I’m hardly a foe of professors, or a friend to casual disdain for the academy. Professors tend to be very smart people, and deeply knowledgeable in their areas of expertise. There are exceptions, of course, but I’m comfortable saying that this is the rule. It’s uncontroversially so as to many disciplines; few people doubt it, for instance, about professors of physics. But even in the fields where expert judgment is more questioned — or suspected of being driven by ideology at least as much as by learning — professors are still generally very smart and knowledgeable in their own areas. Moreover, whatever the weaknesses of professors, the notion that ordinary folks are inherently wiser than the highly educated strikes me as quite mistaken.
At the same time, I wonder whether the failures of the Obama Administration are connected to what one might think of as the professor mindset, or rather the mindset of the educated elites. Professors are used to being listened to because they are professors. Their interaction with the other dwellers of the university is usually one of lecturing their inferiors (I mean here inferiors in the hierarchy), managing their inferiors’ discussion, and grading their inferiors — not trying to persuade people or build consensus. (Scholarship often involves trying to persuade people, but a particular set of people, and with few and rare tangible consequences if one doesn’t persuade.)
If I somehow became President — no, the thought is too horrific to contemplate (even setting aside its unconstitutionality) — let’s say if some of my friends in the academy were to become President, I can imagine them making some pretty important mistakes. They might, for instance, subconsciously assume that they’ll be listened to and obeyed. After all, they have a super-cool and powerful title, even cooler and more powerful than the one that made people listen to them before.
They might assume that others will pay their judgment the respect due to someone who is obviously so intelligent, articulate, educated, and learned. They might compare themselves to a previous officeholder who lacked all the credentials that they have long found so valuable, and naturally assume that they will succeed where the previous officeholder failed. They might dismiss the significance of political insurgencies that stem from people whose intellects and credentials they don’t respect. (If an academic learned that some students were organizing a meeting to challenge the academic’s scholarship, based on slogans and attitudes that the academic sees as shallow and ill-informed, how much would he really worry about the students’ actions?) They might overestimate the importance of argument, data, and articulateness, and underestimate the importance of listening to their inferiors — again, inferiors within the hierarchy — and figuring out how to get the inferiors on board with their proposals.
And I’m speaking here of my friends in the academy, including ones whose policies I would agree with on the merits. It doesn’t take someone foolish or evil to make these mistakes. They are natural mistakes that smart, well-intentioned people could easily make, especially if they come from an academic environment and see themselves as academically minded.
I recall someone remarking that President Eisenhower had some difficulty adjusting to political life, because he had been used to being a General, and to being obeyed as a General. [UPDATE: It turns out that it was President Truman who said that Eisenhower would have difficulty adjusting to political life, because he had been used to being a General, and to being obeyed as a General.] Professors aren’t Generals, for obvious reasons; and Obama isn’t as much a professor as some of us are professors. (That’s a descriptive claim, not a normative one.) But I wonder whether some of the failings of the Obama Administration really are tied to the President’s background in the academic elites, both as a professor and otherwise. They certainly seem consistent with some of the failings that one would expect from a professor.
PeteP says:
“Professors tend to be very smart people”
Then how do you explain all the tenured left-wing nut bags in academia ? :-)
“If I somehow became President — no, the thought is too horrific to contemplate”
We all saw that yellow tie of yours on the Youtube clip. That alone DQ’s you :-) PeteP(Quote)
MatthewM says:
I know that Truman quipped about Eisenhower being president: “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.” But I think Eisenhower actually adjusted to his role as President pretty handily. MatthewM(Quote)
AlbertE. says:
Obama was NEVER a professor. He was a lecturer. A big differenece between the two.
Professor is a full time faculty member, tenured or otherwise. O was NOT on the faculty at U. of Chi. O lectured regarding legal matters that were germane to the job of “community organizer”!
We must be specific and clear!!
Lecturer, not professor. AlbertE.(Quote)
Strict says:
“failings of the Obama Administration ”
Can you give some specific examples? Strict(Quote)
smarticus says:
It’s not a professorial problem, it’s a professional problem. Figuring out solutions to complex problems is something both professors and businesspersons do as a matter of course.
In politics, however, having the better solution doesn’t mean that you get your policies enacted. To reverse the old adage, people would rather be President than be right. Or in the current political context, the (opposing party) politician who prevents the president from solving problems is more likely to come into power.
This is an argument for more political experience, not less, which goes against typical anti-DC rhetoric. smarticus(Quote)
theobromophile says:
Wonderful post, Prof. Volokh. It adds something very substantial and rational to the idea that a lot of us would prefer to have MBAs or executive-types in the White House than professors and PhDs.
The one thing I will add is the semi-obvious (maybe) point that spending a lot of time in academia can skew your idea of where the centre lies and, in some disciplines, may make it tough for you [the general you, not you specifically] to understand one’s ideological opponents. I would hazard to guess that Obama neither understands exactly how conservative this country is, nor understands why people hold their conservative positions. theobromophile(Quote)
B.D. says:
Obama’s “scholarship” is non-existent. His job at UChicago was essentially a sinecure for a rising political star.
Do people refer to Bill Clinton as having been a professor for his time at the University of Arkansas? B.D.(Quote)
wm13 says:
Umm, the health care bill, the closing of Guantanamo, the negotiations with Iran, the Copenhagen summit . . . . wm13(Quote)
Strict says:
Albert,
The University of Chicago has put out a statement here. The relevant part: “Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track.”
Your “full-time” requirement to be called a “professor” is absurd. Have you never heard of adjunct professors?? Strict(Quote)
Justin says:
“the notion that ordinary folks are inherently wiser than the highly educated strikes me as quite mistaken”
I don’t want to accuse Professor Volokh of hubris, so I need to understand more of what he actually means here. Who are the “ordinary folks”? Surely he can’t mean everyone other than professors, and that only professors are highly educated? I would dare say there are a greater number of highly educated individuals that are not professors than are, and that many of them are wiser than professors.
I also wonder what is meant by wiser? Perhaps professors are much more knowledgeable about a narrow subject they study intensely and may be wiser than most non-professors in relation to that subject, but certainly not wiser on any other subject.
Part of the problem with smart professors who may be intelligent on one narrow subject is a mistaken belief that they are more intelligent on any other subject as well.
I am willing to bet that there are more non-professors that are highly educated and more knowledgeable on the subjects that matter than of professors who try to stray outside the narrow confines of their learned knowledge.
I hate to do it, but I also seem to remember that Sunstein and Thaler dealt a little with this in their book Nudge.
My point is simply that I think it is a fair assumption that ordinary folks are in fact wiser than highly educated professors. (obviously I think the use of inherently is irrelevant as I think he meant that more as a facial claim rather than an inherent trait of the individuals absent the accumulation of knowledge) Justin(Quote)
Strict says:
“the closing of Guantanamo”
Is the “failure” the fact that Guantanamo hasn’t closed? Or that Obama promised he would close it, but hasn’t yet?
