It's so tiresome. The lazy, false equivalencies of "balance" between Democrats and Republicans in the lamestream media. For example, listen to Kelly O'Donnell liken the Eric Massa scandal to the way the Republicans handled the Mark Foley scandal.

The similarities really are very comparable. And it makes people say is this just political sort of shoe on the other foot scenario. Well, some people would argue it both ways, but when I’ve talked to both Democrats and Republicans about this, especially in a current environment, where ethics is a big issue, they felt compelled to at least ask the question: Should the ethics committee take a look at how it was handled? Now Speaker Pelosi insists that all the proper steps were taken, once a report of something that crossed the line into sexual harrassment was made known. It went immediately to the Ethics Committee. But we did learn there were some warning signals that happened months ago when some members of the congressman’s staff at that time raised concerns. That was back in October and the Speaker says she did not know anything about it then…

Sounds damning, doesn't it? But just like everything in the "librul" media, it's straight out of right wing talking points.

First and foremost, understand that this renewed call for the Ethics Committee by the Republicans isn't about Massa and what he did or didn't do. He has resigned. What is the Ethics Committee supposed to do? This is about the Republicans trying to trip up Nancy Pelosi and put her on the defensive as she whips forward a health care reform vote. This is all about what Nancy Pelosi knew and when. And there's no comparison between how Nancy Pelosi acted and how Dennis Hastert acted during the Mark Foley scandal. As our friends at ThinkProgress document, Foley's inappropriate behavior towards pages was known as early as 2000, but nothing was done nor did Hastert call for an Ethics Committee investigation until ABC went public with their news report, some six (or more) months after Hastert was made aware of the situation.

Hey, Kelly, you know what the main similarity between Foley and Massa are? Both times, the Ethics committee investigation was called for by the Democrats in office.

Interestingly, nobody in the media seems interested in the fact that although sex-scandal ridden Democrats Eliot Spitzer and Eric Massa left their positions in the light of their own bad behavior, John Ensign and David Vitter did not. I guess it's okay to have a sex scandal if you're a Republican, right, Kelly?