Paul Hackett: Um.... at least you can't call him a whimp

Former Congressional candidate and netroots hero Paul Hackett was involved in a little vigilante incident the other month.  It appears some hooligans crashed into a fence at his house in the middle of the night.  Instead of doing what I'd do - waking up from my bed in a state of panic and then proceeding to call the cops.. no wait.. first I would look out the window and hope it was my neighbor's problem... then I'd call the cops, Hackett decided to take care of things himself.

As the article reports,

Hackett said he had followed a trail of fluid left by the car, and the vehicle stopped in a driveway. Hackett told police that he hopped out of his truck and that he was armed.

"He told the boys to 'Get the ---- out of the car and get on the ground.' ... He said he did not touch the vehicle with the rifle and maintained his distance. 'I knew they saw I was armed,' he said. He said he had done this about 200 times in Iraq, but this time there was not a translation problem," the Indian Hill police report said.

And apparently the situation was under control until the cops arrived.

When White arrived at the house, Hackett's wife, Suzi, told him that her husband had called her to say he had stopped the men on Keller Road.

White called for backup. He arrived at a driveway in the 8700 block of Keller Road to find the three men lying face down near their small, black car and Hackett's pickup truck. With a flashlight, White saw a strap on Hackett's right shoulder and "what appeared to be an assault rifle hanging along his right side," White's report said.

White told Hackett to put away the rifle and "not take things into his own hands."

The driver was eventually charged with failure to maintain reasonable control, driving under suspension and carrying a concealed weapon - a pair of brass knuckles found in his pocket.

Now, I can't help but chuckle at this story.  Normally, I'll admit, I would read a story like this and kind of roll my eyes.  But this story is so interesting because, first, it involves a netroots hero that we can't get enough of, and second, it continues the utter destruction of the meme that Republicans and the media have spent years trying to craft - the Democrat as whimp.  I just can't get this image out of my head of Hackett slamming his truck door shut and striding up to the hooligans' car with his assault rifle and demanding the three get out of the car.  "You went and f*%ked with the wrong Democratic Congressional candidate," he would say to them.

Actually, Hackett's real quote was almost as funny..

Moore said Hackett was woken up by "criminal activity" and "took affirmative action to protect his wife and family from an unknown disturbance at his house."

Well... I guess Republicans can still try to criticize us for being pro-affirmative action.