The current failure of the health care bill seems partly the fault of Congress, or at least the Administration’s decision to let Congress take the lead on it (as opposed to the Clinton-era strategy). It doesn’t seem like a failure resulting from Obama’s mistaken belief that as President he could dictate law (“subconsciously assume that they’ll be listened to and obeyed”). Strict(Quote)
Mark Field says:
MatthewM is right that it was Truman who said that about Eisenhower. You can find the quote here. Mark Field(Quote)
Orin Kerr says:
AlbertE:
I don’t know how you can worry about these details when we still lack any proof that Obama was born in the United States. Orin Kerr(Quote)
byomtov says:
I don’t want to accuse Professor Volokh of hubris, so I need to understand more of what he actually means here.
Maybe he means what he says:
“the notion that ordinary folks are inherently wiser than the highly educated strikes me as quite mistaken.”
It strikes me that way too.
Note that he said “wiser,” not “as wise.” You seem to be interpreting it as the latter. byomtov(Quote)
Orin Kerr says:
In more of a serious response to Eugene, I think it depends mostly on what you believe the failures of the Obama Administration are. The administration is only one-year old, and it has taken on a lot and inherited a lot of problems. While we can already talk about failures in the sense of unmet political goals, or policy decisions that we expect to be known as failures eventually, I think it’s too early to really make judgments about what the failures are yet. Orin Kerr(Quote)
Strict says:
“the Copenhagen summit”
I’m not sure it was a complete failure. In any event, a failure there to reach a binding and strong agreement would more likely be attributable to the structural deficiencies of the UNFCCC itself (e.g. a single nation-party holds an effective veto over the entire proposed agreement; just imagine how more useless the UN Security Council would be if every member of the Council held the veto power held by the five Permanent members) than to the Obama Administration, Obama himself, or Obama-qua-Professor. Strict(Quote)
Ichthyophagous says:
Professors are meant to be scholars. That is, they are supposed to understand thoroughly a field and make good judgments about, at least, matters within that field. My question is, even if we ignore the distinction of lecturer vs professor which some see as important, what is Obama’s field? Well, law. How important is law in designing stimulus packages, health care packages, and Middle East Peace plans? I’d say it’s an important tool, but emphatically not the most important thing. In all three of these areas, Obama let others do the heavy lifting. He let Congressional Democrats nail together the stimulus and health care packages, and concerning the Middle East, he took for granted the UN attitude that Israel must make the concessions. There’s no professorship to being President. Ichthyophagous(Quote)
Recovering Law Grad says:
I find it very amusing that, in the few comments already posted here, Obama has been attacked both as being too professorial — and not a real professor! Let’s get our memes straight everybody. Recovering Law Grad(Quote)
Bruce Hayden says:
I really do not think that President Obama’s problems right now are directly related to his work at the university, regardless of his title there. But maybe indirectly.
One problem I may submit with academics is that, yes, they are very smart, but that is in one small area. They tend to know a very lot about a very narrow portion of some field. And, they may know enough broadly in their general area of expertise to teach introductory courses there. But you wouldn’t have someone with their PhD in English teaching Physics, or visa versa.
But because they are so good in their field, I think that many of them never realize how narrow their expertise is.
So, we have someone with a doctorate degree (JD) from Harvard looking at running the country. How hard can it be? The last guy who ran it wasn’t that smart. He didn’t sound smart, and everyone in academia kept talking about how dumb he was. So, he ran for President, and for a number of reasons, including having run a great campaign, this guy is elected to the top post.
And then he discovers that he really doesn’t know much of what is needed to run the country. He doesn’t have the experience in foreign relations, defense, politics, etc. And, maybe most importantly, in running an organization. But, hey, those guys at best have only Master’s degrees, so it can’t be that hard.
I think that one of President Obama’s greatest problems is that he really didn’t know what he didn’t know when he moved into the White House. One of those subjects that he didn’t know is management, and one of the things that is taught in business school (but not law school) is team building, hiring, and firing. I think that he ended up with a bunch of political hacks because he didn’t know any better.
Of course, we will not know much here for years to come — likely at least until the inevitable insiders’ books start to come out, and that may be 7 years from now. And he may turn out to be a quicker study that he appears right now to be, and be able to perform his duties at a much higher level. We shall see. Bruce Hayden(Quote)
AlbertE. says:
“Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track.”
“Your ‘full-time’ requirement to be called a ‘professor’ is absurd. Have you never heard of adjunct professors??
Hmmmmm!! I stand corrected on the first point, although my first inclination is to say that U. of Chi. probably created that definition after the fact? I admit I am in error most probably.
Adjunct professors are normally persons ALREADY recognized as a professor? This is not clear to me!
Thanks. AlbertE.(Quote)
Justin says:
I’m sure he means what he said, but I guess I see more ambiguity in how to read what he is saying. I took him to be comparing two groups, ordinary folks and professors, and saying that it was an incorrect notion to believe that one group was wiser than another group. I was simply questioning whether he was correct in saying it was an incorrect notion based on my assumption that there are a lot more knowledgeable and highly educated people in the ordinary folks group than the professor group. I think Professor Volokh was saying that professors were at least as wise, but I think the implicit statement was that they are wiser. Could be wrong, but the main point was my belief that ordinary folks are in fact wiser. Justin(Quote)
Strict says:
Ichthy: “Professors are meant to be scholars.”
I think this is too narrow. Many professors (especially adjuncts) who are mainly practitioners of whatever field they are teaching about. They don’t write books and aren’t scholarly, but rather care about and teach practical things. Strict(Quote)
Strict says:
Albert: “Adjunct professors are normally persons ALREADY recognized as a professor? ”
I don’t know what you mean. Adjunct professors are normally not full-time. Under your “full time” requirement to be a professor, adjunct professors would not be professors.... Strict(Quote)
B.D. says:
I think you’re being unfair here. Questioning Obama’s credentials as a professor is nothing like questioning his place of birth.
There should be a new Godwin’s Law for irrelevant accusations of birtherism. B.D.(Quote)
Orin Kerr says:
I think you’re being unfair here. Questioning Obama’s credentials as a professor is nothing like questioning his place of birth.
I saw them similar in that they have been debated extensively, resolved a long time ago, and are still yet raised by some of Obama’s more extreme opponents. At the same time, seeing AlbertE’s later post and apparent willingess to recognize his error — which is certainly not a characteristic of the birthers — I am happy to withdraw the comparison. Orin Kerr(Quote)
PatHMV says:
One of the biggest problems with professors, and “experts” of all stripes, is that they tend to believe that their expertise extends far beyond their actual academic area. Knowing a great deal about, say, Constitutional law does not mean that one is expert in any other policy area at all. It certainly doesn’t imply expertise in the various skills which, more than substantive policy itself, are necessary in a successful politician... yet far too many professors believe that intelligence and knowledge in one area translate into intelligence and knowledge in many other areas.
