If you want some straight talk in these days of the Democratic Leadership Council’s calls to retreat to a monastery or move to the center, check out Howard Dean’s feisty comments about his vision for the Democratic Party and what he thinks went down in this election.

In a speech to students at Northwestern University last week, Dean fired back at the Right; he called Reverend Jerry Falwell a hate-monger, and described Justice Antonin Scalia as “sarcastic and mean-spirited.” And in a jab at the conservative Club for Growth’s ad attacks on him as a “latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, body-piercing, left-wing freak show” who should head back to Vermont, Dean explained, “I don’t drink coffee. I have three cars–all of them are American. ” “No part of me is pierced that I’m willing to discuss publicly,” he added. “And if you want to see a freak show, go look at the people who wrote that ad…”

Dean ended by calling on the students to run for office. In a playful twist on his now infamous “Dean Scream,” he shouted, “You need to run for office–not just in Illinois and Ohio and South Carolina! You need to run for office in Mississippi, and Alabama, and Idaho and Texas and…”