As a law professor, Obama stood apart
Former students say he tested many ideas of campaign in classroom
THE LONG RUN
By Jodi Kantor
*Hmm, never completed a single work of legal scholarship*
At a formal institution, Barack Obama was a loose presence, joking with students about their romantic prospects, using first names, referring to case law one moment and “The Godfather” the next. He was also an enigmatic one, often leaving fellow faculty members guessing about his precise views.
Before he out raised every other presidential primary candidate in American history, Mr. Obama marched students through the thickets of campaign finance law. Before he helped redraw his own State Senate district, making it whiter and wealthier, he taught districting as a racially fraught study in how power is secured. And before he posed what may be the ultimate test of racial equality — whether Americans will elect a black president — he led students through African-Americans’ long fight for equal status.
*Obama claims he's not old school politics, sure seems old politics to me redrawing districts for power, same old ploy Pols have been doing for years.*
Standing in his favorite classroom in the austere main building, sharp-witted students looming above him, Mr. Obama refined his public speaking style, his debating abilities, his beliefs.
“He tested his ideas in classrooms,” said Dennis Hutchinson, a colleague. Every seminar hour brought a new round of, “Is affirmative action justified? Under what circumstances?” as Mr. Hutchinson put it.
*Meaning he knew even then he wanted the power of the President of the United States.*
'Thoughtful listener and questioner'
But Mr. Obama’s years at the law school are also another chapter which he seemed as intently focused on his own political rise as on the institution itself. Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was well liked at the law school, yet he was always slightly apart from it, leaving some colleagues feeling a little cheated that he did not fully engage. The
*Isn't it funny how he claims he engages people in conversation and he's the only one who can do this.*
“I don’t think anything that went on in these chambers affected him,” said Richard Epstein, a libertarian colleague who says he longed for Mr. Obama to venture beyond his ideological and topical comfort zones. “His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings.”
*Yet Obama has told us or thinks he's the only one who can fix this countries problems. How am I or anyone to believe this if he isn't willing to step up to the plate and TRY to hit it out of the park even if he can't. I'd rather someone tried and fail than someone whose even afraid to try.*
Mr. Obama had other business on his mind, embarking on five political races during his 12 years at the school. Teaching gave him satisfaction, along with a perch and a paycheck, but he was impatient with academic debates over “whether to drop a footnote or not drop a footnote,” said Abner J. Mikva, a mentor whose own career has spanned Congress, the federal bench and the same law school.
Douglas Baird, another colleague, remembers once asking Mr. Obama to assess potential candidates for governor.
“First of all, I’m not running for governor, “ Mr. Obama told him. “But if I did, I would expect you to support me.”
He was a third-year state senator at the time.
*Again here we see he has been looking to the largest office twelve years ago, not just recently as he tries to claim and that even then he was power hungry.*
Mr. Obama arrived at the law school in 1991 thanks to Michael W. McConnell, a conservative scholar who is now a federal appellate judge. As president of The Harvard Law Review, Mr. Obama had impressed Mr. McConnell with editing suggestions on an article; on little more than that, the law school gave him a fellowship, which amounted to an office and a computer, which he used to write his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.”
*Surprise Surprise! Once again no experience, hasn't paid his dues and he has it handed to him. Is it no wonder why he thinks and believes he's qualified and deserves to have the office of the President of the United States even though he isn't and doesn't!*
The school had almost no black faculty members, a special embarrassment given its location on the South Side. Its sleek halls bordered a neighborhood crumbling with poverty and neglect. In his 2000 Congressional primary race, Representative Bobby L. Rush, a former Black Panther running for re-election, used Mr. Obama’s ties to the school to label him an egghead and an elitist.
*Obama is an elitist and has been as we can see most of his life. I thought he was so worried about the plight of the poor inner schools and blacks. So why didn't he give up his position, salary he had there and move up the block to teach those he claimed(s) he cared(s) so much about to improve their lives. To better and further them and their lives, because there wasn't anything in it for him, thats why. No power was to be gained doing that.*
At the school, Mr. Obama taught three courses, ascending to senior lecturer, a title otherwise carried only by a few federal judges. His most traditional course was in the due process and equal protection areas of constitutional law. His voting rights class traced the evolution of election law, from the disenfranchisement of blacks to contemporary debates over districting and campaign finance. Mr. Obama was so interested in the subject that he helped Richard Pildes, a professor at
*Again something handed to him not earned. Only a few FEDERAL JUDGES hold that title, yet her Mr. Obama who was not at the time nor is currently, or has ever been a Federal Judge is giving this title, there's a nigger in the woodpile that's for sure.*
His most original course, a historical and political seminar as much as a legal one, was on racism and law. Mr. Obama improvised his own textbook, including classic cases like Brown v. Board of Education, and essays by Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as conservative thinkers like Robert H. Bork.
Mr. Obama was especially eager for his charges to understand the horrors of the past, students say. He assigned a 1919 catalog of lynching victims, including some who were first raped or stripped of their ears and fingers, others who were pregnant or lynched with their children, and some whose charred bodies were sold off, bone fragment by bone fragment, to gawkers.
