CURL: Massa defends himself on Beck

Embattled former Rep. Eric Massa sat down for his much-anticipated Fox News interview Tuesday night and deployed the tickle defense.

No. Really.

Asked by Glenn Beck whether he had inappropriate sexual contact with any staff members, the New York Democrat said, “No - no, no, no.”

But asked minutes later about a new report that said he has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, the 24-year Navy veteran scoffed.

“Now they’re saying I groped a male staffer. Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe. And then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday. It was ‘Kill the old guy.’ This was in a town house. We all lived together, all the bachelors and me,” said the married father of two.

At Minute 50, a frustrated Mr. Beck asked a question that many of his viewers were likely wondering: “Is there another shoe that’s going to drop?”

Mr. Massa fell back into defensive mode. “People will say anything at this point.”

Mr. Beck homed in. “Are there Tiger Woods phone calls that are going to happen, or text messages?”

In the show’s most newsworthy moment, Mr. Massa said frankly of his interactions with staff members: “I’m sure there are text messages because we bantered back and forth all the time.”

Text messages!

Already, at least four shoes have dropped: On Wednesday, Mr. Massa said he was leaving office because of a recurrence of cancer; the next day, he said he was guilty of using “salty language”; by Friday, he acknowledged that the House ethics committee was investigating him on charges of sexual harassment; and on Sunday, he said the Democrats were out to get him.

Fox had promoted the show as “the big get” - a sit-down with Mr. Massa, fresh off a diatribe in which he charged that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other nefarious Democratic leaders had pressured him, even drubbed him out of office, because he was a “no” vote on the president’s health care reform bill.

“It’s going to be a wild and interesting hour,” Mr. Beck declared at the show’s beginning.

It was neither. Some 48 minutes into the show, even the host looked bored by the whole exercise. “I’m just hearing generalities. … I’m a little frustrated now.”

The entire episode was bizarre from the beginning. Mr. Massa, without a tie (now that he’s a former congressman), seemed prepared to run out the clock, even though the Democrat claimed he had come to the lion’s den because “I want the toughest, most unforgiving interview possible.”

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