In this not-altogether-serious clip from Letterman, Barack Obama gives his top ten campaign priorities.

And the top promise? Not just the a black person at the very top of America’s political system, but in news sure to depress John Edwards, he’d put Oprah Winfrey on the second rung down.

You’d think that the only black billionaire in the world with more than 3,000 TV shows under her belt, would have other ways of influencing the agenda.

In other, more serious news, the New York Times is backing McCain for the Republican race – and not giving their endorsement to former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani

Why, as a New York-based paper, are we not backing Rudolph Giuliani? Why not choose the man we endorsed for re-election in 1997 after a first term in which he showed that a dirty, dangerous, supposedly ungovernable city could become clean, safe and orderly? What about the man who stood fast on Sept. 11, when others, including President Bush, went AWOL?

That man is not running for president.

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.

Alex Foster gets all his US political scoops from Joe. My. God.