Obama:

You know, Senator Clinton says that she's concerned about Social Security but is not willing to say how she would solve the Social Security crisis, then I think voters aren't going to feel real confident that this is a priority for her. And that's the kind of leadership I think that the Democratic Party has to offer in the years to come.

High Broderism as Democratic leadership? As others have said, THERE IS NO SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS!

One of the biggest ideological fault lines in the Democratic Party is trade. I stand on the pro-free trade side of this issue. I supported and support NAFTA and its extension to Peru.

Among the Dem Presidential candidates, Open Left reports:

Barack Obama supports the pact while John Edwards opposes it. Hillary Clinton has yet to take a position, though she has suggested the nation may need a little "timeout" from new trade agreements pending a review of the effects previous pacts have had on American workers.

I agree with Barack Obama on this issue. More.

Not very unifying if you ask me:

I think there's no doubt that we represent the kind of change that Senator Clinton can't deliver on and part of it is generational. Senator Clinton and others, they've been fighting some of the same fights since the '60's and it makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done."

This is not new for Obama, in spite of Sully's ridiculous claim that he came up with this. Obama said the same thing last year:

. . . Basically, where the country is at right now, [Obama] asserts, is that you’ve got to move beyond ideology and you’ve got to address real problems in real time in real ways. He argues that it’s time to get beyond the ways in which issues were defined by the 1960s. He said ‘We don’t want to re-litigate the 60s,’ that many issues that were popular, that the interests and interest groups that were defined in the 60s have run out of steam and that we’ve got to move beyond them.

The DLC could not have said it better. In fact they said the same thing when the were supporting triangulation in the 1980s and 1990s. Too funny. If Hillary had said something like that, she would be excoriated by the Haters. Obama's silly nonsense will, of course, be explained away.

*DFHs.

Via Politico:

Former Senator John Edwards (N.C.) has been accusing his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) of double-talk for a week, since she refused to say clearly whether illegal immigrants should get driver's licenses – but his own position on the issue is also incoherent, experts say.

. . . "He supports licenses as part of a path to citizenship. He doesn't support the Spitzer plan because it doesn't include a path to citizenship," said Edwards' deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince in an e-mail referring to the New York governor’s plan that prompted the question that flummoxed Clinton.

"That's not a rational position — Eliot Spitzer couldn't ever offer somebody a path to citizenship," said Margie McHugh, the Co-Director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute, which favors immigration reform. "I don't know if they think you're stupid or what they think," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigrantion Forum, another broadly pro-immigration policy shop.

Yep.

The rationale for the doubletalk from John Edwards on drivers licenses for undocumented aliens becomes clearer. Rassmussen Reports says:

Just 19% of Democratic Primary Voters in New Hampshire believe that drivers licenses should be made available to undocumented workers. Sixty-six percent (66%) disagree. A separate survey released yesterday found that Democrats nationwide hold similar views with 68% opposing the policy.

Edwards' apparent (his answer is hard to decipher and rather nonsensical) change of heart (he favored drivers licenses for undocumented aliens in 2004) is clearly a result of political expediency.

The one candidate who spoke clearly and correctly on this issue was Barack Obama. He explained very well why offering dirvers licenses to undocumented aliens is good policy. He refused to pander to the xenophobia still present in the Democratic Party. Good for Obama. I hope he sticks to it in the face of this ugly side of the Democratic Party:

The insane Pat Robertson for the seemingly crazy and pro-choice Rudy.

Good to see how principled Robertson is on the social issues. Cilizza labels Robertson one of the most influential figures in the "social conservative movement" (the anti-science, pro-crazy wing?), but we were told something different before, so mission accomplished for Robertson I suppose. The funny part of Cilizza's ignorant column is this:

In recent years, Robertson has drawn considerable controversy for comments made about homosexuality

Homosexuality? Really? Did Robertson come out in favor when we were not looking? Come now Cilizza, either you are stupid or think we are. Robertson's problems are about his advocacy of assasination of the leaders of other nations:

Stunned by his "700 Club" commentary advocating the assassination of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, several of the Rev. Pat Robertson's evangelical brethren quickly, and publicly, condemned him for it. Since in their estimation, the Rev. Robertson now plays a diminished role in national politics, some conservative commentators thought the "liberal" media blew the story out of proportion.

And his comment that US deserved 9/11:

This is obvious. Matt Stoller writes:

I spoke to a New York state party insider who told me that candidate numbers have been dropped ten points in local elections to be held tomorrow because of immigration, across all major voting blocs. The right-wing speaks entirely in coded language about tribalism, and it's beginning to hurt our candidates badly.