As for the President’s status as a “professor,” I know that the adjunct faculty at my alma mater (who are generally active practitioners of the law who teach maybe one class a year on law office practice or litigation skills) are generally not considered “professors” by the full-time faculty; to the extent that they run around calling themselves “professors” outside the law school, they are mildly looked down upon as being presumptuous. I have no knowledge, however, of precisely what Obama’s role as a lecturer was, whether he had a day job and was teaching on the side or whether he was, regardless of title, actually living the life of an academic. PatHMV(Quote)
Elliot says:
I’m not sure what “ordinary folk” means, but let’s presmue ordinary means one is not highly educated. I fail to see how being highly educated or ordinary confers any wisdom. I would expect wisdom to be similarly distributed among both groups. Nor is there any reason to think being highly educated or ordinary confers any talent at governing. I don’t think we know where that talent comes from.
I would suggest that education comes from many experiences, and academic experiences are just one avenue. Elliot(Quote)
Jones' Cell Mate says:
Moreover, whatever the weaknesses of professors, the notion that ordinary folks are inherently wiser than the highly educated strikes me as quite mistaken.
Comparing the wisdom of any group of folks is apt to be a fruitless effort, but one enormous shortcoming of many in academia is that academia often represents virtually all of their professional experience. Not only is it the only “real” job many have ever had, it’s frequently the only professional culture they have had specific experience with. Whereas many “ordinary folks” will work in multiple careers and work with a great many fields of endeavor throughout their professional lives.
This lack of exposure (when it exists) has an enormous impact on the professors understanding of what ordinary folks are all about. Not because they aren’t capable of such understanding, but they simply lack the needed exposure to gain it. You might argue that such a lack of exposure circumscribes the amount of wisdom such a person can accrue. Now, Barack does not fall squarely into the “only been a prof” class– I believe he has some limited professional experience away from the quad– but he does seem to exhibit certain of its shortcomings. Of course, as a pol he’s no doubt met people engaged in all manner of enterprise, but such meetings aren’t quite like having to relate to others from a vastly different cultural milieu on a consistent basis– a task he now must perform. If Barack is as bright as many suggest, he’ll no doubt recognize this problem (and note its impact on his success thus far) and cease to cling to many of the ideas he once held.
I can’t wait to see how it goes. Jones’ Cell Mate(Quote)
Strict says:
Pat: adjunct faculty are “generally not considered “professors” by the full-time faculty”
I’m not surprised. I know molecular biologists who consider physicians to be “mechanics” (they fix broken parts). But is the viewpoint of the full-time faculty the only relevant view? From the view of most students, adjunct professors are indeed professors (they teach your class and give you a grade). Strict(Quote)
B.D. says:
Eh, to me “professor” connotes a scholar whose full-time occupation involves teaching AND publishing. I’ve never really considered lecturers or adjunct professors to really be professors—and I suspect many of them do not self-identify as such. And the only thing that’s been “resolved” is that Obama was a lecturer and UChicago considered him to have served “as a professor.” Surely you can at least appreciate that there’s an area of reasonable disagreement about Obama’s professorial credentials. (Remember he ran, in part, on his record as a constitutional law professor; so it’s fair game.)
Birthers, on the other hand, are hysterical know-nothings who will never be satisfied that Obama is a natural-born citizen. But you’ve since retracted your unfair accusation, so I suppose it’s a non-issue. B.D.(Quote)
PeteP says:
Oren — “I think it’s too early to really make judgments about what the failures are yet.”
Given his stated agenda, let us hope and pray ALL of his efforts fail.
Government take-over of the entire health sector
Government take-over of the autmotive sector ( oops — too late )
Government take-over of the entire energy sector ( recall his statements that “under his policies, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket”, and ‘We will bankrupt anyone who tries to build a new coal-fired plant’, etc ), coupled with devastating ‘climate change’ changes to our ‘allowed’ CO2 production
Government take-over of higher education ( this will be law soon, I suspect, in that all sutdent loans, Pell grants, etc, will come directly from the government. This will be clcosely followed by the government wonks setting policies ( that no legislature gets to vote on ) regarding the new requirements for any institution to be ‘an approved school for a government loan recipient to attend’ in areas such as hiring, degree requirements, curicula, etc etc.
Lord knows what else.... PeteP(Quote)
Anthony says:
I’m not convinced that Obama has had notably poor performance as a president. He hasn’t had notably good performance either, but to a large part his problems can be blamed on “the recession hasn’t ended yet, therefore voters are cranky”, and it’s not particularly clear how he could have changed that. Anthony(Quote)
Relic says:
It couldn’t have anything to do with his massive stimulus bill failing horribly and him attempting a massive health-care overhaul using means that voters find abhorrent to reach ends they disagree with, could it Anthony? Nor could it have to do with seriously unpopular anti-terrorism positions that he’s taken. No, it’s just that the voters are cranky. Because, as we enlightened people know, they’re just children who need to bow down to their masters. We know what’s best. Relic(Quote)
Andre Kenji says:
Since I live in Brazil I can say something about that because we had several prominent politicians that were professors. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former president, was a stellar professor of Sociology.
Frankly, most of them were terrible politicians, mainly because professors they think that they know to solve every problem and that everything can be solved with theoretical and complex solutions. Andre Kenji(Quote)
bailey says:
Shouldn’t that make universities the most efficiently run organizations in the country? bailey(Quote)
Autist says:
I’m Smarticus! Autist(Quote)
pmk says:
Far be it from me to lecture a, er, PROFESSOR, but I think this post could do with more details, and connecting of the dots from “professor” to “failings”, instead of an evidence and argument free disquisition. pmk(Quote)
pmk says:
Orin Kerr wins the thread. pmk(Quote)
Bored Lawyer says:
You are conflating several different talents — smartness, knowledge and wisdom.
One can succeed as an academic by being very smart and knowledgeable (let’s call that intelligence), while not being very wise. Conversely, one can be quite wise without being a superstar in intelligence.
Presidents, at least the successful ones, have needed wisdom more than intelligence, although many had both. Bored Lawyer(Quote)
pmk says:
Could you explain, please? What is your definition of “ordinary folks” and “wiser”, and what is your evidence to this effect? pmk(Quote)
Christopher Cooke says:
Eugene is right, we should only elect uneducated nitwits as presidents. Go Palin! Christopher Cooke(Quote)
dw says:
Obama’s disastrous reluctance to engage in populist rhetoric may be connected to his career as a professor. One of the reasons health-care reform has not yet been enacted is that Obama has failed to use his bully-pulpit to supply pro-health-care-reform slogans to counter “death panels” and “socialized medicine”.
Apparently even the successful slogans “Yes, we can!” and “Change we can believe in” were forced onto a reluctant Obama by his handlers. dw(Quote)
Laura Victoria says:
Obama hasn’t published one academic piece, not even a law review note. He is not an acad
emic, his is a poser who can’t pronounce basic words and who yesterday said “between he and I.” He has zero understanding of economics–witness his idea that small businesses would borrow money to hire more employees. The only thing professorial about him is his lecturing, and there he fails to use the Socratic method. The much replicated photo of the moron at the blackboard, supposedly teaching Constitutional Law, shows him spelling out one of Alinkey’s formulas.
Obama is not even in the same universe as you Eugene, or most of your fellow consipirators. And why can’t we see his academic records? What’s the big secret? I cannot imagine how a school of the caliber of Chicago hired a fool like this even as a lecturer, or adjunct or whatever he was. Laura Victoria(Quote)
master shake says:
Maybe the American Right just can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas :-0 master shake(Quote)
Laura Victoria says:
Bored lawyer, you are correct, and Obama lacks all three: he is not wise, smart or knowledgeable.
