Imus Did Not Tickle Howard Kurtz This Morning. But He Probably Wanted To.

Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post’s media critic, is having a great week, he said, because “Washington has turned into a giant tickle party,” thanks to former Congressman Eric Massa, who seems to be having a nervous breakdown.

Appearing on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show last night, Massa, who left office last week and has since accused members of Obama’s administration of forcing him out, disputed claims of sexual harassment made by three male staffers by saying all he did was tickle them.

“That was the weirdest hour of television I think since Tiny Tim got married on the Tonight Show,” Kurtz said. Also of note: for the first time on “Glenn Beck,” the strangest person was not Beck himself, who, at the conclusion of the interview, apologized for wasting America’s time.

“He has been all over the map,” Kurtz said of Massa, who announced last week he was retiring because of a cancer recurrence. “Then suddenly we hear there’s a House Ethics Committee investigation, and instead of retiring, he’s going to quit the next day.”

Soon, Massa changed his tune yet again, claming that Democrats in Congress pushed him out because he was going to vote against their health care bill. He further described what Kurtz called “the best shower scene since Albert Hitchcock made ‘Psycho,’” where a naked Rahm Emanuel jabbed his finger in  Massa’s chest in the showers at the House gym, threatening him to vote in favor of health care..

“I like Rahm because he sent a dead fish to a guy,” Imus observed, adding that the White House Chief-of-Staff is merely “doing what he’s supposed to do.”

Another guy who acted similarly tough while in the White House is Karl Rove, a former advisor to President George W. Bush, who reveals much about his personal life in his new book, “Courage and Consequence.”

“He talks about his mother’s suicide, he talks about learning as a teenager that he was adopted,” said Kurtz, allowing that Rove also uses the book to defend Bush, the Iraq War, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But, he added, “You can see him as a fully rounded human being…I don’t think Rove has ever let the public see that side of him.”

Since Kurtz, who also hosts the CNN show “Reliable Sources,” is a media fiend, Imus asked his opinion on Jay Leno’s triumphant return to the Tonight Show.

“People don’t sit around in front of the TV at night and say, ‘Maybe I won’t watch this guy because of something that happened six months ago,’” he said of Leno’s high ratings in the wake of the Conan O’Brien mess. “They just want to be entertained.”

Which still does not explain Leno’s success.

-Julie Kanfer