Joe Klein went out to Ohio to check out the Hackett-Brown Democrat primary. Joe was not impressed with liberal darling, Iraq-veteran and fire-breater Mark Hackett.

At the wings joint, he approached a small crowd of potential supporters with a combative abrasiveness that made Howard Dean seem like Mister Rogers. "I'm a strong Democrat from the great state of Ohio and damned proud of it," he thundered. "What does the Democratic Party stand for? Limited government. Strong national defense. Fair trade. Fiscal responsibility." Limited government? That was the fun part: "I don't want to send someone to Washington to invade my private life, control what goes on in my kid's school, get involved in the decisions made by my wife and her physician or to find out how many guns there are in Hackett's gun safe." He paused, looking for a reaction from any wussified, gun-hating Dems in the crowd. Finding none, he seemed lost. He didn't rise to his preferred state of indignation until the question period, when he was asked about Iraq. "The war is over. Bring 'em home. The war on terrorism is a war of ideas. We have a saying in the Marines: It's easy to be hard and hard to be smart."

Hackett appears to prefer hard to smart.

Klein gets in a gratituous dig at bloggers too.

In the end, Hackett seemed something new under the sun: a blogger candidate—all attitude, all opinions, very little information.

Of course, Klein thinks Daily Kos is the sum total of the blogosphere experience, which explains his broad-brushing.

It seems to me at this early date that everyone wants to be Howard Dean this year, except with more screaming. Does anyone over in the Crat trenches realize that Dean lost in 2004? There seems to be blinkered focus on the process of the Dean campaign with very little attention to the outcomes. Republicans loved Dean--prayed that he would win the nomination. On the other hand, cooler heads among the left were finding God in extremis as Dean headed into Iowa.

I also think we are going to see more equivocation than ever before. A "strong national defense" will mean high-tailing it out of Iraq and Afghanistan and conceding bin Laden's "requests". Limited government means that the DEA will be enjoined from raiding your pot garden or insisting that parents be notified when their fourteen year old daughters are being cajoled in an abortion by those nice folks at Planned Parenthood. Fiscal Responsibility means that you and I will have to pay for all the things the Democrats can figure on buying (mainly our votes).

Its going to be a maddening year, so if you are going to take up drinking, now might be a good time to start.