Hmmm. Wonder what got him admitted to Harvard and how well he did there. Laura Victoria(Quote)
Michael B says:
Professors soundly, transparently and contextually explicating their subject matter, good; varnished ideology trumpeted as knowledge, posing as some type of latter-day gnostic knowing, bad. Michael B(Quote)
Dilan Esper says:
Wonderful post, Prof. Volokh. It adds something very substantial and rational to the idea that a lot of us would prefer to have MBAs or executive-types in the White House than professors and PhDs.
A theory that was completely discredited by the last President. Dilan Esper(Quote)
pmk says:
Yep, how did he become president of Harvard law review, and not just that, the first black president of said law review? hmm? hmmm? pmk(Quote)
frankcross says:
I believe he became president of the Harvard Law Review the same way that every other president did, by vote of its members.
I think, though, that it is not terribly helpful to view positions, such as professor, as highly relevant to political success. This would be interesting and informative if professors were randomly selected to become president. However, those professors (or MBAs, etc.) who become president do so because of personal features that enable them to achieve electoral success. I suspect these overwhelm other influences. frankcross(Quote)
Laura Victoria says:
He’s the first L.Rev. president I’ve ever heard of who didn’t publish his note. Laura Victoria(Quote)
David E. Young says:
The overwhelming majority of history professors actively involved in the Second Amendment controversy seem not to attain your high standard. I refer specifically to the astounding number of factually incorrect statements that have been presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in amicus briefs supporting gun control laws from professional academics in both the Heller and McDonald cases regarding Second Amendment history. Such numerous errors of fact have been pointed out here and carefully examined and documented here.
You engaged one of these historians, Professor Rakove, author of the professional academic historians’ Heller amicus brief supporting Washington DC’s gun control laws, in a Bloggingheads TV diavlog shortly after the Heller decision. Professor Rakove passed one of these factually incorrect statements off to you without correction in that exchange (at @ 31:40). The correct number of state bills of rights made part of their constitution was actually five, not two, and documentation of Prof. Rakove’s error is provided here and here. What this fleeting error demonstrates is that history and law are such broad areas of knowledge that no one can be expert in every aspect of them. However, those who argue and write about a Bill of Rights provision should be extremely knowledgeable concerning Bill of Rights history, especially historians claiming expertise.
A lifetime of avocational scholarship in a very narrow historical field, ratification era history specializing in Bill of Rights development, has made it possible for one of the “ordinary folks”, a retired park ranger who functioned as a jack of all trades, to point out and document error after error in assertions from professors of history regarding the Second Amendment’s development and intent. You might wish to reconsider the “deeply knowledgeable” statement above, at least with respect to the professors of history described above. David E. Young(Quote)
Strict says:
Laura: “his is a poser who can’t pronounce basic words and who yesterday said “between he and I.””
“his” is a poser? This is especially lolable in a sentence where you criticize the “poser” for using substandard English. And “poser”? I didn’t know people used that insult after 8th grade. lol. All but the most extreme of Obama’s opponents concede that he is a fine orator, so your claim that he can’t pronounce basic words must be some of that dementia syndrome...
“The much replicated photo of the moron at the blackboard, supposedly teaching Constitutional Law, shows him spelling out one of Alinkey’s formulas.”
What? Who is Alinkey? Alan Keyes has a formula? Oh, you mean Alinsky. Very lolable in a sentence calling someone else a moron and noting his spelling. Strict(Quote)
Strict says:
Laura: ” The only thing professorial about him is his lecturing, and there he fails to use the Socratic method.”
And if he did use dialectical teaching methods, you’d be criticizing him for using Marxist pedagogy. I guess he can’t just can’t win, huh.
Besides, it’s not a “failure” for a lecturer to not use the Socratic method.... Strict(Quote)
Strict says:
David E, that’s a fine counterexample. But note that Eugene made a general statement: “tend to be...” He doesn’t need to recant his statement. I think it still stands. Strict(Quote)
Justin says:
I guess that means I’m an extreme opponent of Obama since I think he isn’t that fine of an orator, and that his oratory skills are (incorrectly) very hyped. I also think there are a many more people becoming more comfortable with admitting that his speeches aren’t all that great. Praising his oratory skills seems to be more about having nothing really else great to say about him, so people fall back on that. I largely think his oratory skills are irrelevant to any discussion anyway, and find it funny that anyone would actually make too much of an argument on either side, but I think most people would be hard pressed to make an actual case for his speeches being particularly memorable or anything other than trite pabulum that does not deserve to be compared to the many fine speakers and speeches that people often struggle to compare them to. By the way, I don’t really care if my quick ramblings on a comment thread do not have perfect spelling or grammar and don’t think that detracts from someone’s criticism of another who arrogantly brags about their oratory skills and that (as you noted) many others compliment. When you and others hold you out to a higher standard, you can’t defend it by saying your critics also don’t meet that higher standard. Justin(Quote)
JH says:
Eugene, are you proposing to add another chapter to Richard Hofstadter’s book “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life?” It was required reading in my first term as a graduate student in history. I highly recommend it to you. JH(Quote)
Justin says:
I think I largely explained it as my assumption, which you can feel free to disagree with. As I also tried to explain, I was basing it off of the definitions I understood Professor Volokh was using, i.e., that ordinary folks were non-professors and that wiser was accumulated knowledge with in the group. Given that professors are a small subset of the population with very narrow accumulated knowledge, I assume that the larger population with people that have narrow accumulated knowledge within those same fields, as well as generally, would be more wiser as a group than professors as a group. Do you have evidence to the contrary that professors as a group have more accumulated knowledge than non-professors? Justin(Quote)
DonBoy says:
To criticize Obama as being a professor is just a matter of using whatever is at hand as an attack point; Newt Gingrich is commonly described by his allies as a college professor — which he was, in the 1970s. DonBoy(Quote)
Strict says:
Justin: “don’t think that detracts from someone’s criticism of another who arrogantly brags about their oratory skills ”
First, Obama arrogantly brags about his oratory skills?!
Second, there’s a difference between speech-writing (the content of speeches) and oration (the ability to give speeches). Obama is well-spoken, even if you disagree with what he says or don’t even remember what he said.
And yes, I do believe that someone who thinks “Obama can’t pronounce basic words” is extreme, and wrong. It’s just absurd. And the given example — that he said “between he and I” (which is substandard) — doesn’t even provide us with an example of mispronunciation, much less an example of mispronunciation of basic words. And even if it did, an example of a person mispronouncing a word does not prove that he can’t pronounce that word correctly — it just shows that he didn’t pronounce it correctly that time.
I mispronounce words every day...I think everyone does, at least from time to time. It’s an absurd criticism of Obama. Strict(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
Well, the Yankees won the World Series last year. As this is a calamity bigger than 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Vietnam War combined, I’d say that Obama’s legacy of failure is complete. David Nieporent(Quote)
Justin says:
I believe he does arrogantly brag about his oratory skills. You may not agree with my assessment, but it is hard to argue that he has actually bragged about his own oratory skills.
