Who cares who started it? It's time to end the race and gender baiting and get back to issues. Here's Billy Joel and "We Didn't Start the Fire."

This is great news and I applaud Senator Obama for doing this:

ABC News' David Wright, Andy Fies, and Sunlen Miller Report: Sen. Barack Obama told ABC News Monday there is nothing in Sen. Hillary Clinton's record that would give him any cause for concern about her in terms of racial politics. Asked how Obama interpreted two recent remarks by the Clintons that prompted an angry reaction from some in the Black community, Obama sought to damp down the racial dynamics of the controversy. . . . "I don't think it was in any way a racial comment," Obama told ABC News. "That's something that has played out in the press. That's not my view."

I know many will question Obama's motives, saying the politics had started to run away from him, but I do not care. I am thrilled he has put an end to this from his camp's perspective. I heartily applaud him.

An Obama Nevada precinct captain (Taylor Marsh has a copy of the flier) is circulating a flier with the following language:

You can be a Democrat for one day. Vote for Obama and then return to your voting status as you chose [sic].

Everyone regardless of party is welcome to be a Democrat for one day and vote. Republicans, Independents, Everyone, you can make THE difference. If you think a Democrat will win in November and you don't want Hillary you can come to the Democratic Caucus and vote for Obama.

As I have said before, Obama is a fighter for Obama. He is not a fighter for the Democratic Party or Democratic values. This flyer is emblematic of everything that is wrong with the Obama campaign. Be a Democrat FOR A DAY. For Obama. But not for the Democratic Party or for Democratic values.

(speaking for me only)

This is the type of stuff that makes me want to defend Hillary Clinton. Matt Yglesias approvingly cites David Corn's smear of Hillary Clinton:

Clinton insisted that her support for the war resolution had been merely a vote to pressure the Iraqi dictator to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq. She quickly moved on to attack Obama: . . . "His judgment was that, at the time in 2002, we didn't need to make any efforts. My belief was we did need to pin Saddam down, put inspectors in." . . . That was one helluva charge. Obama was willing to sit back and let a WMD-toting dictator go along on his merry own way (while Clinton was doing what she could to pin down that snake). Could this be true? . . . Was favoring the continuing containment of Saddam Hussein in October 2002 the equivalent of doing nothing?

Now I reject Hillary's argument that the IWR vote was about getting the inspectors in for President Bush, but Bush DID say that. And indeed, the inspectors WERE NOT in Iraq prior to the IWR. This is worthy of a debate. But Corn does not just decide to agree with Obama's position. He decides to falsely accuse Clinton of lying. And that is a lie by Corn. It is very wrong of Corn to do that and very wrong of Yglesias to approvingly cite Corn for this proposition. Would Corn call it a lie that Obama says Clinton voted for the Iraq War when she says she did not and she can point to her speech saying exactly that? These are opinions about judgments. Obama is expressing his, one I share, and Clinton is expressing hers, one I do not share. [More...]

I'll be in court most of the day and off-line. For those looking for a place to share news and thoughts about matters other than the presidential race and politics, here's a thread for you.

Via Mark Halperin, a good discussion of these matters this morning between Bill Clinton and Obama supporter and radio host Roland Martin. Listen in. It was a very healthy and constructive discussion imo. BTW, Martin plays a cut of Bob Johnson's comments and there is no doubt in my mind, none, that he was referring to Obama's drug use.

Just as Ezra Klein does not get it, fellow Big Media Blogger Matt Yglesias is equally obtuse about the point of Senator Clinton's highlighting SENATOR Barack Obama's record on Iraq. Matt writes:

I don't understand what point her campaign is trying to make. Has Obama been less of a consistent, strong anti-war leader than I would have liked? Unquestionably, yes.

That is one point. Matt continues:

It seems that between the time he entered the Senate and the time he started gearing up to run for President, he adopted a pretty cautious political strategy when I wish he had adopted a bold one.

