What is Digg?58 Comments
- sweetestbirdie, on 07/30/2008, -9/+29
Some other law profs give their take:
Randy Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, writes that Mr. Obama’s exam questions seem to be designed to “ferret out the student’s understanding, but also the cracks and fissures in the Supreme Court’s current approach to the Constitution.”
Randy Barnett | 12:15 p.m.: While the course materials themselves do not tell us very much about Senator Obama, the candidate, what they do tell is about Obama, the teacher, is generally favorable. I was particularly intrigued by his 1994 syllabus on “Racism and the Law.” The materials assigned were balanced, including several readings by Frederick Douglass, who many modern race theorists have come to disparage as insufficiently radical (as Obama would know), along with an exchange between Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy on the one hand and Charles Cooper (who is now on Senator McCain’s advisory committee) and Texas law professor Lino Graglia on the other. All three essays appeared in the conservative/libertarian Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy as part of a 1991 symposium on “The Future of Civil Rights Law” and were initially presented at the Federalist Society’s 1990 National Student Symposium held at Stanford. The articles were published during Obama’s third year as a law student so it is not surprising that he would be aware of them. And they would have been fresh at the time they were assigned.
I was struck by Obama’s list of possible discussion topics for his seminar. They comprehensively and concisely identified most of the issues of “race and the law” that were then being widely discussed. What particularly impressed me was how even handed were his presentations of the competing sides the students might take. These summaries were remarkably free of the sort of cant and polemics that all too often afflicts academic discussions of race. Were this not a seminar on “racism and the law” I doubt one could tell which side of each issue the teacher was on. And indeed, even knowing it was written by Senator Obama, one cannot be sure which side of each issue he really took. Whatever position he held, however, Obama could clearly see and dispassionately articulate the other side.
The exam question and answer keys manifest a keen comprehension of then-prevailing Supreme Court Due Process and Equal Protection Clause doctrine. There is no doubt that his students were taught “the law” (such as it was), not merely the teacher’s viewpoints. His exam questions were nicely designed to ferret out the student’s understanding, but also the cracks and fissures in the Supreme Court’s current approach to the Constitution. What they did not show, however, were any insights on the how he thought Supreme Court doctrine could be improved.
Indeed, if one is looking to these material to learn more about Senator Obama’s own views of either “racism and the law” or the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, one will be disappointed. He either was skillful at concealing his own take on these issues both in these materials and in the classroom (as reported by his former students) or he held no deep commitments on what one would think were matters of central concern to him. While this latter possibility would make him a flexible politician, it is bound to disappoint his most vehement supporters and detractors alike. In the end, while they confirm that the former president of the Harvard Law Review is a smart guy, and an exceptionally fair-minded teacher, they tell us little about his core beliefs on the very sensitive issues covered by these courses. Nor perhaps should we have expected them to.
*****
The next post is from Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of constitutional law at Yale and a former clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer, who compliments the quality of Mr. Obama’s exam questions.
Akhil Reed Amar | 11:51 a.m.: Barack Obama’s exam questions and answers engaged me on several levels.
First, As a constitutional law professor, I came away impressed — dazzled, really — by the analytic intelligence and sophistication of these questions and answers. A really good exam — an exam that tests and stretches the student, while simultaneously providing the professor with a handy and fair index to rank the class — is its own special art form. Composing such an exam is like crafting a sonnet or a crossword puzzle. We don’t have Obama’s answer key every year; but the questions themselves are in many instances beautifully constructed to enable students to explore the seams and plumb the depths of the Supreme Court’s case law. I am tempted to use variations of several of these questions myself in some future exam. (I won’t say which, lest I tip my students off.) When I read Jodi Kantor’s piece, I was very interested to hear that the University of Chicago Law School was willing to offer Obama tenure. In these materials I see why.
Second, as a student of history, I couldn’t help thinking of Lincoln. Not just because we have a skinny guy from Illinois who is largely self-made and who can write a great speech — I knew that already. Lincoln was a brilliant lawyer, who did his own thinking and writing and cut to the essence of hard legal issues with amazing incisiveness. Lincoln understood the Constitution and its deepest structures as well as or better than any of the Justices on the Supreme Court of his day. These materials helped me see Obama in a similar light.