My criticism isn’t to the content. Even if I disagree with the message, I can compliment the diction and so on. His halting speech style is very annoying to me. I’m not sure what you mean by well spoken, but I wouldn’t disagree with that. But being well spoken and being compared to MLK or Lincoln are two very different things. MLK and Lincoln aren’t considered great speakers because they were well spoken. And it isn’t just because of the content of their speeches. There is a lot that goes into being a good speaker, and I don’t think Obama has it. Disagree with you like, but I don’t think criticism of him not being a great speaker is something you can just dismiss the way you did.
Lastly, I think you misconstrue my post as a defense of the poster you were criticizing, rather than a limited criticism of your blanket statement that everyone who isn’t an extreme opponent of Obama acknowledges that he is a great speaker. I think you overstate Obama’s speaking abilities and smart comments about the difference between the content of speeches and speaking style and that I am somehow disagreeing with what he says rather than your characterization of his speaking abilities don’t help your case. If all you are saying is that he is well spoken, then I agree with you.
es, there is a difference, but I’m of the opinion that the words matter and matter a lot Justin(Quote)
Justin says:
I believe he does arrogantly brag about his oratory skills, but I’m having trouble finding quotes of the 2–3 times I’ve heard him do it, so.... You may not agree with my assessment, but it is hard to argue that he has actually bragged about his own oratory skills.
My criticism isn’t to the content. Even if I disagree with the message, I can compliment the diction and so on. His halting speech style is very annoying to me. I’m not sure what you mean by well spoken, but I wouldn’t disagree with that. But being well spoken and being compared to MLK or Lincoln are two very different things. MLK and Lincoln aren’t considered great speakers because they were well spoken. And it isn’t just because of the content of their speeches. There is a lot that goes into being a good speaker, and I don’t think Obama has it. Disagree with you like, but I don’t think criticism of him not being a great speaker is something you can just dismiss the way you did.
Lastly, I think you misconstrue my post as a defense of the poster you were criticizing, rather than a limited criticism of your blanket statement that everyone who isn’t an extreme opponent of Obama acknowledges that he is a great speaker. I think you overstate Obama’s speaking abilities and smart comments about the difference between the content of speeches and speaking style and that I am somehow disagreeing with what he says rather than your characterization of his speaking abilities don’t help your case. If all you are saying is that he is well spoken, then I agree with you. Justin(Quote)
Strict says:
So, Obama’s speech style is annoying, and he doesn’t have what it takes to be a good speaker. And he brags about his own oratory skills. And he can’t pronounce basic words.
I disagree, so there’s not much more to talk about. :) Strict(Quote)
Elliot says:
Does anyone know exactly what courses Obama taught? Were they required constitutional law courses? Elliot(Quote)
Justin says:
I guess not, but I thought you might have something more than that he is generally regarded as a good speaker and is well spoken. I mean, it is hard to actually empirically prove who is a good speaker and who isn’t and it is largely a matter of taste. And maybe I’m no better than you since I largely dismiss anyone who buys into the hype regarding Obama’s oratory skills without actually being able to say much more than you did.
Once again, I never said he couldn’t pronounce basic words. We don’t disagree on that. It is a shame you keep trying to attribute things to me that I didn’t say. What we disagree on is my critique that his speeches lack depth and sincerity, and does not warrant comparisons to MLK or Lincoln despite being well spoken, which I take to mean precisely that he can pronounce words. And no, this isn’t about content. Regardless of content, the words chosen and how a speech is composed is intimately linked to the actual delivery and to the quality of the speech regardless of content. Justin(Quote)
Michael says:
See, e.g., The Calender, 01/20/2009-Present. Michael(Quote)
Professor Obama | Liberal Whoppers says:
krs says:
I don’t get it... the Obama Administration misspelled “calendar”? krs(Quote)
chiMaxx says:
thebromophile:
You’re kidding, right? Professors at least listen to the ideas of their “inferiors” with respect. Executive types just expect you to shout out “how high?” when they say “jump.” Have you ever been on the office-peon side of the business world equation long enough to realize that employees see through all that MBA-style team-building hand-waving right to your my-way-or-the-highway core?
=======
I’m with pmk:
This little essay fails to connect the dots from “professor” to “failings.” You describe some behavior tendencies that could all be summed up with the adjective “arrogance” (a common free-floating criticism of Obama from Karl Rove’s “He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by” in June 2008 through today’s insinuation that he won’t listen to “inferiors”), but don’t tie that to any specific failures, as you see them.
Letting the Congress hammer together health care reform rather than handing them a finished bill and saying “pass this”–Too professorial? How?
Refusing to prosecute those in the previous administration responsible for setting up the torture regime–or even holding hearings to make them accountable? Too professorial? How?
Letting Congressmen get away with playing stupid NIMBY games with the Guantanamo detainees to be brought to the Federal prisons within our borders? Too professorial? How?
The one specific failing I can think of that is kinda professorial is not making political hay out of displacing the ineffective and widely hated “No Child Left Behind” with “Race to the Top”–and getting the teachers’ unions to buy in to evidence-based reforms in the process.
So what failings are you thinking of, and how do they betray his too-professorial approach to governing. chiMaxx(Quote)
required says:
The administration picked the Colts for the Superbowl and the Cardinals to win the World Series:)
‘failings’ is not the same word as ‘failures’, despite the reading of some commentators (commenters?). The failings of the Obama administration seem to me to mostly stem from 1) having a tin ear to other views and 2) having no idea how to manage. The first problem is not universal of the professoriate or in any way unique to it (although not uncommon there) while the professoriate is almost unique in being a place where one can reach high levels without any skill in management. For a specific example look at how he botched healthcare reform by basically assigning Pelosi & Reid the task, what has emerged is far more the product of Pelosi & Reid than Obama and when he talks about the reform he demonstrates that he hasn’t been following the work they’ve done on his assignment. required(Quote)
theobromophile says:
Obama brought that on himself. Remember, the market crashed during the campaign, not after it (but before he took office). He did not say that it would take a long time to fix; he did not say that he would ram through highly partisan agendas to try to fix it; however, he did say that he would stop the old ways of doing business in Washington. Obama lead many voters to believe that the old ways of doing business in Washington that would be ended included blaming one’s predecessors, not fixing problems in a timely manner, and acting in a partisan manner.
Obama is getting slammed for the same reason that Bush 41 did with “Read my lips: no new taxes.”
Furthermore, when people are promised that a $1 trillion stimulus package will keep unemployment under 8% and then it hovers around 10% for almsot a year — yeah, Americans get pissed. theobromophile(Quote)
LTR says:
Amazing, but Yankees haven’t won a World Series during Republican administration since 1950s. LTR(Quote)
Federal Dog says:
“the mindset of the educated elites. Professors are used to being listened to because they are professors. Their interaction with the other dwellers of the university is usually one of lecturing their inferiors (I mean here inferiors in the hierarchy), managing their inferiors’ discussion, and grading their inferiors — not trying to persuade people or build consensus.”
