At the stroke of midnight, The Dark Knight opened across the country this morning, to rave reviews, Oscar buzz and forecasts of a record-shattering box office performance. Most observers have chalked up the unprecedented anticipation for the film to its quality script and to the amazing and final performance of the late Heath Ledger. But we know the real reason: Senator Patrick Leahy.

That's right: The 68-year-old chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as you might have heard, was given a role in the film, playing a man who is roughed up by Ledger's knife-wielding Joker.  read more »

This weekend brought two reminders that what happens in politics is often, more than anything, about the past.

On Friday, Robert Reich formally endorsed Barack Obama, a decision that was greeted as noteworthy since Reich was an old Oxford chum of Bill Clinton’s and served as the 42nd president’s first labor secretary. He also scored a date with a young Hillary Rodham back in 1966, when, as the freshman class president at Dartmouth, he asked Hillary, his counterpart at Wellesley, to meet him for “a presidential summit” in Hanover. (There was no second date.)  read more »

Barack Obama supporters just held a conference call with reporters to discuss health care, pushing the idea that Obama's plan, unlike someone else's, isn't a big government mandate. But right before it ended, a reporter from Washington slipped in an off-topic question: tax returns.  read more »

A reader sent along this invitation for a February 20th Barack Obama fund-raiser in New York featuring folksy singer-songwriter Dar Williams and hosted by former Senator Bill Bradley.

Text after the jump.  read more »