Which brings me to the last level — the moral level. Like Lincoln, Jefferson and Madison were also brilliant. But Jefferson and Madison lived and died as slaveholders and did much less than they could have done to put slavery on a path of ultimate extinction. Nixon had a keen legal mind, but a large moral blind spot. Lincoln had a rare combination of moral depth and legal brilliance. Make no mistake, he was a politician who understood how to tack and trim. But he was a politician with a strong moral compass and a deep understanding of the rule of law. Similarly, there is a great deal of moral seriousness in Obama’s legal materials. They are not just about technical and technocratic legal questions. Some of the great mysteries and tragedies of human life and American society — involving marriage, divorce, childbearing, cloning, the right to die with dignity, infertility, sexual orientation, and yes, of course, race — are probed in these materials in ways that encourage students to think not just about law, but about justice, and truth, and morality.
*****
First up, John C. Eastman, a professor of constitutional law at Chapman University and a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas:
John C. Eastman | 11:11 a.m.: Although Senator Obama’s teaching position at the University of Chicago Law School overlapped my own time there as a student, I did not have occasion to take one of his classes—I tended to register for the classes of the full-time tenured faculty rather than those taught by adjuncts such as Mr. Obama—but I am not surprised to see the intellectual diversity for which Chicago is famous reflected in then-Professor Obama’s course syllabi and examinations. The syllabus from the 1994 “Current Issues in Racism and the Law” course is particularly instructive. While at many law schools, such courses are frequently taught by critical race theorists who focus largely on one side of a complex legal and policy debate, then-Professor Obama’s course included, quite appropriately in my view, readings from across the ideological spectrum, from Derrick Bell and Malcolm X to Chuck Cooper and Lino Graglia.
I was particularly pleased to see a reading from the classic work by Vattel, one of the leading international law theorists in all of human history, The Law of Nations. What is more, it is evident from the sampling of proposed topics for group presentations contained in the syllabus that this spectrum of authors was included for more than mere exposure. Rather, it appears that then-Professor Obama was leading his students in an honest assessment of competing views regarding some of the most difficult legal and policy issues our nation has ever faced—a refreshing change from what passes for debate about contested questions in our political classes these days. My one criticism of the course is his recommendation that students read Derrick Bell’s summary of some landmark (if notorious) Supreme Court decisions. Cases such as Dred Scott v. Sanford, The Slaughterhouse Cases, and Plessy v. Ferguson, and in particular the strong dissenting opinions in those cases, cry out for careful study of the original materials, not a secondary summary.
Only occasionally do then-Professor Obama’s decidedly personal views come across. He refers to Justice Scalia’s approach to assessing fundamental rights as “cramped,” for example. But on the whole, this is a body of course materials that is as would be expected of Chicago Law Professors.
SEE ..... thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/inside-professor-obamas-classroom/#more-5666 - inactive, on 07/30/2008, -10/+30wow, that was a really well written article, offering an insightful glimpse from a former student of Barack Obama
- Kesseire, on 07/30/2008, -6/+22When I first read the Times article, I found many of the same flaws as this respondent (Kantor couldn't catch the self-deprecating humor? She'd damn three-quarters of my old law professors!). I felt this rebuttal piece was well-written, and it definitely suggests that Kantor may have had some of her own ideas about Obama which shaped who she opted to interview and what she decided to take out of those conversations. I think this piece may be more useful to understanding Obama's time there than the original NY Times article.
- johnleemk, on 07/31/2008, -4/+13Since when was HuffPo supposed to be neutral?
- PhilLesh69, on 07/31/2008, -7/+16Yet another attack against anything not approved by Bill O'Reilly.
What the ***** is the huffnitpost? I haven't watched Bill for the last few nights. Is this his new attack against anyone who disagrees with him? - flashthom, on 07/31/2008, -4/+12I think their bias has been pretty clear all along. I'm an Obama supporter, and I'll say it, the Huffington Post is basically an Obama love-fest. Then again, I am a liberal, secular elitist, so I feel right at home. This is not to say that one should filter the content one reads so it agrees with their ideology. I also read the Economist, which offers insightful and sometimes even brilliant food for thought.
- gcacho, on 07/31/2008, -5/+11I've never seen an article eviscerated like that. I guess this is called setting the record straight?
- PhilLesh69, on 07/31/2008, -1/+6sweetestbirdie... You just achieved the world's record for longest digg comment.
You maxed out the digg comment system, and needed a second comment to complete your diatribe.