Elites? Inferiors? Such language indicates why many people foreseeably hold academic conceit in contempt.
Scoring an academic position frequently has nothing to
do with skill, accomplishment, or intelligence. There is nothing about the academy that somehow exempts it from corrupt influences that infect every area of human activity (cronyism, nepotism, political favors, racism, sexism, etc.). Federal Dog(Quote)
LN says:
Remember, the market crashed during the campaign, not after it
But the market went up 60% during his first year of office, delivering a ringing endorsement of his approach to governing. LN(Quote)
A. Criminal says:
Anyone who studies or teaches a subject named “X studies” actually becomes more ignorant and foolish as they progress. The same applies to much or most of fields like psychology/social-work and education. IOW, “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.” As for Obama, he was just an affirmative action professor. A. Criminal(Quote)
smrstrauss says:
Re: “we still lack any proof that Obama was born in the United States.”
There is overwhelming proof. Obama has posted the official birth certificate of Hawaii, and he showed the physical copy of the document to both Politifact and FactCheck. Hawaii’s official birth certificate is now the Certification of Live Birth, the one that Obama posted, and it is the only one that Hawaii sends out (http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html)..
It is not possible to get a birth certificate in Hawaii–either long form or short form–that says “born in Hawaii” on it unless there was proof that the child was born in Hawaii. Obama’s birth certificate says “born in Hawaii,” and the facts on the document were twice confirmed by the officials in Hawaii, who are members of a Republican governor’s administration.
Obama’s Kenyan grandmother never said that he was born in Kenya. She said that he was born in Hawaii. . Listen to the complete tape, until after the question “Whereabouts was he born?” http://www.obamacrimes.info/Telephone_Interview_with_Sarah_Hussein_Obama_10-16– smrstrauss(Quote)
Chris says:
I think the most obvious manifestation of Obama’s law school professor roots are in his rhetoric. He is constantly positioning himself between two sides of the argument that are too simplistic, which is a classic approach for law school professors and academics in general. Indeed, he likely learned this approach in law school, where you’re taught NEVER to pick one side of an argument (and if you do on a test, you’re rewarded with bad grades). Of course, one of the sides he identifies is often a straw man, so the “middle ground” he strikes is not always that.
But maybe this is too harsh–other times (the Afghanistan review comes to mind), he does in fact seem to be struggling with different views, almost to the point of paralysis. So this approach may not simply be rhetorical–it may be how he thinks. Indeed, although I view the positions he takes as generally leftish, he gets quite a bit of criticism from the left for not standing up for what he believes in. So perhaps he’s incapable of “picking a side” because this is not what professors do (of course, they do it all the time, but they don’t like to think they are doing it). Chris(Quote)
PeteP says:
“I believe he became president of the Harvard Law Review the same way that every other president did, by vote of its members.”
And if there’s one thing Obama knows, it’s how to win elections. As in ‘how to game them’. He’s only lost one election in his entire life — that was to Black Panther Bobby Rush.
I wonder if he made President of Harvard Law Review the same way he won his first election in Chicago — by having everyone else, including the incumbent, thrown off the ballot, so no one was ALLOWED to vote for anyone but him ? PeteP(Quote)
JasonF says:
As someone who attended the University of Chicago Law School at the time President Obama was teaching there, I’d like to make a few points.
First, none of the students that I am aware of saw any distinction between the adjunct professors or lecturers (like Obama) and the tenured professors (like Cass Sunstein or Richard Epstein). Indeed, some of the most popular and respected professors — Richard Posner, Diane Wood, Frank Easterbrook, and yes, Barack Obama — were adjuncts or lecturers. So while it’s certainly possible to split hairs between tenure-track and non-tenure track professors, it’s not a hair his students were splitting (and, I would add, from the perspective of one of those students, it did not seem to be a hair that his fellow professors were splitting, though I obviously don’t know what sorts of conversations occurred outside the presence of students).
Second, I am surprised that Professor Volokh characterizes professors as being primarily used to lecturing inferiors. My experience as a University of Chicago student is that teaching us was almost a third priority, behind the second priority of engaging in scholarship and the first priority of interacting with other professors. While President Obama obviously didn’t engage in scholarship (he was busy being a legislator), he did engage in discussions with other professors. I know this because many of these discussions were open to students. Indeed, I probably learned as much from watching roundtables and panel discussions in which faculty memebers questioned and tested each other as I did in class. Moreover, even in the lecture setting, almost all of my professors recognized that they were lecturing a very smart group of people and always seemed receptive to new ideas — that is, they recognized that while they might be the most knowledgable people in the room (at least on their particular topic of expertise), they weren’t necessarily the most intelligent people in the room, and they were open to learning from the other intelligent people in the room.
If that sounds more appealing to you, Professor Volokh, than lecturing your inferiors, you may want to give your former (and our current) Dean a call and see about moving to Chicago. We’re even having earthquakes here these days, so you’ll feel right at home!
Third — and this is a minor point — someone above refered to President Obama as being a lecturer while he was a community organizer. While that’s technically correct (there was some small amount of overlap between his time as a community organizer and his time at U of C), for the bulk of his time at U of C, he was a state senator, not a community organizer.
Fourth, someone asked what President Obama taught. During my time there (and I think this was generally true of his time there, though I don’t know for certain), he taught Con Law III, which was the Con Law class at U of C that focused on equal protection. This was not a required course (no Con Law classes were at U of C). He also taught a number of seminars on related topics. JasonF(Quote)
Dilan Esper says:
Furthermore, when people are promised that a $1 trillion stimulus package will keep unemployment under 8% and then it hovers around 10% for almsot a year — yeah, Americans get pissed.
Theo, your hero George W. Bush, with his MBA, promised America a “humble foreign policy”. Dilan Esper(Quote)
Strict says:
Thanks Jason F for your input.
Pete P, thanks for that fabulous display of Obama dementia syndrome. Strict(Quote)
PeteP says:
Strict — the board’s rules against the use of certain words, like ‘idiot’, prevent me from repyling to you as needed. PeteP(Quote)
Strict says:
Pete,
You made a completely unfounded “suggestion” (accusation) about how Obama got his spot on the Law Review. It was absurd. Strict(Quote)
Dilan Esper says:
Bush also, by omission, promised no terror attacks, when campaigning.
Foolish consistency and all that....
This argument doesn’t work. The non-humble foreign policy, including the invasion of Iraq, was being planned well before Bush was elected, and 9/11 had nothing to do with the reasons for it.
The reality is that these were the stated views of many members of the Bush national security team at the same time that Bush was promising the humble foreing policy. Dilan Esper(Quote)
Dilan Esper says:
“plan for” and “plan to” are only conflated by demagogues.
Richard, the Project for America’s Future, whose members formed the core of Bush’s national security team, distributed a letter calling for the US to invade Iraq in 1998. This wasn’t the equivalent of the Pentagon, as it should, drafting contingency war plans for every foreseeable situation. This was their policy goal.
It had nothing to do with 9/11. 9/11 just gave them a talking point to facilitate doing it. Dilan Esper(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
laura:
Wrong.
