The "Eric Massa saga [is] just heating up," promises the headline for Jonathan Allen's April 19 Politico story about the latest development in the swift demise of the tickle-happy freshman Democrat:

For nearly a year, the allegations of scandalous activity in former Rep. Eric Massa’s office were kept quiet — by the congressman, by male aides who accuse him of sexually harassing them and by other congressional staff.

But with two aides coming forward last week to announce that they had filed harassment claims against the New York Democrat, charges and countercharges are exploding into full public view, ensuring that the Massa saga will not simply go away.

Instead, it will raise old questions about whether Congress is able to effectively police its own members and staff, and the degree to which staff members are responsible for — or even capable of — reining in lawmakers who are accused of abusing their power.

Of course, while I've no doubt that more sordid details of the scandal will drip out into the public consciousness between now and Election Day, I'm not anticipating that the mainstream media, at least the broadcast networks, are that interested in making hay of this matter, which doubtless may reflect poorly on the Democratic Party's management of the House of Representatives.

After all, as we have noted previously, there's a marked difference in how the initial coverage of Massa allegations differ from the media's drumbeat of the Mark Foley scandal. As NewsBusters editor-at-large Brent Baker noted in a March 5 blog post:

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Friday moderated a group of mostly liberal voices to sympathize with Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy and, at times, former Representative Eric Massa. Speaking of the politician who spent the week talking about naked showers arguments and tickle fights, Stephanopoulos fretted, "Too much time on Eric Massa?"

The former Democratic operative turned journalist's liberal guests included DailyBeast.com editor Tina Brown and former Playboy CEO Christie Hefner. (Republican strategist Kevin Madden was the lone conservative.)

Speaking of Massa's now infamous Glenn Beck interview, Hefner tried to highlight the positive: "...I actually thought the most thoughtful thing that Massa said on the Glenn Beck show, was in response to the question of, what would you fix? And he started talking about campaign finance reform."

Despite what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in an interview last night – "I know you`re nonpartisan" – Maddow very predictably helped Pelosi dismiss any responsibility for the Speaker in the Eric Massa ethics investigation. [Audio available here.]

Maddow didn’t act like a skeptical Tim Russert, asking if Pelosi sounds exactly the opposite of her remarks in 2006, assuming Speaker Dennis Hastert cravenly overlooked the allegations of Mark Foley's sexual misconduct. Instead, she embraced Pelosi’s line that Republican focus on Massa was "trying to distract from the endgame on health reform." Maddow declared her nostrils had found it:

You can almost smell how excited Republicans were to try to make this an anti-Democratic leadership issue today. They were very excited about that prospect for some number of minutes this afternoon. And for some of those minutes, I was actually inside the U.S. Capitol and I swear you could smell it in there.

Appearing as a guest on Thursday’s Joy Behar Show on CNN Headline News, filmmaker Michael Moore continued his recent attacks on Democrats for not delivering more effectively on a left-wing agenda, called out gay Republicans for "hypocrisy," and seemed to suggest that President Bush fooled many Americans because "we have created a society of ignorant and illiterate people."

Host Behar started the interview by asking Moore his views on former Democratic Congressman Eric Massa, who recently resigned amid charges that he sexually harassed male aides. Moore used the opportunity to bash gay Republicans as he praised the film Outrage which seeks to expose Republicans rumored to be gay. Moore:

Compliments sometimes come from strange places, but you'll take them where you can get them, no?

It seems that Fox News' March 10 "Glenn Beck" program, in which host Glenn Beck interviewed former Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., captured the attention of both the left and the right. And it may have even put to rest some of the misconceptions about Beck, which are mostly generated by outfits that operate with just out-of-context sound bites.

"Let me tell you something," "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough said on his March 11 program. "[Beck] was not on his heels. He just - he played straight-man and Donny Deutsch, he was - he did it very, very well.