I must say how very, very sorry I am to see Alan Grayson leaving Congress. He’s a true progressive hero and I do hope we’ll still be seeing a lot of him in the future. Judging from the sentiments he offered The New York Times in this fiery “exit interview.” I don’t suspect Grayson’s planning to go quietly. Let’s hope not, this country needs more—many more—like him. It’s inspiring to read such clear-headed thoughts coming from a Democrat:

During the long conversation, Mr. Grayson, a 52-year-old father of five, faulted Democrats for failing to deliver for some of their most potent constituencies, among them labor unions and antiwar voters.

“What did the environmentalists see over the last two years?” he asked. “A proposed monumental increase in subsidies for nuclear power industry and offshore drilling.”

As for gay voters, he said: “What they got to see was a judge order that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ no longer be enforced and a Democratic president appeal that decision. That is what that constituency saw before Nov. 2.” (The law was repealed in the final hours of the 111th Congress.)

By Election Day, Democratic voters in many districts felt that they had no real choice, Mr. Grayson said.

“If you want people to support you, then you have to support them,” he said. “You have to think long about what you did for people who voted for you, made phone calls for you, who went door to door for you.”

Mr. Grayson, of course, finds much to like within the Democratic Party. He offered a glowing assessment of the departing speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California, giving her an A “without reservation.”

And he considers the political right to be intolerable. He called the Republicans “a hopeless sellout party that will never do anything constructive for ordinary people in this country.”

“I don’t have to speculate about it anymore,” he said. “I worked with them for two years.”

If the execs at CNN have a brain cell amongst them, they will sign Grayson up for his own talk show before MSNBC does!