More ignorant nonsense. “HLR does not have signed student works, for Presidents or others.” (link) jukeboxgrad(Quote)
Dilan Esper says:
You think Bush would have invaded Iraq absent 9–11?
Nobody can know anything for sure, but what you are doing is taking advantage of the fact that you can never be sure about counterfactuals (true) to argue that therefore one must accept the clearly empty case that the invasion of Iraq was a response to 9/11 (it wasn’t, or if it was, it was a completely idiotic one).
What we do know is that the Bush Administration national security team was filled with people who thought invading Iraq was a great idea and were looking for an opportunity to put it into practice. You can claim that perhaps they never would have found that opportunity, but that is not in any way saying the same thing as saying that 9/11 brought about the Iraq War. When you are looking for favorable circumstances to do something you want to do and the favorable circumstances arise, that’s very different from an event happening and you then determine for the first time that a particular policy should be implemented in response.
Here’s a quick analogy. I think Barack Obama intends to appoint liberals to the Supreme Court during his presidency. Now, he may not get another opportunity to do so. But he intends to utilize any opportunity to do so. Now if someone came around and said that the Souter retirement caused Obama to reevaluate and decide to appoint a liberal to the Court, I’d call that person either misinformed or spinning. You, sir, are spinning. Dilan Esper(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
That’s an analogy that assumes its conclusion. We know (or at least the analogy assumes we do) that Obama intends to nominate a liberal if he gets the opportunity. We don’t know that Bush intended to invade Iraq if given the opportunity.
Even if it were really true that “the Bush Administration national security team was filled with people who thought invading Iraq was a great idea and were looking for an opportunity to put it into practice,” (you meant the Project for a New American Century, not Project for America’s Future, I think), and even if they had “distributed a letter calling for the US to invade Iraq in 1998″ (they didn’t; they called for regime change, not necessarily an invasion), none of those people are George Bush. David Nieporent(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
They didn’t just call for “regime change.” They called for military action. The letter you cited says this:
“Military action” and “invasion” are not exact synonyms, but they’re close enough to support the point that Dilan was making.
In contrast, Clinton’s Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (link) called for support to “Iraqi democratic opposition organizations,” via a limited amount of money, training and equipment. It specifically indicated we should have no military role beyond that: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.”
Bush didn’t sign the letter, but people who signed the letter ended up holding important positions in and close to his administration (e.g, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Armitage, Abrams, Bolton and Kristol). So it’s no surprise that he ended up carrying out the foreign policy advocated by the letter.
It’s also worth recalling this about PNAC:
PNAC made that statement a year before 9/11. jukeboxgrad(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
No, they’re not. “Military action” can involve lots of things other than invasion. In fact, it makes no sense to read it here as invasion, because it says that we should take military action in the “near term,” and regime change in the “long term.” If we invade in the near term, we would hardly wait for the long term to oust Hussein. Thus, in context, it clearly refers to bombing, not invasion. And of course regime change doesn’t require invasion either; the favored policy of many of the PNAC principals was to arm the INC (and perhaps provide air support), not to invade the country ourselves.
Actually, it specifically did not “speak to the use of” the military, which is entirely different than “indicating we should have no military role.” Indicating that we should have no military role would be speaking to the use of the military.
First, I don’t know what a position close to an administration is. You can be in the administration or not; what “position” not in an administration is “close to” an administration? Kristol was in the media. In any case, “it’s no surprise” is very different than saying that Bush had intended to do it even before 9/11, which was Dilan’s claim.
Once again, we see you quoting a secondary source rather than the real thing, for some inexplicable reason. Perhaps because the real thing doesn’t say their “stated goals,” but much more specifically talks about the transformation of the American military, because that’s what the document which mentions Pearl Harbor is about — not about the invasion of Iraq. David Nieporent(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
As usual, you’re splitting lots of pedantic hairs.
That’s blatantly ahistorical nonsense. I guess you never heard of the Gulf War, when we did indeed “invade in the near term,” and then also did indeed “wait for the long term to oust Hussein.”
What it “clearly refers to” is “military action,” which is a term that could encompass all of the above. The heart of the matter is that a certain group of people were itching to take “military action” against Iraq long before 9/11. And then 9/11 became a convenient pretext to carry out what they had already been preparing to carry out.
When you are “in the media” but nevertheless behaving as a mouthpiece for the administration (which applies to Kristol, Judith Miller, and lots of other so-called “journalists”), then you are indeed “close to” the administration.
Dilan’s claim was this:
The PNAC letter supports that claim. Likewise for the 9/2000 “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” document.
I cited a quote within a quote. The words “absent some catastrophic catalyzing event –like a new Pearl Harbor” are indeed from “the real thing.”
More pedantic nonsense. Their “stated goals” included both “the transformation of the American military,” as well as an intention to take “military action” against Iraq. And those two goals were intertwined.
How odd that the document (pdf) that is allegedly “not about the invasion of Iraq” mentions Iraq twenty-five times, and repeatedly promotes the idea that we must ‘rebuild our defense’ in order to confront states like Iraq. Here’s a representative passage:
That passage, and the entire document, are indeed about setting the stage for the invasion of Iraq. It says we need a military “transformation” to be prepared to confront “North Korea, Iran, Iraq or similar states.” And here’s what it says about “Pearl Harbor:”
Those words were published a year before 9/11. So this group which saw the need for “revolutionary change” was prepared to take advantage of that “catastrophic and catalyzing event.” jukeboxgrad(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
Even when your facts are accurate, your arguments don’t make sense. The previous poster said nothing about “signed” notes; he said Obama didn’t publish a note. So whether HLR has signed notes or not is a non-sequitur. I thought even you had finally admitted that your weird notion that unsigned notes were, or were supposed to be, secret was wrong. David Nieporent(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
I think Laura is a she. Yes, Laura said “Obama didn’t publish a note.” Trouble is, that’s wrong. He did.
Laura said “He’s the first L.Rev. president I’ve ever heard of who didn’t publish his note.” Trouble is, “HLR does not have signed student works, for Presidents or others.” Which means that Laura is not in a position to make claims about whether or not other HLR presidents published notes. Because if they did publish notes, they were unsigned.
It’s not that unsigned notes are “secret.” The note is published, which means it’s not “secret.” Duh. The issue is the identity of the author. That identity isn’t necessarily “secret,” but it’s unknown, generally speaking. Which means that Laura is not in a position to make the claim she made.
If that’s still not simple enough, look at it this way. Consider the following assignment: of the last 30 HLR presidents, tell us exactly how many published a case note, and tell us the name of the case note. Do you know an easy way to find the answer to that question? I don’t. It would be a fairly easy question to answer if the notes were signed. Trouble is, they’re not.
Laura is implying that every other HLR president published a case note. Really? How does she know that? jukeboxgrad(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
Gee, I don’t know; maybe she researched it?
Remember when you claimed that you thought there was some sort of rule that because they were unsigned, authors weren’t supposed to claim credit for them, and then sneered “how do you know” when I said that there wasn’t, and I had to google and find numerous examples of people claiming credit for them? Most people I know who publish — particularly in prestigious outlets like HLR — don’t keep their publications a secret. So all she had to do was find out who the HLR presidents were and then look to see what they published. Or maybe she was relying on word of mouth among all her friends and colleagues who were on HLR. You’ll have to ask her, not me. But your claim that HLR notes are “unsigned” is still a non-sequitur.