Well, it wasn't really a diatribe, what you did was you pasted an entire web page into digg.
EVER HEARD OF LINKS? IT IS HOW THE WEB WORKS! - crweaks23, on 07/31/2008, -3/+7People in this country are retarded. I WANT my president to be elitist, he's my ***** president. Is there some reason you want a president that "you can have a beer with?" There are plenty of morons I can have a beer with that I don't want anywhere near the launch button for a nuclear missile. Anyone preaching the elitist bs is a MORON.
- joot2112, on 07/31/2008, -6/+10I thought I was done donating to Obama's campaign, but after reading that I went in for another $25. With firsthand knowledge, the article supports my suspicion that Obama is even more intelligent than he is forced to come off in the mainstream media. Elitist maybe, but I prefer intellectual elitism to genuine dumb.
- julessiegel, on 07/31/2008, -3/+7Expect worse as the campaign unfolds.
- tdfm, on 07/31/2008, -0/+4A a university professor I find that the best instructors are not ideologue. In fact, I am at my best when it is not clear to the students on what side I stand--I want to pass on to them the skills to think for themselves, not to think like me. So I would hope that if I was critiqued later some of the same mistakes that the Times article made would also be made if written by someone ignorant of honest academics. One of the problems is that it seems to be a dying art, the integrity of academics, especially due to agenda driven ideologues over the last 20 years.
- amida, on 07/31/2008, -0/+3Even worse, he guy they "wanted to have a beer with" is a teetotaler.
- sarchosis, on 07/31/2008, -6/+9Do journalists like Kantor not think someone will catch their ***** or do they honestly think they know what they're talking about?
- Ukonu, on 07/31/2008, -1/+4"...Time have a LOVE FEST for Obama"
You didn't read even either of the articles did you? - smittie, on 07/31/2008, -0/+3You know, if the author had been a prof during the time Mr. Obama was there, I might lend the article some credence. He took one class from Mr. Obama and based on that experience he wants to refute the slightings that he perceives in the article. I read the original article. I don't think there was any intent to slight Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama was a liberal professor in a conservative academic environment. Some of the other professors there either didn't understand Mr. Obama or didn't really like him. Wow! What a surprise. The article did leave me with the impression that Mr. Obama was a good teacher and a hard worker. Excellent qualities.
- uncertain, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2Seems odd. I've "Thumbs upped" a couple comments above, and the numbers don't change. Does Diebold count the votes for Digg?
- thespiff, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2Why would someone write an article evaluating how presidential Obama's performance was as a law professor? Would you evaluate Indiana Jones's treasure hunting ability based on the same criteria?
The original article really made the NYT front page? The same paper whose high standards prevented them from running a McCain rebuttal to an Obama editorial because it was strictly an argument and did not present any new points? - MacEnvy, on 07/31/2008, -0/+2You didn't read the post, did you? It seemed very positive to me.
- Drahkar, on 07/31/2008, -1/+3Its not a pile of *****. It is a complete waste of time to read however. Nader has about as much bearing on this election year as I would walking up to the White House demanding for my chance at president. This guy needs to realize that his suggestion, not only a painfully long-winded statement, is not one that would have any benefit to the election.
A better course of action would people to flood places like the New York Times with letters, calls and emails stating their anger and frustration in the obviously biased and untruthful reporting that is going on in the media today. Use specific points where McCain has made horrible statements and done completely contradictory things that the people is ignoring while writing up fabrications similar to this article to make Obama look bad. - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -1/+3Nah, the rightards gave up on the issues and content long ago, now they just attempt to derail the real converstations.
As cowards they are too frightened to actually support the war they cheer for, so all they have is bitching on digg.
It's pathetic. - inactive, on 08/02/2008, -0/+1apparently you should do the same, and re-learn what fascism is.
- inactive, on 08/02/2008, -0/+1Please educate me. Links, rerferences. I've always gone by Mussolini's definition, since he coined the term. In what ways does Obama match his definition (not Jonah Goldberg's).
- Gerz1219, on 07/31/2008, -2/+3"Threatening to walk away from the table is the only way to give Obama an excuse to push for peace against the military/corporate interests that supply most of his funding."
Check your calendar. It's not 2000 anymore. Howard Dean fixed the problem of campaign financing when he discovered that a candidate can raise a lot of money with small donations from everyday people over the internet. Who are these military/corporate interests that you think are funding Obama? He doesn't accept such funding because he doesn't need to.
