Got another nice message today from a nice person who is glad I’ve been advocating for single-payer, but disappointed in me for dismissing the viability of Dennis Kucinich’s candidacy:

I want to thank you for making the case for single payer healthcare and pointing out that none of the candidates except for Dennis Kucinich is advocating any real reform of our broken system.  I take exception, however, to your suggestion that Kucinich is not a "viable" candidate.  Polls consistently show that Kucinich’s views on the issues are most in line with what Americans want:  out of Iraq, single-payer healthcare, helping American workers and industry instead of China, immigration reform, support for small family farms and the middle class, etc.  And the UFO stuff is really getting old.  Why doesn’t anyone in the media mention that Ronald Reagan, beloved by many, also reported seeing an unidentified flying object?   Neither he nor Kucinich claimed to have an "alien encounter."  Yet you and the rest of the mainstream media insist on trying to marginalize Dennis Kucinich.  Why?  He’s a man of courage and integrity with bold ideas, and he’s only "nonviable" as long as you and other members of the media keep SAYING he is.  It’s time that people started taking Kucinich seriously.  He’s our best and only hope for this country, and he has my unwavering support and my vote.  – Anne O’Berry

Two quick points:

1. I have larger objections to the Kucinich candidacy than the UFO story, as I’ve explained. In fact, I have defended him on the UFO thing. But when I was writing the original column, and had just written the part about how hyper-libertarians act like they "believe that ‘government’ is some scary thing that intrudes on their lives from out there somewhere, like a spaceship full of aliens with ray guns that will turn us all into toads or something," the UFO thing just made for a nice segue.
2. Although I sympathize, today was not the best day to complain about the UFO thing, since it is actually back in the news. The WSJ dug into the story beyond the cursory quote we’d heard from Shirley MacLaine. Here’s a link, if you can get to it.

And if you can’t, here’s an excerpt:

    As they sat down to a dinner, Mr. Kucinich spotted a light in the distance, to the left of Mount Rainier. Mr. Costanzo thought it was a helicopter.
    But Mr. Kucinich walked outside to the deck to look through the telescope that he had bought Ms. MacLaine as a house gift. After a few minutes, Mr. Kucinich summoned the other two: "Guys, come on out here and look at this."…
    After a few minutes, the lights moved closer and it became apparent that they were actually three charcoal-gray, triangular craft, flying in a tight wedge. The girlfriend remembers each triangle having red and green lights running down the edges, with a laser-like red light at the tail. Mr. Costanzo recalls white lights, but no tail….
    The craft held steady in midair, for perhaps a minute, then sped away, Mr. Costanzo says. "Nothing had landed," he says. "No strange beings had disembarked. No obvious messages were beamed down. When they were completely out of sight, we all looked at each other disbelieving what we had seen."
    At Mr. Kucinich’s suggestion, they jotted down their impressions and drew pictures to memorialize the event. Mr. Kucinich kept the notes, according to Ms. MacLaine, who said he promised her recently that he would try to find them….