But His Lectures Were Great . . .

In this morning’s NYT analysis of Sen. Obama’s twelve year tenure of con law at the University of Chicago Law School, several things stand out.  First, this sentence in the first paragraph is interesting, but not surprising: “While most colleagues published by the pound, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship.” It seems Barry was as prolific a professor as he was a law review editor and is a United States senator.  Secondly, Obama commented in 1996 on President Clinton’s bipartisan overtures this way: “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.”  This sounds like Sens. Boxer or Kennedy, not the Great Bridge Builder, not the Uniter, not the inspiration behind the “Obamacans,” not the One who will heal our divisions.  Will a reporter perhaps ask Him about this?  Finally, the theory that Sen. Obama’s Ego developed as a result of the adulation after his speech at the Democrat convention is clearly mistaken.  The article tells of his popularity among (liberal) students, but his behavior was off-putting to even them.    “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.”  But the real audacity is not of hope, but of narcissism:

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.

Confidence is a positive attribute.  This is frightening.