Shorter Joe Klein: contrary to what Al Gore may think, teh Internets probably are not going to lead to the dawn of a new Age of Reason anytime soon.

Extra Special Joe Klein Double Post — see Joe unload the proverbial rhetorical smackdown on Swampland guestblogger (and former House Majority Leader) Dick Armey. Reading their exchanges this week has been entertaining, but so far fairly lopsided; credit to Armey for his willingness to dish this stuff on TIME’s blog, but less so for his own adoption of the kind of hyperbolic discourse Klein rails on in the first link above (I’m thinking, preliminarily, of Armey’s post entitled “Am I the only one worried about Social Security?“) Still, a good read, and a sign that maybe not all political discussion is doomed to degenerate into invective.

UPDATE 6/8: Never mind, looks like Armey decided to go all crazy on his last day (“Unfortunately, [Social Security reform] is dominated by Republicans who don’t dare and Democrats that don’t care”, and a random swipe at Teresa Heinz Kerry while extolling the virtues of a flat tax system. WTF, Armey? I was kind of digging on the real policy debate until that point.)