Just in case you thought Barack Obama was the candidate to knock some sense into White House and Congressional drug warriors, think again. Stop the Drug War quotes Obama's comments as printed in the New York Times:

If elected, Mr. Obama said he would establish a Drug Enforcement Agency office in New Orleans that would be dedicated to stopping drug gangs across the region.

New Orleans already has a DEA office. As Stop the Drug War says:

Obama's drug war revitalization plan for New Orleans is the latest step in his successful bid to be the worst on drug policy among the democratic presidential contenders. He's lamented the "political capital" required to repair the despicable crack/powder sentencing disparity, a no-brainer racial justice issue that even drug war hall-of-famer Joe Biden wants to fix. At Howard University's Democratic Debate on minority issues, he stood there like an idiot while every other candidate managed to address some type of criminal justice reform. He was also the last democratic candidate to pledge an end to federal medical marijuana raids, and not because they're heartless and evil, but because they're "not a good use of resources."

In other news . . . the United Transportation Union (UTU) endorses Senator Hillary Clinton:

The United Transportation Union on Tuesday endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, the first national union endorsement of the 2008 campaign. "The UTU has a long history of picking winners early. Hillary will be a president that America's working families can count on. Time and again, as a United States senator, she has stood with us," UTU President Paul Thompson said in a statement.

Senator Clinton is a fine candidate for President and has run the best campaign of all the candidates . . . so far.

While the Media and some others want to call the race for the Dem nomination 5 months before a vote is cast, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) is having none of it, endorsing the best candidate for President in this race, Senator Chris Dodd. Matt of the Dodd blog has the details:

The International Association of Fire Fighters has announced that Chris Dodd will recieve their endorsement. IAFF President Harold Schaitberger says Dodd is "the man we trust to keep our country safe and families secure." The Fire Fighters don’t know what challenges we will face in the future, but regardless of the situation, we know what kind of leadership Chris Dodd will offer.

Fire fighters bring more than just an endorsement in name … there are tangible benefits that come with this endorsement that build on our already strong grass roots organization - boots on the ground, organizational and volunteer strength.

. . . Dodd and Schaitberger will be visiting Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada over the next four days and meeting with local firefighters along the way. . . .

The voters will decide this race. Not the moneymen. Not the Media. And not the "buzz."

I urge everyone to really look at the candidates and decide who you think would be the best President. I think the choice is clear - Chris Dodd.

[Added by TL: As always, Big Tent Democrat speaks for himself only.]

Interesting note on Barack Obama in a Washington Post article on his Chief of Staff Pete Rouse today:

It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

And then Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no.

Of course, other Democrats actually voted for Roberts, including Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold.

Sen. Barack Obama today named the Republican senators he'd work closely with as President. One of them is uber-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who Obama says "has become a friend of mine."

Via Democratic Underground:

Senator Coburn, who said that lesbianism is "so rampant in some of the schools...that they'll let only one girl go to the bathroom."

Senator Coburn, who claims he can tell if someone is telling the truth because of his medical training.

Dr. Coburn, who said: "You know, I immediately thought about silicone breast implants and the legal wrangling and the class-action suits off that. And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows...In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."

Senator Coburn, who thought Schindler's List was smut, an "all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity.

More....

I have to completely agree with the Netroots "establishment" on this:

This is, I think, a disaster:

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord. "So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.

Two points in response. The first is that I think the Democrat best positioned to deal with GOP political mobilization in a post-attack environment is going to be the one who isn't reflexively inclined to see failed Republican policies resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Americans as a political advantage for the Republicans.

For the first time in quite some time, Hillary sounds like the DLC and Mark Penn. This is a huge gaffe. Obama, Edwards and all the rest will pounce on this.

There's no doubt Rudy Giuliani could benefit from a new firm to boost his image. But, did he have to hire this one?

Last year, a commercial made by Thompson's firm for Tennessee's U.S. Senate race was criticized for what the NAACP and others said were racial overtones.

