orgtheory.net

Fabio

The stage seems set: Obama & the Hill are struggling over the lead in Iowa, see-saw style. An Obama win allows him to survive till Super Tuesday, while a loss will give the press permission to declare the nomination over. I don’t see any big news until the caucus actually happens on Jan 3, the polls will likely show the two neck and neck for the next few weeks. In the mean time, you might enjoy this thoughtful post from the DailyKos blog that describes one person’s experience as an Obama student at the UoC law school:

But Obama was teaching a course in a subject I wanted to study – at a point when I realized that law school was too short to be spent in classes that felt obligatory – and that made it an easy decision.

And he was … different.  For one thing, better dressed.  Sleek sweaters and blazers as opposed to ill-fitting, coffee-stained suits with mismatched ties.  But he was also less formal, more relaxed – he never taught the class as though he knew the answers to all the questions he was posing and was just hiding the ball from us until we could find them.  Confident, sure, but never cocky.

What’s more, he taught Voting Rights in a different way than others do.  He didn’t use a textbook, for starters, but rather had us each purchase an eight-inch high multilith of cases, law review articles and statutes that he had personally compiled. And they weren’t all the “big” cases either – no, our class started by reviewing some early-19th century cases about the denial of the franchise, so that as the course moved forward we saw “voting rights” not as some static thing to be analyzed, but a constantly- and still-evolving process to be affected.  Over the course of a few months, we studied changes in the franchise, changes in the rights of political parties, campaign finance law and redistricting, among other topics.  We learned the law, but we also learned it on the level of real-world impact: based on a whites-only party primary, how many people would be denied a voice?  What kind of policies would result from such a legislature?

And:

Prof. Obama taught me to think about it differently.  He made me look at this as a real world issue, and not as a theoretical construct.  And in that world, unless some voices are physically present, they won’t be heard at all – and in the real world, legislatures are drawing their own maps to accumulate power, largely for incumbents.   In other words, don’t just be principled when everyone else is being pragmatic – fight for your principles with a pragmatic approach.

So, yes, I then spent 20+ pages demolishing what I spent a hundred building just two years before.  Why?  It reminds me of this courtroom scene between Denzel Washington and the trial judge in Philadelphia:

Judge Garrett: In this courtroom, Mr.Miller, justice is blind to matters of race, creed, color, religion, and sexual orientation.

Joe Miller: With all due respect, your honor, we don’t live in this courtroom, do we?

Professor Barack Obama reminded me that whatever my beliefs were, I’d have to find a way to implement them in the real world if I wanted to make change happen.  Good lesson.  Great professor.

Oh, and I only got a B on the paper.  

No grade inflation in the White House! Check out the whole interview.