“Are there legal remedies that alleviate not just existing racism, but racism from the past?” Adam Gross, now a public interest lawyer in
For all the weighty material, Mr. Obama had a disarming touch. He did not belittle students; instead he drew them out, restating and polishing halting answers, students recall. In one class on race, he imitated the way clueless white people talked. “Why are your friends at the housing projects shooting each other?” he asked in a mock-innocent voice.
*That isn't racist? So why is it if a white male prof would do this same thing in a black voice saying, "Why are you so safe in your white neighborhoods?" that prof would be fired. Reverse racism is reverse racism. Oh wait, I forgot, Obama gets a pass on everything, that's right. Sorry!*
A favorite theme, said Salil Mehra, now a law professor at
*I highly doubt this as she is a bigger racist than even her husband Obama is, just look at her thesis paper.*
As his reputation for frank, exciting discussion spread, enrollment in his classes swelled. Most scores on his teaching evaluations were positive to superlative. Some students started referring to themselves as his groupies. (Mr. Obama, in turn, could play the star. In what even some fans saw as self-absorption, Mr. Obama’s hypothetical cases occasionally featured himself. “Take Barack Obama, there’s a good-looking guy,” he would introduce a twisty legal case.)
Liberals flocked to his classes, seeking refuge. After all, the professor was a progressive politician who backed child care subsidies and laws against racial profiling, and in a 1996 interview with the school newspaper sounded skeptical of President Bill Clinton’s efforts to reach across the aisle.
*Funny against racial profiling? Yet at the very same time he promoted racism in his class and Bill Clinton did reach across the isle successfully several times. What did he say several times in past Presidential debates about people getting stuff wrong the first time. He was right then (about Clinton) so why should I think his perception is any better on any other issue?*
“On the national level, bipartisanship usually means Democrats ignore the needs of the poor and abandon the idea that government can play a role in issues of poverty, race discrimination, sex discrimination or environmental protection,” Mr. Obama said.
*A point I believe Mr. Obama proved by not leaving the University of Chicago Law School to go right across the street in the slums and teach there.*
But the liberal students did not necessarily find reassurance. “For people who thought they were getting a doctrinal, rah-rah experience, it wasn’t that kind of class,” said D. Daniel Sokol, a former student who now teaches law at the
Life better under segregation?
For one thing, Mr. Obama’s courses chronicled the failure of liberal policies and court-led efforts at social change: the Reconstruction-era amendments that were rendered meaningless by a century of resistance, the way the triumph of Brown gave way to fights over busing, the voting rights laws that crowded blacks into as few districts as possible. He was wary of noble theories, students say; instead, they call Mr. Obama a contextualist, willing to look past legal niceties to get results.
*
For another, Mr. Obama liked to provoke. He wanted his charges to try arguing that life was better under segregation, that black people were better athletes than white ones.
“I remember thinking, ‘You’re offending my liberal instincts,’ ” Mary Ellen Callahan, now a privacy lawyer in
*RACIST RACIST RACIST*
In his voting rights course, Mr. Obama taught Lani Guinier’s proposals for structuring elections differently to increase minority representation. Opponents attacked those suggestions when Ms. Guinier was nominated as assistant attorney general for civil rights in 1993, costing her the post.
“I think he thought they were good and worth trying,” said David Franklin, who now teaches law at
But whether out of professorial reserve or budding political caution, Mr. Obama would not say so directly. “He surfaced all the competing points of view on Guinier’s proposals with total neutrality and equanimity,” Mr. Franklin said. “He just let the class debate the merits of them back and forth.”
*Letting others do his dirty work (old school politics), not answering the hard questions, letting the truth shine forth (old school politics)*
While students appreciated Mr. Obama’s evenhandedness, colleagues sometimes wanted him to take a stand. When two fellow faculty members asked him to support a controversial antigang measure, allowing the Chicago police to disperse and eventually arrest loiterers who had no clear reason to gather, Mr. Obama discussed the issue with unusual thoughtfulness, they say, but gave little sign of who should prevail — the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the measure, or the community groups that supported it out of concern about crime.
*Why? Why was he so worried about helping those that again he claims he cares so deeply about when it would lower crime? I'll tell you why, because he can't make the tough decisions when the time comes for fear of what HE might lose or what will happen to HIS future if he does and pisses someone off. That translates into OLD SCHOOL POLITICS once again, something I thought he was against. Well BOY that's what the President of the United States has to do everyday. So again why should I want you as the President when you show you can't even make a decision an easy decision on street crime? Why showed I trust you to make the hard decisions the ones that really count that could and will at one time or another have real dire impacts on the world. You're a fink.*
“He just observed it with a kind of interest,” said Daniel Kahan, now a professor at Yale.
Nor could his views be gleaned from scholarship; Mr. Obama has never published any. He was too busy, but also, Mr. Epstein believes, he was unwilling to put his name to anything that could haunt him politically, as Ms. Guinier’s writings had hurt her. “He figured out, you lay low,” Mr. Epstein said.