Run by the Republican National Committee against Democrat Harold Ford, who is black, the ad showed a white woman saying she had met Ford at a Playboy-sponsored party. As the ad ended, the woman, her shoulders bared, whispered into the camera, "Harold, call me."

The NAACP said the commercial played to prejudices about black men and white women, and Republican Bob Corker, who won the Senate seat, called the ad tacky. The RNC denied any racial subtext but asked TV stations to stop running the commercial.

I can't wait to see the firm's New Rudy.

From John Edwards' speech today in New Hampshire:

The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other.

The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer
influence policy in the House or the Senate.

Hmm, where have I heard that before? On Lexis, I found Robert Dole remark's in Fresno, CA, from October 26 1996, when he was running for Vice President:

America is not for sale. Right there. America is not for sale. And the White House is not for sale. And the Lincoln bedroom is not for sale.

...Wake up, America.

Taylor Marsh, also quoting Dole, responds:

.... the Clinton money quote Edwards used today ... is straight out of the right-wing playbook. There are plenty of ways to come at Clinton on the issues, especially Iraq. But if this is the Edwards re-launch, I hope it makes a turn into better territory. Because between Obama's "Bush-Cheney lite" and Edwards talking about "The Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent," I've got to say that these guys sound positively desperate.

What is a sentence like this doing in a national news article on Rudy Giuliani's Iowa campaigning? Reporter Jill Lawrence writes:

Suffice it to say Republicans have never had a presidential candidate like this — half Woody Allen, half Rambo and 100% cerebral.

Via Media Matters which is tracking the media's reporting on Giuliani (and others).

Ms. Lawrence is also in need of a reality check.

Another conservative realizes that Rudy is insane:

I am not defending Rudy, the presidential candidate. Almost no one who has lived in New York wants Rudy anywhere near the nuclear football, nor would we like to see his strongly authoritarian instincts (however much they arguably may have done for New York's policing) unleashed on the federal justice system. Rudy is craaaaaaaaazy . . .

h/t Yglesias.

Michelle Obama is on the campaign trail, stumping for her husband. From a recent speech,

At another stop, in Atlantic, Michelle said she travels with her husband in part "to model what it means to have family values," adding "if you can't run your own house, you can't run the White House." She didn't elaborate, but it could be interpreted as a swipe at the Clintons.

I thought playing the "family values" card was a Republican strategy. Maybe not when your candidacy appears to be, as Obama acknowledged the other day, "a stretch" for the voters".

I don't appreciate Obama (or his wife's) personal snipes at fellow Democrats. It's one thing to criticize policies or positions on issues. It's another to launch personal attacks. To use your spouse as the messenger is even lower.

Update: Obama's campaign denies his wife's remark was a swipe at the Clintons.

Update: The transcript of the debate is available here. My final thoughts: Hillary and Richardson really did well today. Biden was better than usual. Edwards was good but failed to break out of the pack. Obama had little of substance to say and didn't seem to get much time. Kucinich and Gravel were...Kucinich and Gravel. Dodd was good.

Here's a video of Hillary saying Karl Rove isn't going to endorse her and seems obsessed with her.

Update: I'm watching after all.

8:00 Strange opening...GS introduces them by their poll ratings. Obama at 27%, Hillary and Edwards at 26%. First question: Is Barack Obama ready to be President and is Hillary electable?

Obama half of the queston goes to Hillary, who answers saying she's running on her own record. Dodd skirts as well. Then goes to Dodd.

They are all subdued. Probably because its so early in the morning. Biden really seems tired. He tries to skirt and then when confronted with him saying Obama wasn't ready in the past, says he stands by that statement. Richardson cracks a joke, saying with Obama you get change, with Hillary you get experience, with him you get both. He says Obama is a geat guy and a fresh voice.

Obama cracks a joke too. "To prepare for the debate I rode in the bumper cars at the state fair."

They've woken up.

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