nathan Deal (R-GA) to delay his resignation made Massa's departure significant. But now Massa's story looks really dicey:
The House ethics committee has received allegations that former Rep. Eric Massa groped at least three male staffers and conducted himself improperly with interns as well as full-time aides, a source familiar with the matter tells POLITICO.
One incident allegedly occurred when Massa traveled to San Francisco with an aide for a fundraising trip, a second source said.
This seems to be another case of life-imitates-The-Simpsons -- specifically, the episode where incarcerated attempted murderer Sideshow Bob calls into (the obvious paraody of) Limbaugh's program and casts himself as a conservative unfairly railroaded by the liberal justice system. Limbaugh turns him into a martyr. See this video, starting at approximately 4:40 and continuing for about two minutes: