Well, nothing says "trustworthy" like anonymous pot shots in the blogosphere. It's almost like we need an Obama Center for Public Policy to keep track of it all.

Obama opposed the war from the start. And it's hard to paint Obama as a Lieberman clone the week after he's endorsed by Ned Lamont. Obama also earned a League of Conservation rating of 97-percent in the Senate; Edwards came in at 63-percent during his tenure.

The way the Clintons have behaved in South Carolina is worth watching:

<h1>1 Obama is buddies with a Chicago slumlord</h1>

Obama counters that the guy in question had partnered with a church organization to build low income housing, and that his total involvement amoounted to five hours of billing time

pictures surface later in the week of the young Bill and Hillary doing a photo op with the aforementioned slumlord

<h1>2 Obama says that Reagan was a transformative figure in American politics</h1>

Bubba spins that as an endorsement

<h1>3 Bubba checks the polls, sees that his girl is tanking, and announces that an Obama victory today is meaningless as Obama is the Black candidate. This in a race that has, until now, been mercifully free of that crap</h1>

There's lots more of course, they are repeating well worn moves and have the trusty Terry McCaullife and the terminally sleazy Mark Penn back doing the shopworn but effective assasination routines.

If Clinton get's the nomination-------

Write in for Ronny the Skinny Puppy from Sandy!!!!

Charlie, in recent years there is nothing to distinguish Obama from Clinton on the war in terms of their actual votes and failures to part ranks with the wimpy Dem leadership positions on the war.

Clinton possibly bears more responsibility because her connection to Bill & prior media status as presumptive nominee gave her more in with Harry Reid -- there was an NYTimes Mag piece on her gyrations and attempts to reconstruct her record for which I will try to find a link. But Obama has not called for a more aggressive approach to the administration, e.g. has not raised the question of a "nuclear option" on war timelines as a way around the "have to have 60 votes" myth, in short not been a standout fighter or leader but a go-along Democrat.

The LCV figure reflects past votes. Coal liquification is proposed future policy of his. So is his proposal to build more coal fired electrical generation plants. So is his preference for an industry-favored cap and trade system on carbon, as opposed to a carbon tax.

Another poster has said that Edwards ratings include not being present as well as "bad" votes as far as LCV goes. Frankly I don't find that much of defense, but it does bear on how to read the numbers.

Both Clinton and Obama are AWOL on the current constitutional crisis votes on FISA, putting vote-getting above supporting a filibuster, and neither show adequate recognition that Bush's unconstitutional assertions of spurious commander-in-chief powers do in fact pose a constitutional crisis and creeping police-statism.

Clinton at least has said that she would be willing to work with Congress to reject and roll back some of those claims for executive power that are throwing checks & balances out of whack and establishing parallel legislative and judicial function within the executive & executive/military.

I am not aware that Obama has taken a position on this & if you have access to his national campaign I'd urge you to try to get him to commit to rejecting Bush's power grabs for the executive branch.

Pat, the slumlord in question is more than as slumlord, he's a major doler-out of campaign cash around Chicago who has backed Obama's rise within Illinois. This role as a macher probably also is why the Clinton photo-op. Given the descriptions I've read, I've no doubt that one would find prominent Illinois Clinton backers having taken money from him.

Still, the "five hours" law-firm work line is disingenuous. Apart from campaign contributions, the slumloard and his wife also facilitated Obama being able to buy a house that came with a demand to buy an adjacent lot -- the slumlord guy's wife bought the vacant lot, enabling the Obamas to buy the house & its lot, & she later sold them a 10 foot strip along their property to expand their yard.

Yet it also seems clear that the Clinton people are trying to blow this relationship up as a much bigger deal than it really was, some of their surrogates in an extremely slimy manner, and to smear Obama with the fact that this guy is under federal indictment, with trial to start in late Feb., an indictment which has nothing to do with Obama. Look for some serious ugliness around this, esp. if Whoop-de-doo Tuesday leaves things up in the air or leans toward Obama.

Functionally it is rather similar to Whitewater, and it is one where the Rs can definitely be expected to take up Clinton talking points and to quote her and Bill about it if Obama gets the nomination. So it's scorched earth stuff.

Obama spoke out against the war in 2003 and 2004, and in 2005, he called for phased withdrawal of troops. In January of last year, Obama introduced legislation that would have us out by now. During the campaign, Obama has laid out a pretty specific path to get us out of there.

Iran is not Iraq, but Clinton's support of last year's Iran resolution is a major difference in foreign policy. Years after the Iraqi War Resolution, Clinton again gets it wrong and Obama gets it right. Again. And the two have significant differences about whether we should talk to enemies and friends alike. Clinton allies even tried to argue Obama's unwillingness to nuke bin Laden showed inexperience late last year.

I believe Obama's the best candidate to actually get things done on global warming and ending our dependence on foreign oil. When I had an opportunity to meet and talk with Obama last year, I asked him about global warming and liked what I heard. Beyond individual policies, Obama said global warming could be much worse than we understand, and that we must be prepared to act boldly. I also like the idea of a carbon tax, but a cap and trade system -- if we get the details right -- can be a very, very powerful force. Obama talked about cap and trade when I saw him in Tampa.

All the remaining candidates are good on global warming policy, honestly. I think Obama's best positioned to inspire Americans to take action and build a strong working majority to get things done. It's not about just producing the best white papers, and this is not going to be politically easy.

On constitutional issues, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, gets it. Chris Dodd deserves a huge amount of respect for really hammering these issues, but I am very confident an Obama administration will include a return to the rule of law and fundamental constitutional principles. Chris, I tried to respond to another longer comment you had a few weeks ago but was unable to get through TypePad. My apologies.