Thank you for reminding me exactly why Ralph Nader is so hopelessly irrelevant, even anachronistic. He and his supporters still cling to this Republicrat *****, which has been entirely refuted when one compares the last eight years with the alternate universe we'd be living in if Gore had become president. A candidate more liberal than Barack Obama cannot be elected in this country until we have a successful two-term left-leaning president. Take your lumps when Obama moves to the center, help him get elected, and maybe you'll get a real liberal in office by 2020. Or, as you people did eight years ago, you can throw another temper tantrum, force Obama to pour precious resources into close states, and self-righteously whine when McCain spends four more years ***** the country without a rubber.
2000 was a tragedy. Don't make 2008 a farce. - tcpip4lyfe, on 07/31/2008, -0/+1tl;dr
Same for you. - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -1/+2What a sad loser you are.
Your ENTIRE identity on digg seems to come down to that symbol you paste in there.
Wow.
What a rightard hero you are.
Sadly that DOES pass for being a right wing hero.
In the real world you are a warmonger too ***** to actually enlist. Yeah, be proud. - inactive, on 08/02/2008, -0/+1Please educate me. Links, rerferences. I've always gone by Mussolini's definition, since he coined the term.
- arbouler, on 07/31/2008, -5/+6^did you folks even read the article before complaining about the huff spam?
- inactive, on 07/31/2008, -3/+4THAT NEOCONSERVATIVE RAG!!!
- toetagger, on 08/02/2008, -0/+1Another NYT reporter in the Neo-Con pocket.
- nihility, on 07/31/2008, -1/+1I didn't even know it was possible to call out the NYT for not being pro-Obama enough. Lesson learned.
- bacchante, on 07/31/2008, -3/+3I wonder if anyone will take the time to read your entire pile of *****.
- datastorageguy, on 07/31/2008, -6/+6Buried as spam.
- uncertain, on 07/31/2008, -7/+7"Mr. Obama’s years at the law school are also another chapter in which he seemed as intently focused on his own political rise as on the institution itself. "
Sound familiar, Senator Kerry? - bacchante, on 08/04/2008, -0/+0"not one that would have any benefit to the election" is what I meant by *****.
Also, it's such a poor idea, I think it is more likely this is the work of pro-McCain ***** rather than an actual Nader fan. - inactive, on 08/01/2008, -1/+1Socialist maybe, but fascist? People need to find a new word to misuse. Perhaps read some actual history, not the revisionist crap floating around now.
- fschwedman40, on 09/07/2008, -0/+0Most of these comments miss the essential problem with the entire "Obama at University of Chicago" story. In his book, "THe Audacity of Hope", Senator Obama writes (page 84) -- and I quote -- "For ten years before coming to Washington, I taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. I loved the law school classroom: the stripped-down nature of it, the high-wire act of standing in front of a room at the beginning of each class with just blackboard and chalk..."
The reason this story is a potential issue is the following: "Race, Racism, and the Law" is NOT "Constitutional Law." Anyone who has been to law school and who is honest with themselves knows this. Now the casework in a class entitled "Race, Racism, and the Law" might have involved law finally made by the Supreme Court, but it is EXTREMELY MISLEADING to confuse the two. "Race, Racism, and the Law" is definitely the sort of course that might be taught by an adjunct professor with community organizer experience such as that posessed by Mr. Obama, but "Constitutional Law" is a course that is nearly always taught by a member of the full-time faculty, if only because it is a mandatory course with a large number of students. (The whole dispute about whether Obama was a professor is ridiculous. If the University of Chicago says he was a professor, he was a professor). The real question is: WHY DID SENATOR OBAMA "SHADE THE TRUTH" (or if you prefer, "lie")? (It is there in black-and-white at the bottom of page 84. It is simply not something you can dispute.) Why not simply come out and say he taught a course entitled "Race, Racism, and the Law" on a part-time basis while doing civil rights work at a Chicago law firm full-time?? I think the question answers itself: it sounds better, and is less threatening to the great masses who he needs to win the Presidency.
- EnderMB, on 07/31/2008, -2/+2Buried for leftist Huffington Post spam.
- LastVisibleDog, on 07/31/2008, -2/+2yes
next question? - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -1/+1That is correct, cowardly rightard shill.
