Some things I'm glad I read today:

• BeliefNet has a new interview with Barack Obama about his religion and multi-culturalism.

• Eric Boehlert at Media Matters on the blogosphere's role in the Tweety Effect. Jane Hamsher says, More Boehlert, Less Bai. And Atrios adds,

  "It is encouraging that occasionally "The Left" can make some noise and actually get a response. A few years ago it just felt like we were just screaming into the vacuum."

• Crooks and Liars and Gleen Greenwald on the new FISA shenanigans.

• Sunday Times of London columnist Matt Rudd criticizes travel to the United States:

  "Traveling to the US offers experiences like nowhere else on earth...Nowhere else can a visitor expect such a spirit-crushingly frosty reception. A preflight e-interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from aggressive border guards, and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage are all part of the fun. So, if Chertoff & Co. want to tighten Fortress America further, it's time we considered other more welcoming holiday options. Such as Iran or North Korea."

• The New York Daily News reports 20 of Brooklyn's drug cops have been suspended for taking "sex, drugs and cash from junkies and dealers." More here.

More...

A reader sent me the link to this four page Chicago Tribune article from April, 2007 about Barack Obama's first campaign for U.S. Senate.

It's quite an interesting read.

A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.

I'll let you all take it from there.

The Washington Post reports on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's differing strategies for winning delegates on Tsunami Tuesday, February 5.

Hillary is targeting four big primary states, California, New York, New Jersey and Arkansas, while Obama is gearing up for the six caucusing states -- Kansas, Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska and Idaho.

Another Obama strategy:

In New Jersey, one of his targets is independent voters. In Georgia and Alabama, he is seeking to replicate his South Carolina strategy by targeting African Americans.

It's not just about winning a state because there's delegates to be had even for coming in second. For example, [More...]

Nat Hentoff, writing in the Village Voice, has some constitutional questions for Barack Obama.

Once in a while, Obama makes a passing reference to our diminishing individual liberties, but hardly ever in his stump speeches. At an early-morning rally the day of the New Hampshire vote, he told some 300 students at the Dartmouth College gym: "My job this morning is to be so persuasive . . . that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack." One of the reasons to vote for him, he continued, was his pledge to end the Bush-Cheney era of "wiretaps without warrants."

He didn't add that Bush wants to make this spying on us permanent. And when he's not in front of a roomful of students with the television cameras on him, Obama hardly ever shows the urgent passion for restoring the Constitution that he exhibits on other issues. Hillary Clinton also invokes "change" as if it's a medicine to cure all ills, but she too largely ignores the incremental disappearance of the Bill of Rights—including the last rites for our guarantees of personal privacy.

Hentoff's questions for Obama:

So what are Obama's plans to restore the Constitution—especially regarding the activities of our domestic and international intelligence agencies? And in view of Bush's legacy with the Roberts-Alito Supreme Court, what would President Obama's criteria be for filling any vacancies during his time in office? It would help if he would tell us now which Supreme Court justices, past and present, he most respects, and why.

More...

I know this will come as a big shock to Obama adulators, but Barack Obama does not always tell the truth:

He also did not tell the whole truth about what he said about Ronald Reagan or what he was conveying about Republicans being the party of ideas fighting the conventional wisdom. He also started the attacks, personal or otherwise last night.

Unlike some people, this does not bother me. I always knew Barack Obama was just a pol. Heck, I have been criticizing him for picking the wrong POLITICAL strategy. Even now I do not question his commitment to a progressive and Democratic agenda, nor do I question Hillary's. I think Kevin Drum nails what the question is now:

It's official, Fred Thompson's out.

Let's hope Giuliani's next.

By the way, we have 20 new posts today, so please scroll down and onto the next page if you want to read all of them.

I'm off to the jail now, back tonight.

Not an endorsement, but strong words of encouragement:

So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.

I agree with Yglesias that Edwards has largely been a positive force in this campaign, though I have disagreements with him on some key issues. Like Jeralyn, I would like to see him fight on as well.

I was hoping to avoid writing about the Barack Obama-Tony Rezko connection as I believe Obama did nothing wrong. Big Tent Democrat agrees it's a non-issue. Unfortunately, the AP is highlighting it today.

That said, perhaps if Obama hadn't attacked Hillary last night as a "corporate lawyer sitting on the board of WalMart", she wouldn't have responded calling Rezko a slumlord and it wouldn't be in the AP today. From the transcript (More...)

Bump and Update: Tim Masters was freed from prison today, 9 1/2 years after his conviction for a murder he did not commit.

Lots more below.

Speaking for me only

In what seems like a millenium ago, I criticized Barack Obama for embracing a Republican frame that Democrats abhor people of faith. Since then, Obama has made his appeal in a much more positive way, including in South Carolina. Barack Obama has really found a way to make his appeal to persons of faith without denigrating Democrats.

It appears that Bill Clinton is retrogressing on this issue:

[Clinton] took Democrats to task for failing to challenge the GOP among religious voters, for whom moral issues are important. 'Democrats have made a mistake by not entering the debate,' he said.

Entering what debate President Clinton? The debate about how godless and sinful Democrats are? This is bad politics from Clinton. And seeing as how he is the principal Hillary Clinton campaign surrogate, bad politics from the Clinton campaign. Bad show Mr. President.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the richest of them all? Via AOL Money:

Barack Obama's house:

Obama has a large, stately brick home on Chicago's South Side with an estimated value of $1.9 million. The Chicago Tribune describes it as a "96-year-old Georgian revival home that has four fireplaces, glass-door bookcases fashioned from Honduran mahogany, and a 1,000-bottle wine cellar."

Personal wealth:

Compared to the other candidates, Obama seems a pauper with assets of between $456,012 and $1.1 million.

Hillary's house:

More below:

In a blow to the Bush Administration which sought a life sentence, a Miami federal judge today sentenced Jose Padilla to 17 years, 4 months.

The judge factored in Padilla's "harsh" sentencing conditions.

'I do find the [prison] conditions were so harsh that they warranted conditions for sentencing in this case,'' Cooke told a crowded courtroom of attorneys, family members and media.