*OLD SCHOOL POLITICS, COVER MY ASS, DON'T REALLY CARE AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T AFFECT ME, PATICUARLY MY CAREER!*
‘Not sure he was close to anyone’
The
Mr. Obama rarely attended, even when he was in town.
“I’m not sure he was close to anyone,” Mr. Hutchinson said, except for a few liberal constitutional law professors, like Cass Sunstein, now an occasional adviser to his campaign. Mr. Obama was working two other jobs, after all, in the State Senate and at a civil rights law firm.
Several colleagues say Mr. Obama was surely influenced by the ideas swirling around the law school campus: the prevailing market-friendliness, or economic analysis of the impact of laws. But none could say how. “I’m not sure we changed him,” Mr. Baird said.
*Oh, please. The reason he didn't join in was he couldn't have cared less and was once again afraid about his future political career. So he wasn't interactive with his peers, why should I or anyone else he'll be interactive with the American people, Congress, or anyone. Why should we the American people believe him when he says he's the only one who can fix our problems with the World. You have to be interactive to get anything done.*Because he never fully engaged, Mr. Obama “doesn’t have the slightest sense of where folks like me are coming from,” Mr. Epstein said. “He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues.”
*Like I have been saying the whole time, why should we believe in him when we look not only at his personality and what people who know him say. Obama has a long history and we only have to look at his current history to see his past follows him, case in point look at his voting record and attendance record for Congress. He hasn't the slightest clue about anyone's problems particuarly the common working man, nor could he care. He's not engaged as he tries to fool everyone into believing he is.*
As Mr. Obama built his political career, his so-called groupies became an early core of supporters, handing out leaflets and hosting fund-raisers in their modest apartments.
*Again as I stated before his superstar messiah complex began a long long time ago.*
Humilitating Campaign
“Maybe we charged an audacious $20?” said Jesse Ruiz, now a corporate lawyer in
Mr. Obama never mentioned his humiliating, hopeless campaign against Mr. Rush in class (he lost by a two-to-one margin), though colleagues noticed that he seemed exhausted and was smoking more than usual.
*No, why we he do that and ruin his rockstar, god complex. Why would he show his human, or allow his students to dent his ass, as he had dented others. Hypicrosy that's why. Obama still smokes as in right now. Just what I want a President who is in the hip pocket of BIG TOBACCO!*
Soon after, the faculty saw an opening and made him its best offer yet: Tenure upon hiring. A handsome salary, more than the $60,000 he was making in the State Senate or the $60,000 he earned teaching part time. A job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic.
Your political career is dead, Daniel Fischel, then the dean, said he told Mr. Obama, gently. Mr. Obama turned the offer down. Two years later, he decided to run for the Senate. He canceled his course load and has not taught since.
*No he had a better plan as show just above. Besides he wanted something the university couldn't offer him, POWER! Power which he used to get his wife a job she didn't earn that got her a salary of 300K a year.*
Now, watching the news, it is dawning on Mr. Obama’s former students that he was mining material for his political future even as he taught them.
Byron Rodriguez, a real estate lawyer in San Francisco, recalls his professor’s admiration for the soaring but plainspoken speeches of Frederick Douglass.
“No one speaks this way anymore,” Mr. Obama told his class, wondering aloud what had happened to the art of political oratory. In particular, Mr. Obama admired Douglass’s use of a collective voice that embraced black and white concerns, one that Mr. Obama has now adopted himself.
*So now we see this isn't something original that's his own but rather stolen. Obama's even an ENIGMA even to Obama (himself). Hell I'm my own man and can define myself, I haven't stolen anyone's self to define myself. Why again should anyone trust this man to be President when he doesn't even know who he is himself?*
In class, Mr. Obama sounded many of the same themes he does on the campaign trail, Ms. Callahan said, ticking them off: “self-determinism as opposed to paternalism, strength in numbers, his concept of community development.”
But as a professor, students say, Mr. Obama was in the business of complication, showing that even the best-reasoned rules have unintended consequences, that competing legal interests cannot always be resolved, that a rule that promotes justice in one case can be unfair in the next.
So even some former students who are thrilled at Mr. Obama’s success wince when they hear him speaking like the politician he has so fully become.
*Read that again*
So even some former students who are thrilled at Mr. Obama’s success wince when they hear him speaking like the politician he has so fully become.
*People he taught, people who know him intimately, say they hear him speaking like the POLITICIAN he has SO fully become! How many times has Obama claimed we're tired of OLD SCHOOL POLITICS? How many times have we seen that he is what he claims others are and he isn't. The most damming evidence: the people he taught say they WINCE WHEN THEY HEAR HIM SPEAKING LIKE THE POLITICIAN HE HAS SO FULLY BECOME!*
“When you hear him talking about issues, it’s at a level so much simpler than the one he’s capable of,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “He was a lot more fun to listen to back then.”
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
