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.

A new CBS-New York Times poll finds Hillary Clinton maintaining her double-digit national lead over Barack Obama and John McCain ahead on the Republican side. Complete Repbulican poll results are here (pdf) and Democratic results here.

In the race for the Democratic nomination, Clinton leads Illinois Sen. Barack Obama by a margin of 42 percent to 27 percent. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards comes in a distant third at 11 percent.

Huckabee is in second place after McCain and Rudy Giuliani is sinking fast.

The biggest drop downward is in former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s support, from leading at 22 percent in the last poll to ten percent now.

Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are tied with only 8% each.

Update: A new Washington Post - ABC Poll is also out. McCain and Hillary lead, but the numbers are different:

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 42 percent
Barack Obama, 37 percent
John Edwards, 11 percent
Dennis Kucinich, 2 percent

More...

Jeralyn won't like it buuuut, the Unity Schtick:

BLITZER: You sound like one of those moderate Democrats and Republicans who met in Oklahoma recently, who want to see the Left and the Right basically move closer together.

DASCHLE: Exactly.

BLITZER: That's where you are, personally, I take it?

DASCHLE: Well, it's not only where I am personally. But I think it's where the American people are. It's where Barack is. It's why Barack is drawing so much support from independent and Republicans across the country. It's why Republicans say, for the first time, you know, I think I can work for that guy -- or work with that guy, because they don't feel as if he's representing the old Washington politics of the past.

This is the politics of the future, and he reflects it.

The Golden Globes are airing tonight with a bunch of readers from Entertainment Tonight, E!, the Insider and other gossip shows presenting the awards, poor audio that cuts out frequently, no stars and on CNN, Larry King talking over the readers. The audience, which isn't shown, consists of 600 studio execs and other such types.

If anyone doubted the Writers' Strike is having a huge impact on the entertainment industry, this should remove them.

The Oscars could meet the same fate next month.

Leading with this week's news that telephone companies shut down FBI wiretaps because the agency failed to pay its bills, an editorial in today's Denver Post compares the FBI to "keystone cops."

In addition to the telephone bill embarrassment, the Post points out:

The late payments were part of a larger pattern of loose practices when it comes to tracking money sent to field offices for undercover operations.

With FISA hearings again on the horizon, the Post says we should be paying attention to the FBI's problems as Congress debates the reauthorization of the Patriot Act: [More...]

Efforts to compare the top Democratic candidates are leading to candidate-bashing. That's unfortunate, because people are taking their eye off the ball -- defeating Republicans.

Case in point: Rudy Giuliani gets "a rock star's welcome" Saturday in Florida.

And to top that, today he got religion. He told a church congregation he was not seeking their votes, but their prayers.

Speaking for me only

Here's post that will make all candidates' supporters angry. I am disappointed with all the candidates in the race now. For years I have advocated a politics of contrast and Fighting Dems fighting for the Common Good.

At first blush, I fully expected to support John Edwards who made these concepts a centerpiece of his campaign. He moved the debate back to Democratic values and helped push the other candidates towards this vision. But there were some substantive problems that I had with Edwards, on trade and immigration, that made support of him difficult for me. Later his unfair attacks on Hillary Clinton and his alliance with Barack Obama, despite his very real difference of view on theories of change, made rejecting Edwards quite easy for me.

More . . .

Hillary Clinton supporter Bob Johnson, the President of Black Entertaiment Television, reportedly said:

I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won't say what he was doing but he said it in his book."

To me the clear implication is that Johnson is referring to Barack Obama's admitted drug use. Bob Johnson has denied this:

My comments today were referring to Barack Obama's time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect. When Hillary Clinton was in her twenties she worked to provide protections for abused and battered children and helped ensure that children with disabilities could attend public school.n That results oriented leadership -- even as a young person -- is the reason I am supporting Hillary Clinton.

Umm, I am not sure what Johnson means in this denial. I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether this explanation from Mr. Johnson is credible. Suffice it to say that Mr. Johnson should be more careful in the future with his language.