Just because you saw - or think you saw - a UFO doesn’t make you crazy.

It’s admitting to the world that you think you saw a UFO that indelibly brands you as, well, Dennis Kucinich.

So moderator Tim Russert put another scalp on his belt at the Democratic debate the other night, getting the moonbat Ohio congressman to admit that yes, he did indeed see something.

Is anyone surprised? This is a guy who said earlier this week that George Bush needs a mental evaluation. File under, pot-calling-kettle-black syndrome.

Kucinich’s defense is that Jimmy Carter also once saw a flying saucer. Yeah, but Carter saw a killer rabbit, too.

The one thing you can say for Kucinich is that, unlike Carter, at least he didn’t out himself. Russert’s staff found the smoking gun in, of all places, a book by Shirley MacLaine. Kucinich was in Graham, Washington, visiting Warren Beatty’s wacky sister - she believes in reincarnation.

He smelled roses, Shirley wrote, went out onto the balcony and “saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him. It hovered, soundless, for 10 minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldn’t comprehend.”

Shirley, there are many things in this world that Dennis Kucinich cannot comprehend. Working for a living would be one of them. Now it gets even worse in Shirley’s recollection for Kucinich.

“He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind.”

He got directions from a flying saucer? Beam him up, Scotty.

Now, I go back a ways with Dennis Kucinich. Back in the late 1970s, he was the Boy Mayor of Cleveland. Remember a local group called Fair Share?

The boss of Fair Share, Mike Ansara, flew in the Boy Wonder to what I recall was a fund-raiser on Melville Avenue in Dorchester. This was before Ansara moved to Carlisle and pleaded guilty to mail fraud, but I digress.

What I remember about Kucinich the Saturday I interviewed him is that he was quite full of himself. He wasn’t taking directions from anyone, least of all a purple people-eater. In the months to come, I enjoyed following His Honor’s descent into oblivion at Cleveland City Hall - from Boy Wonder to Boy Blunder.

The next time I saw Kucinich was in New Hampshire, in 2004, and he was a congressman. His presidential campaign was the result of two terrible mistakes - first, the federal Campaign Finance Act, which allowed him to use taxpayer money to finance his moonbat crusade, and second, a state law in Ohio that set such late filing deadlines that he could run for both president and Congress.

The 2004 Democratic convention was in Boston, and guess who showed up. The weekend before the convention began, Kucinich stopped by my radio station and then decided to crash, along with his posse, in my studio.

A couple of nights later, I’m at the convention. I make my way to the rafters and enter the Fox News Channel suite. I shake hands with Bill O’Reilly and walk past the buffet table, when suddenly I hear a familiar voice behind me.