Obama's Track Record

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for digging up this slightly dated (October of last year) account of how Barack Obama kept himself busy during his two years in the Senate. Keep it in mind while you're being battered by the talking point about Obama having not done anything. The basic summary:

...I do follow legislation, at least on some issues, and I have been surprised by how often Senator Obama turns up, sponsoring or co-sponsoring really good legislation on some topic that isn't wildly sexy, but does matter. His bills tend to have the following features: they are good and thoughtful bills that try to solve real problems; they are in general not terribly flashy; and they tend to focus on achieving solutions acceptable to all concerned, not by compromising on principle, but by genuinely trying to craft a solution that everyone can get behind.

Also, a follow-up on prosecutorgate, Lincoln Caplan has an informative column on Slate on the proper role for politics in the justice system. He handily rebuts the oft-repeated canard about Clinton replacing the US attorneys when he took over by noting that in the past 25 years the number of US attorneys forced out mid-term for reasons other than misconduct is somewhere between two and five.