washington -- paul hackett, the iraq war veteran from cincinnati who was hailed by national democrats for his narrow loss this summer in a heavily republican house district, has quickly moved up in rank to challenge mike dewine for u.s. senate in 2006.

"paul hackett is running for u.s. senate," said spokesman david woodruff, who served as hackett's campaign manager in his special election campaign for the 2nd district house seat against rep. jean schmidt.

"he is planning to announce his decision officially on oct. 24," woodruff said monday, adding an event would be held that day in cincinnati, from which hackett would begin a statewide bus tour.

already i've received a robo-email from ken mehlman proclaiming her "extremely well-qualified" and declaring that "like justice o'connor", she "is a legal trailblazer." that is an insult to justice o'connor. even the washington post's morning piece on miers, which goes out of its way to make the most of her skimpy qualifications, can't avoid the fact that miers has done very little of note in the legal world and, "if confirmed, she would be a rare appointee with no experience as a judge at any level."

and since mehlman has already despaired of any effort by liberals to judge miers fairly, i'll go ahead and say it: it's possible that with a six-week bar review course, any of us would be more qualified than harriet miers to sit on the supreme court.