As you can see in the video above, it turns out that Eric Massa, the right-wing media's newest darling, hasn't exactly managed to tell a consistent story on health care reform. In just a few months, he's gone from supporting single-payer even if opinion were 80-20 against it to saying he opposes reform because Democrats haven't done enough to forge popular consensus.
Yesterday, he said he was being forced out of Congress because he opposed efforts to "ram this [health care reform] down the throats of the American people" when "the entire nation has said let's rewrite the health care bill. Let's find what we can agree on."
But last August, speaking at Netroots Nation, Massa said on health care legislation, members of Congress should vote for reforms like single-payer even if they are deeply unpopular -- as long as they believe those reforms will be good for their constituents. "Sometimes members of Congress must vote against popular opinion because they know what is in the interest of their districts and the country," he said. "I will vote against their [his constituents] opinion if I actually believe it will help them."
So even though Massa now says he is the target of a conspiracy because he believes we need to "rewrite the health care bill" to find a popular consensus, just a few months ago, he said he would vote for a single-payer system even if 80% of the public was against it. Now that's change Fox can believe in.
© Jed Lewison