I am curious about Stoller's conclusion that it is hurting. In Western New York, I suppose it is hurting. But what about in areas with significant Latino populations? Is it hurting there? Or is it helping Dems? I find Stoller's formulation problematic in the extreme. Indeed, one need only read Stoller's partner, Chris Bowers, to see why:

[L]ooking through exit poll data, it appears that [Kerry and Dukakis] performed almost identically among one of the larger demographic groups in the electorate: white voters. The only real difference between the outcome of the 1988 and 2004 elections does not seem to be that Kerry did any better among particularly demographic groups, but rather that demographic groups more favorable to Democrats formed a larger share of the electorate. In fact, Kerry actually did worse than Dukakis among Latinos. If John Kerry had won Latinos by the same 70%-30% margin that Dukakis did, then he would have at least pulled to within less than a percentage point on Bush, and possibly even won the popular vote.

Stoller seems to be misunderstanding the moment imo. Standing with Latinos on immigration MUST be part of the Emerging Democratic Majority strategy of the Democratic Party. This is precisely why John Edwards' weasel words on the subject are so troubling.

As Big Tent Democrat and many other bloggers noted yesterday, Rudy Giuliani continues to support Bernie Kerik.

It's one thing to stick up for your friends, it's another to reinvent their record.

Rudy Giuliani said Monday that if his achievements as president are as good as the crime-reduction results of his New York police commissioner, a man now under criminal investigation himself, "this country will be in great shape."

...."Bernie Kerik worked for me while I was mayor of New York City. There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik. But what's the ultimate result for the people of New York City? The ultimate result for the people of New York City was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, a 60 percent reduction in crime, a correction program that went from being one of the worst in the country to one that was on '60 Minutes' as the best in the country, 90 percent reduction of violence in the jails."

It wasn't Bernie Kerik who brought the crime down in New York, it was Giuliani's prior police commissioner, Bill Bratton, who is now LA's police commissioner. While the reduction may have continued under Kerik, he just benefited from policies implemented years earlier by Bratton.

More...

Incredible:

Rudy Giuliani said Monday that if his achievements as president are as good as the crime-reduction results of his New York police commissioner, a man now under criminal investigation himself, "this country will be in great shape." . . . Kerik, whom Giuliani pushed to head the federal Department of Homeland Security, is under investigation on what could be multiple felony charges. . . .

Too funny.

And it is the bad kind of doubletalk:

John Edwards on Sunday said he opposes a new program in New York to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, but the Democratic presidential candidate offered much the same plan for establishing a licensing system as his chief rival and party primary frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

So much for the straight talk. And note this is a xenophobic flip flop from Edwards' 2004 position:

The former North Carolina senator, who unequivocally supported issuing driver's licenses to illegals when he was running for vice president in 2004, said that it should be up to the states to decide whether to issue licenses to illegals.

Read the doubletalk:

Actually, most of what Joe Wilson says about Obama is right. But his defense of Hillary's vote of Kyl-Lieberman is wrong. First the part that is right:

. . . During the debate, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois deleted reference [in K-L] to "military instrumentalities" and added: "Nothing in this Act should be construed as giving the president the authority to use military force against Iran." . . . Senator Barack Obama was absent when the vote on Kyl-Lieberman was taken, though that has not prevented him from criticizing colleagues who participated in the debate and voted for it. He has also opted not to sign the letter to the president. . . . Senator Obama's criticism of the vote and refusal to join with his Democratic colleagues on the letter to the president appear to be based more on the politics than the substance. The entire Senate was notified a day beforehand about the vote on the Kyl-Lieberman resolution. If he truly had a sense of urgency on the issue he should have made a point of participating in the debate and voting, when he would have had the opportunity at the time to air his substantive disagreement with his home state colleague Senator Durbin, rather than waiting to raise the issue afterwards in a purely political context and using it as a campaign tactic.

All very true. But where Wilson is dead wrong is in the belief that there was any positive merit to K-L. The simple fact is the Bush Administration can not be trusted on anything or at any time. These are not normal times where the Congress can work with the President on such issues. The Congress' main job now is to be vigilant and oppose the Bush Administration's belligerent impulses on foreign policy. It needs to make sure no more damage is done. K-L hurt that effort. Clinton was very wrong to vote in its favor.

Geekesque rightly points out that this from Wilson was simply awful:

He has also made clear that for him the paramount enemy is George W. Bush, not an organization that has a history of involvement in terrorism and has been actively targeting American troops in Iraq.

Shame on you Joe Wilson.

Frank Rich correctly rips Hillary Clinton for voting in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment. But he fudges the facts on the performance of the other Presidential contenders. In particular, he gives Barack Obama's failure to vote on K-L a pass. Rich writes:

This time around, with the exception of Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic candidates seem to be saying what they really believe rather than trying to play both sides against the middle. Only Mrs. Clinton voted for this fall’s nonbinding Kyl-Lieberman Senate resolution, designed by its hawk authors to validate Mr. Bush’s Iran policy. The House isn’t even going to bring up this malevolent bill because, as Nancy Pelosi has said, there has “never been a declaration by a Congress before in our history” that “declared a piece of a country’s army to be a terrorist organization.”