That is another point.

That said, Russ Feingold's not his opponent. Hillary Clinton is.

The point here is that SENATOR Barack Obama is Hillary Clinton's opponent. Obama is acting as if he has been Senator Russ Feingold on Iraq. He wasn't. He was basically Senator Hillary Clinton. When it came time to do more than talk about opposing Iraq, Senator Barack Obama did nothing. Heck, for 2 years, he did not even talk about it.

THAT is the point.

Krugman considers the economic stimulus packages of the candidates. Here is part of what he says about the Democrats:

[Edwards] proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures.

Last week Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens.

. . . The Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?

Discuss.

Speaking for me only.

Whether there was any intentional campaign work on the issue of race by the Obama and Clinton camps in the past few days, it is clear that any further skirmishing on this issue is counterproductive to both and to the Democratic Party. If there was strategy behind the efforts of anyone, it behooves them - and US - as Democrats, to leave this ugly interlude behind us.

The evidence for the claiming of race exploitation as a deliberate campaign strategy by either Clinton and/or Obama is sketchy at best. We can never know for sure if one or either did this. And sheer speculation by them and us is not helpful to either candidacy and to the Democratic Party.

So let's get this straight - campaigns, control your surrogates. Control your "unnamed advisors." Fire people or drop them as supporters if you have to. Stop this now. As for the blog communities (as opposed to the bloggers themselves), in my opinion, many of them are beyond redemption at this point and have been utterly neutered as positive forces for Democratic values and, more importantly for some of the members, for the candidates they claim to support. No one is listening to them anymore.

The investigation into misuse of steroids is expanding past athletes and onto other entertainers and the physicians who prescribe them, not just for athletic prowess but for anti-aging.

Entertainers including the singer Mary J. Blige and the rapper 50 Cent are among thousands of people whose names are turning up in an investigation into obtaining steroids or human growth hormones, an Albany newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Times Union reported that the investigation, being conducted by the Albany County district attorney, P. David Soares, also found evidence that in addition to Ms. Blige and 50 Cent, other possible recipients included two other musicians, Wyclef Jean and Timbaland, and Tyler Perry, an author, actor and producer in theater, film and television.

None of the celebs are being investigated for criminal conduct. It's the doctors the feds are after.[More...]

Michelle Obama spoke today in Atlanta at the Trumpet Awards, an event celebrating black achievement. After commenting on Bill Clinton's fairy tale remark she said:

We had a miraculous victory in Iowa," Michelle Obama said. "Ain't no black people in Iowa! Something big, something new is happening. Let's build the future we all know is possible. Let's show our kids that America is ready for Barack Obama right now."

....Michelle Obama's remarks were also peppered with references to Coretta Scott King and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose 79th birthday is Tuesday. She said that should Barack Obama win in November, "America will look at itself differently and the world will look at America differently."

More...

Ezra Klein writes:

Barack Obama did not step into the Senate and seek leadership in the anti-war movement. When Elizabeth Edwards said Obama's Senate record showed "a relatively complacent and go-along Senator," she wasn't necessarily wrong. But . . . [i]'s a "Meet the Press" attack. The issue isn't the issue -- about which Obama was correct -- it's his consistency on the issue. Barack Obama was right on Iraq, and Hillary Clinton was wrong. Obama could have made a couple more speeches, but there really wasn't much he could do to divert the course of the war as a lone Senator. . . . Clinton, who routinely promises to end the war once in office, [could have] exercised political leadership in the Senate, using either her media power or parliamentary pull to sustain a brave stand against the conflict. Instead, she has spoken of her desire to end it and, in reality, gone along with the cowed, ineffectual approach of the Senate Democrats: Register opposition, vote against bills, eventually pass spending measures that continue the war.

What a classic case of double standards. You could write the word OBAMA for Clinton and the sentences apply EXACTLY. THAT is the point of the critique. Ezra provides a classic double standard here that would be hard to top.