Make love to me, sweet politician

Since we're all publicly commenting on the status of our presidential courtships, I might as well chip in.

A while back, I made the comment that I wanted to see some leadership from Obama. I was rightfully challenged to define what I meant by leadership, and my answer was probably some lame "I know it when I see it."

Well, I saw it. Obama has staked out the position on Iraq where everyone else needs to be. That's some serious not crap in my book. And then I saw it again, in his classy - but necessary - response to Joe Biden's knuckleheaded racism:

Obama later issued a statement that absolved Biden only in part. "I didn't take Senator Biden's comments personally," he said, "but obviously they were historically inaccurate. African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate."

Again, serious not crap.

I'm sure in 2010, we may all be talking about how ahead of the political curve Obama's subtle positionings were for 2007 (for a presidential aspirant, at least). But for now, I'm impressed with him doing the Right Thing. Twice.