As the Eric Massa story has unfolded over the past few days, I have been mulling our active complicity in his election.
Any number of diaries in support of the former Naval Officer can be found in the archives. One hundred and nineteen written by Massa, himself. I made my first donation to his campaign on the report by our Beloved Leader that he was the real deal.
How flattering! How beguiling! How impressive! He actually wrote directly to us, and stayed around to engage!!
As one of those who is strongly critical of the sheeple who continue to send the least qualified Republicans to Washington, I have to ask myself if we are doing a better job in the netroots of winnowing our candidates before handing over enough money to make a difference in these races.
Our supercilious distain for the supports of George Bush, and James Inhof needs re-examination.
Joshua Green at The Atlantic has been waving a red flag for several years. He reported on MSNBC, today, that he first heard stories about Massa before his first election. Why he chose to not go public has not been addressed, but clearly the behavior of Congressman Massa had a long and checkered history that was not made known to the voters for reasons unspecified. The press knew. His former shipmates knew. Those who worked around and with him for the past 3 decades all knew.
Would it have been impossible to find out about these quirky behaviors before he was sent to Congress as a Democrat?
Was it his long military career? Was it a refusal by those who served under his command to bring formal charges? Why did the New York Democratic Party not look into these allegations (all, apparently, rumbling around for a very long time) before throwing their support to this candidate?
We got hoodwinked. All of us. I don't know if this was a well played gambit by the MIC, which has backfired. I don't know if we are as gullible are those poor misbegotten Republican sheeple, or if we, as well as they, are just not paying enough attention.
Increasingly this episode makes me think that we are as easily manipulated as the Sarah Palan followers, believing what we are told until the bomb goes off. I guess the only thing that can be said in our favor is that we didn't wait around quite so long to abandon this particular ship.