Earlier this week an appearance by White House director of domestic policy Melody Barnes at Boston College's School of Law created something of a controversy. The Huffington Post reported that Barnes "implicitly acknowledged" her support for gay marriage at the event. If true, this would possibly make her the first high-profile administration official to break publicly with Obama's stated belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. An anonymous White House official quickly denied the account, claiming that Barnes didn't discuss "her personal views on marriage equality or other issues." Attendees of the event contacted by HuffPo offered varying impressions of what Barnes actually said: one said she "did state that she supports marriage equality;" others recall her answer being less explicit.

Mother Jones has obtained a transcript of the event and Barnes certainly implied that she and President Obama have a difference of opinion when it comes to gay marriage. Barnes was asked "whether you support equal civil marriage rights for gay and lesbian Americans, and if so, are you speaking or will you speak with President Obama on this civil rights matter?"

Barnes began by describing what the President is doing to promote gay rights—he has, she said, indicated that he wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and "encourage changes in the military." Then she returned to the original subject of the question—marriage equality: "I accept that that is very different than what you're talking about."  She proceeded: "With regard to my own views, those are my own views. And I come to my own experience based on what I've learned, based on the relationships I've had with friends and their relationships that I respect, the children that they're raising, and that is something that I support."  

Barnes then suggested that she and the president have different views on the issue of gay marriage: "He hasn't articulated a shift in his position there and that is something that at this moment I accept. It is what it is, even as we continue to have a conversation with him about it."

Her answer wasn't as direct as it could have been. But when talking about marriage, she said, "that is something that I support." Perhaps it could be claimed that she was referring only to the relationships of her friends—but her remarks also indicate that she and Obama hold different views on this issue. If Barnes does back gay marriage—which would not be terribly surprising for an Obama official—it's not a big deal. But why was the White House so quick to deny that she'd even discussed her own thoughts on the matter?

The video will be posted on Boston College's website later this afternoon; a full transcript of the exchange is after the jump:

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From left to right: Lance Cpl. John Franke and Staff Sgt. David Dial enter a compound in Nawa District, Helmand Province, Afghanistan on Nov. 6, 2009. Franke is a 20 year old amphibious assault vehicle operator from Greenville, S.C. and Dial is a 29 year old section leader from Newnan, Ga. Both are with Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. Marines conducted an operation to search compounds for weapons and improvised explosive device making materials in a local village, Nov. 6. (US Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. John McCall.)

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When Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act last month, he also charged the US Sentencing Commission with the task of reviewing mandatory minimum sentences, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Mandatory minimums have drawn criticism for being overly harsh and even racially unfair in their implementation. In the most contentious example, powder cocaine users (typically white) must be caught with 100 times more cocaine than crack cocaine users (predominantly black) to receive a similar sentence.

The Commission has consistently opposed mandatory minimums since 1991, but Congress has avoided reform because minimums are easy to implement and (ideally) ensure that everyone who commits the same crime does the same time. For example, Patrick Fitzgerald, the star prosecutor in Rod Blagojevich's corruption scandal, told the Commission (pdf) in September that mandatory minimum sentences "have been a very effective tool in prosecuting particularly violent offenders... Mandatory minimum sentences also has caused some people not to commit such offenses and thus not go to jail at all."

But Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) argues that the requirements have not achieved their intended purpose of reducing crime and scaring minor criminals into giving information about the most flagrant offenders in return for lighter sentences. As any self-respecting fan of The Wire knows, those at the bottom of the drug pyramid don't get details about what goes on up top. So while the drug kingpins have an avenue through which to reduce their sentences, says Jennifer Seltzer-Stitt, FAMM's federal legislative affairs director, "[minor users] who don't have anyone to trade get longer sentences."

So is Congress more likely to listen to the Sentencing Commission now than they have been in the past two decades?

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Today is the tenth birthday of the legislation that repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. Glass Steagall's repeal allowed banks to combine investment banking and commercial banking operations—a move that many people believe contributed to the financial crisis by allowing banks to grow larger than ever before. If you've been paying attention, you know that a lot of the people who celebrated Glass-Steagall's downfall are still running the economy today. But I didn't know just how much they celebrated. Here, via Felix Salmon, is American Banker's contemporaneous account of the party, which reads like something straight out of the Cake Wrecks blog:

The reaction on Capitol Hill to passage of the financial reform bill last week ranged from revelry to morbid humor. To mark the historic occasion, House Banking Committee Chairman Jim Leach played host to a group of his closest collaborators on the bill, including Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, Comptroller of the Currency John D. Hawke Jr., Treasury Under Secretary Gary Gensler, and Rep. John J. LaFalce, D-N.Y. They joined staff members, lobbyists, and reporters in drinking champagne and devouring a large cake, which bore an epitaph for the Depression-era separation of commercial and investment banking that the bill undoes. It read: "Glass-Steagall, R.I.P., 1933-1999."

Gary Gensler runs the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for the Obama administration. Larry Summers, of course, is Barack Obama's top economic adviser. Save a piece of cake for us, guys. (As Felix notes, it would be a-mazing to find a photo of this party.)

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