“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill, and this administration and this House leadership have said,’they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots,” Massa said. “I was set up for this from the very, very beginning.”

He also specifically went after White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a favorite target for liberals these days.

“Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn… He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote,” Massa said.

Update: During the interview, Massa also gave his side of the story of the harassment allegations against him. The way he tells it, it sounds pretty innocent. Of course, that’s the way he tells it. The fact that a complaint was made and that he ended up resigning from Congress because of it would suggest that maybe something more was going on — we’ll have to wait for more facts to come out.

But, via Roll Call, here’s some of Massa’s story:

“On New Year’s Eve, I went to a staff party. It was actually a wedding for a staff member of mine; there were over 250 people there. I was with my wife. And in fact we had a great time. She got the stomach flu,” he said.

Massa explained that he then danced first with the bride, who was not identified, and then with a bridesmaid. He said multiple cameras recorded the incident.

“I said goodnight to the bridesmaid,” Massa continued. “I sat down at the table where my whole staff was, all of them by the way bachelors.”

“One of them looked at me and as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics, and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne, a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid and his points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that,” Massa said. “And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, ‘Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.’ And then [I] tossled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where it wasn’t right for me to be there. Now was that inappropriate of me? Absolutely. Am I guilty? Yes.”

The really big news out of Massa’s resignation, though, may be about healthcare reform. His leaving the House means that Speaker Nancy Pelosi only needs to round up 216 votes, not 217, in order to get it passed.

Update: Massa’s written an open letter about his resignation that’s now up on his Congressional Web site. It gives the harassment allegation as the reason for his decision to step down, though he still says that his health was the reason he decided not to run again.

The full letter:

Two days ago as I sat reading my new annual CAT scan, having been told that the anomalies in the films may or may not be scar tissue, I decided to finally take the advice that my doctors have repeatedly given me, and that is to take care of my family and myself before my profession. After I decided not to run again I was told, for the first time, that a member of my staff believed I had made statements that made him feel “uncomfortable.” I was told that a report had been filed with the Congressional Ethics Committee. At no point prior to this had any member of the Ethics Committee communicated with me directly – if fact I first read it on the internet.

I own this reality. There is no doubt in my mind that I did in fact, use language in the privacy of my own home and in my inner office that, after 24 years in the Navy, might make a Chief Petty Officer feel uncomfortable. In fact, there is no doubt that this Ethics issue is my fault and mine alone. But in the incredibly toxic atmosphere that is Washington D.C., with the destruction of our elected leaders having become a blood sport, especially in talk radio and on the internet, there is also no doubt that an Ethics investigation would tear my family and my staff apart. Some would say that this is what happens when you stand apart from political parties, which I have done. Others will say that this is what happens to a non politician when they go to Washington DC. I want to make something perfectly clear. My difficulties are of my own making. Period. I am also aware that blogs and radio will have a field day with this in today’s destructive and unforgiving political environment. In that investigators would be free to ask anything about me going back to my birth, I simply cannot rise to that level of perfection. God knows that I am a deeply flawed and imperfect person.

During long car rides, in the early hours of the evening, late at night and always in private, I know that my own language failed to meet the standards that I set for all around me and myself. I fell short and I believe now, as I have always believed, that it is not enough to simply talk the talk, but rather I must take action to hold myself accountable.

Therefore, effective at 5 PM on Monday the 8th of March I will resign my position as the Federal Representative of New York’s 29th Congressional District in the 111th Congress. I do so with a profound sense of failure and a deep apology to all those whom, for the past year, I tried to represent as our Nation struggles with problems far greater than anyone can possibly imagine. I hope that my family, constituents, and fellow Members of Congress can accept this apology as being both genuine and heartfelt and I wish for them and all Americans only the best. I will take all actions possible to ensure that my personal health is secured in that I know that mine is a far more fragile lifeline than most. For the millions of fellow cancer survivors with whom I share this experience, they, more than anyone else, will understand the honesty and openness in this statement.

I ask that members of the press respect the privacy of my family, my staff, and me at this time.

The retirement would seem to give Republicans, who’d been targeting the seat anyway, a good opportunity for a pickup. The district leans to the GOP, and Massa won a close race in 2008, beating incumbent Republican Randy Kuhl by just 5,000 votes. Two years before that, Kuhl beaten Massa by 6,000 votes.

Massa was a “no” vote on healthcare reform when the House passed its bill last fall. Normally, his retirement would mean that House Democratic leaders — who badly need every vote they can round up — would start pressing him hard to come around, given that he now presumably has no political concerns about backing the bill. There’s a key difference this time, though: He’s one of those “no” votes that came from the left. That will make any such arm-twisting difficult, if not impossible.

Update: Here’s a twist to the story, and some potential insight into Massa’s decision. Politico reports that “the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer.”

Massa, however, told Politico, “When someone makes a decision to leave Congress, everybody says everything. I have health issues. I’ll talk about it [later].”

Update 2: On that conference call with reporters, during which he did not take any questions, Massa reiterated that he was retiring for health reasons, not due to harassment allegations. He was hospitalized in December, and told reporters his doctors said he couldn’t maintain his current lifestyle.

“I do not have the life’s energy to fight all the battles all the time. I will now enter the final phase of my life at a more controlled pace,” Massa said. “I’m a very salty guy, a very direct guy and I run at about 100 miles an hour.”

Addressing the reports about sexual harassment of a male staffer, he said they’re “unsubstantiated without fact or backing … a symptom of what’s wrong with this city.” He also said, “Do I or have I ever used salty language especially when I’m angry, in the privacy of my inner office or at home? Yes I have and I’ve apologized where it’s appropriate.”