Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shields-brooks-take-up-campaign-news-court-rulings Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama campaigned with former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton at a rally Friday in Unity, N.H. and the Supreme Court issues a week of weighty decisions. Analysts Mark Shields and David Brooks examine the week's political news. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.I assume I didn't miss anything while I was gone the last two months? DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: Well, I guess the most important thing you missed was that Democrats and Republicans actually learned to work together, and they solved most of our problems: health, energy, and independence.And Mark and I have gone off to Tibet, because there's really nothing left to talk about. JIM LEHRER: I didn't miss a thing, right? MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: You didn't. You did miss that two of the most constant figures in American politics, Barack Obama and John McCain, have reversed their positions on off-shore drilling and campaign finance funding.But the Democratic race, the long, twilight struggle for the Democratic nomination, finally did come to a… JIM LEHRER: It did? It's over? JIM LEHRER: It's over? That's OK. I didn't know about that.Look, the Supreme Court, we just heard what the experts said. What are the politics of this? What the court has done, particularly in the last two or three major decisions, do you think it will have any effect at all on the presidential election? DAVID BROOKS: It could. I think the big question is whether Barack Obama has inoculated himself sufficiently. There were early statements his campaign made that he supported the D.C. gun law. Since then, he's walked away from that and has said his position — his real position has always been that supported the individual right to bear arms, the Scalia position.And he reiterated that yesterday. As the general election has started, he's become Senator Scalia this week. And he said — and they're pretty aggressive — saying gun-owners will feel very comfortable with Barack Obama.