Politico.com by Glenn Thrush  3-8-10

Whatever he has done or not done, I will miss Eric Massa, for no other reason than his gift with a phrase.

In an amazing, far-ranging interview/monologue with a Rochester-area radio station, Massa admits making an off-color, sexual comment to a young staffer -- but still claims Democratic leadership ratted him out to kill a health care "no" vote.

That brought him to the subject of Rahm Emanuel and arm-twisting:

"Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn," Massa said, according to City Hall. "He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive."

Later in the interview, Massa -- who sits down with Glenn Beck for a one-hour interview on Tuesday -- tells a bizarre story about Emanuel accosting him in the House gym -- in the buff:

"Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel," Massa started. "I was a congressman in my first eight weeks, and I was in the congressional gym, and I went down and I worked out and I went into the showers...I'm sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn't going to vote for the president's budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?"

Massa has never enjoyed a particualrly close relationship with Emanuel, who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when Massa first ran for unsuccessfully, without much DCCC support, in 2006.

Massa's near defeat of incumbent Randy Kuhl that year -- he lost by 6,033 votes -- attracted the attention of Emanuel's successor Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who helped Massa defeat Kuhl in a nail-biting rematch in '08.

The relationship between Massa and House leadership has been in the dumps for months, and only got worse after he bucked leadership on the health reform vote last fall -- earning him the enmity of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her ally Emanuel.

Few tears have been shed over Massa's departure on the Hill. Other member descibe him as volatile, argumentative and the antithesis of the a team player.