See, even cowardly warmongers can figure out the facts once in a great while. - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -1/+1Whaaaaaaaaa!
Whaaaaaa!
Huffpost has us PEGGED, and we HATE it!
Huffpost shows us to be the ignorant scumbags we are, and we don't like having to admit what cowards we are.
Whaaaa, why can't everyone just be like LGF so we don't have to face how un-Christian and un-American we are!
Whaaaaaaa!
You are pathetic, you ***** warmonger.
How do you stand being such a dishonest coward?
Why don't you just flush yourself back to LGF with the rest of the *****? - Gimpy1983, on 07/31/2008, -1/+0I agree, its detrimental though that many people who read the initial New York Times article will believe it as truth or fact, what they fail to realize is that the writer took others opinions which make any fact become secondary information. Like the game "Telephone", facts get muddled almost certainly, no to mention that rewrites or editing can skew context further. I believe that the writer (former student) of the new article hit the head on the nail when they spoke of the initial writers possible bias which pressed them to interview those they did, and or portions they used. There is even the possibility that the portions that the NYT writer used are most likely small portions of what the interviewed had said or even meant. In my opinion the former students article is more relevant as it is primary information/opinion of the writer rather then secondary, and the fact that they also included some insight to those who made statements in the initial article even if it is the opinion of the student, there is no twisting of their words, it is from start to finish raw with no intermediary to skew the thoughts and opinions.
** I know I'm long winded, and sometimes things may not make any sense or flow. I believe that you either get what I'm trying to say or you don't, either way I'm OK with that, take it for what it is, my opinion ** - Lamadave222, on 07/31/2008, -3/+1OK I read the whole article. A little verbose I would say. But objectively we have an Obama sycophant who is publishing books about Obama saying that he was a fabulous professor. It is perhaps more important who he hung out with as an adjunct faculty member, you know....Billy "the Mad Bomber" Ayers, Rhashid "drive the Jews out of Palestine" Khalidi, Bernadine "Kill the Pigs" Dohrn, than whether he included himself in some lame example. And for the apologists, it IS important if the continuous fabrications are meant to build his meglomaniacal vision of himself and his place in history. By the way where does this little catch phrase of his "perfecting" himself and us come from? He is an apostate and being unprincipled, he is not someone I want in the big chair.
- TheInformer, on 07/31/2008, -12/+10Must... not.... let.... ۞bama... look.... bad.
There, I think I wrote that simply enough for Huffingtonpost.
Huffingtonpost SPAM.
Buried. - tcpip4lyfe, on 07/31/2008, -10/+8huffingtonpost = bury
- inactive, on 08/01/2008, -3/+1Obama's not a communist, he's a fascist. That's why he's the perfect presidential candidate. The Hamiltonian "American System" was designed to devolve from the near-anarchy of early post-revolutionary America into a totalitarian corporatist empire/nightmare, which it has. Obama is merely the next logical step in the systematic eradication of liberty. He is to Bush what Hitler was to Bismarck.
- TheInformer, on 07/31/2008, -4/+1You have committed ۞bama heresy. You didn't drink of his kool-aid. You didn't wear his sandals. You didn't write a post that either lavishly praised him or smeared his rival. You didn't ignore his shortcomings.
You used fact.
Heretic. - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -6/+2The more I read the more I am convinced there is nothing real about OBushma. Puffing up his time as a "professor" to try to make it look like he actually did something is almost funny.
How could anyone who supposedly knows the law also be as ignorant when it comes to following it? Why is it OBushma refuses to admit that the reason for the second amendment is security in a free state? At the OBushma campaign site he claims the only two legitimate reasons for owning a gun is target shooting and hunting but in reality he is surrounded by people with guns for security. He claims that he knows that the 4th amendment does not say we are to be secure in our person property papers and effects and that warrantless wiretapping is somehow OK. For a law professor he is pretty stupid when it comes to the law and the Constitution.
Perhaps his ignorance is intentional and he's just trying to pander to the leftists he adores? - xman8, on 07/31/2008, -8/+4OK. We get it!
Huffington Post and Time have a LOVE FEST for Obama. (liberal propaganda that appears to be news, of course!)
Digg is where we all come to worship him. - inactive, on 07/31/2008, -21/+15Yet another Obama puff piece from the huffinitpost.
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