He supplied one amendment to the gift ban act - that's it. Now how many of those bills didn't originate with another legislator and were handed to Obama by Emil Jones? And how many of them pass after he's decided to run for the US senate?

How is that a man can not have more than one or two accomplishments over that ten year period while being in the Illinois senate and working at a civil right's law firm? How does that happen?

When asked about his legislative record, Obama rattles off several bills he sponsored as an Illinois lawmaker.

He expanded children's health insurance; made the state Earned Income Tax Credit refundable for low-income families; required public bodies to tape closed-door meetings to make government more transparent; and required police to videotape interrogations of homicide suspects.

And the list goes on.

It's a lengthy record filled with core liberal issues. But what's interesting, and almost never discussed, is that he built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year.

Republicans controlled the Illinois General Assembly for six years of Obama's seven-year tenure. Each session, Obama backed legislation that went nowhere; bill after bill died in committee. During those six years, Obama, too, would have had difficulty naming any legislative achievements.

Then, in 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government. For the first time in 26 years, Illinois Democrats controlled the governor's office as well as both legislative chambers.

The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James "Pate" Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor.

Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's kingmaker.

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio program.

I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."

During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law -- including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.

How singularly unimpressive.

No widely-read, non-partisan (as far as the primary goes) blog has had to shut down comments because of Clinton supporters. Not one. That is a fact. Taylor Marsh and Digby (Digby hasn't endorsed by my impression is that she voted for Obama) have both had to shut comments down though because of the hate comments from Obama supporters. Ben Smith either had to shut down commetns because of Obama supporters or threatened to one day - they were that out of line on his site as well. Then there is Paul Krugman and the attacks he has endured on his site.

Randi Rhodes is a nationally syndicated talk show host with a huge following in the progressive community. She isn't some anonymous poster some where. She was an established celebrity, performing at an event organized by Obama supporters, for Obama supporters and advertised on obama's site. It's as offensive as it gets and your candidate doesn't have the minimum level of 20th century couth to distance himself from it.