(Of course, she is not implying — I love your trick of rewriting what people say and then weaseling your way around the rewrite by claiming they’re “implying” something –that “every other president of HLR” published. She said “every other president of HLR I’ve heard of,” not “every other president of HLR.” The last three words would be superfluous if she meant “every other president of HLR.” One can reasonably infer that she’s talking about a significant number of them, but not that she is implying “every” one.) David Nieporent(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
No. As usual you can’t think but can only pattern-match, so you are incapable of understanding the very concept of “context.” So you hear “invasion” and you can’t tell the difference between briefly crossing the border to surround troops in Kuwait, and invading in order to “eliminate[] the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction.” Which would require not merely briefly crossing the border, but occupying the country. And if we did that in the “near term,” it would be odd not to pursue regime change until the long term.
No; that’s once again a lack of context. Dilan’s claim was that Bush’s promise of a humble foreign policy was a lie because Bush intended the invasion of Iraq before 9/11, that 9/11 had nothing to do with the invasion, except for giving the administration a talking point. Dilan’s evidence was that before 9/11, certain people who were part of the Bush administration had talked about taking military action against Iraq. But the fact that before 9/11 people who weren’t Bush talked about military action — not invasion — does not prove that before 9/11 Bush intended invasion.
The letter “supports” the claim in the same way that me being in Los Angeles in June 1994 supports the claim that I killed Nicole Brown Simpson. That is, it’s consistent with the claim, but it isn’t at all sufficient to prove the claim.
No. Rebuilding America’s Defenses (which, incidentally, was not written by the same people as the letter we’re discussing; of the ones named above, only Wolfowitz and Kristol were part of R.A.D.) says nothing about the intentions of anybody to attack or invade Iraq.
That’s right. But that’s half a sentence, with no context. The words “stated goals” are not in the real thing.
The fact that I caught you in yet another misrepresentation is not “pedantic nonsense.” “Stated goals” is something that your fake source made up, not from Rebuilding America’s Defenses (*). Rebuilding America’s Defenses says that the transformation of the military will take a long time absent a Pearl Harbor. It does not say “all the stated goals of the PNAC will take a long time absent a Pearl Harbor,” as anybody who had actually read the document, instead of some left-wing secondary source, would know.
(*) To forestall your pedantic nonsense, the document does use the phrase “stated goal” once, but it’s talking about the Air Force’s stated goal, not PNAC’s.
That is not in the least bit “odd.” You have to think instead of just pattern matching. The fact that a document uses the word Iraq does not mean that it’s about Iraq, let alone that it’s about invading Iraq. R.A.D. is about restructuring the military to defend the country against different sorts of threats than the ones faced in the Cold War. It (ridiculously) wants the U.S. to be able to fight multiple large wars and small wars all around the world simultaneously, but it is not about planning to attack anybody. You have to read the whole document, not do a pattern-match on the word Iraq and count the number of instances where the word appears. David Nieporent(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
Really? How? Yes, I suppose it’s possible “she researched it,” by personally locating and interviewing lots of other HLR presidents, or by some other mysterious means. On the other hand, it’s possible that she is simply making shit up. Occam’s razor favors the latter answer.
I did ask her, and she responded with silence. Which tends to create the impression that she was simply making shit up.
When did six become “numerous?” And this many of those “people” were the president of HLR: zero. So you presented this much proof regarding HLR presidents taking credit for their case notes: none. And since you looked for such information, and presented none, why should anyone think that such information is in Laura’s hands?
Once more you demonstrate your poor reading comprehension. That’s not what she said. She said “he’s the first L.Rev. president I’ve ever heard of who didn’t publish his note.” No “H.”
Except that “them” means “a significant number” of “L.Rev. president[s],” not necessarily HLR presidents. Which brings her statement further into the world of nonsense, because there’s no reason to believe that she actually has this information about “a significant number” of “L.Rev. president[s],” and there’s also no reason to assume that the practice at other schools is relevant to the practice at HLS.
During the Gulf War, Coalition forces reached within 150 miles of Baghdad. I realize that on planet nieporent this is not considered an “invasion,” but back here on Earth it is. Also, you need help with geography. We didn’t cross the border into Iraq in order “to surround troops in Kuwait.”
“Military action” is a conveniently broad term that encompasses lots of things, and “invasion” is one of them.
Naturally. It “says nothing about the intentions of anybody to attack or invade Iraq,” except for all the places where it does. Like here (pdf, pp. 17–18):
After all, why would anyone think that “a surface action group capable of launching several hundred cruise missiles” has anything to do with any “intentions of anybody to attack or invade Iraq?” And likewise for “a substantial permanent Army ground presence in Kuwait.” Because if some country that had once invaded us decided to establish “a substantial permanent Army ground presence” just outside our borders, the last thing we would imagine is that they had any intentions to attack or invade us again, right?
There you go again, doing superficial pattern-matching, as if it’s a substitute for thinking. It is of no importance whatsoever that “the words ‘stated goals’ are not in the real thing.” What’s important is that the PNAC letter called for “military action” against Iraq. What’s of further importance is that Rebuilding America’s Defenses called for a “transformation” of our military for the purpose of being in a better position to confront countries like Iraq. And what’s of further importance is that Rebuilding America’s Defenses mentioned the importance of a “catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” And what’s of further importance is that Bush took advantage of that “new Pearl Harbor,” putting into effect the policies the PNAC had been promoting for years.
Why are you presenting a phony quote? The source I cited didn’t say “all the stated goals.” It said “their stated goals,” which was a reference to the goals stated in Rebuilding America’s Defenses. You’re splitting pedantic hairs again, and you’re also fabricating a quote.
Hmm, let’s see. PNAC, in one document, explicitly called for “military action” against Iraq. And then, in another document, they called for “a surface action group capable of launching several hundred cruise missiles” to be stationed in the area. And they also called for “a substantial permanent Army ground presence in Kuwait.” Why would anyone think that any of this might possibly have anything to do with “invading Iraq?” Just because the same army had already invaded Iraq?
Naturally. When the same organization that has called for “military action” against Iraq also specifically calls for “several hundred cruise missiles” to be stationed near Iraq, there’s no reason to think that this has anything to do with “planning to attack anybody.” Why would anyone think that? jukeboxgrad(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
Really? How? I think this is what psychologists call “projection.”
I must have missed the post where you asked her. Because it looks to me like the only post where you addressed her was this one, which contains no questions at all. And even if you had asked her, not responding to you does not create the impression that she was making things up. It just creates the impression that she has better judgment than I do, since responding to you is a waste of time, since you simply won’t admit when you’ve made shit up. Like your ridiculous analysis of the Rebuilding America’s Defenses paper, which even you know is utterly ludicrous, but because of your partisan hackery, you’d rather stick by your guns than admit that you hadn’t read the paper — but just some left-wing site which quoted a half-sentence from it — and didn’t understand what it said. (Of course, she didn’t not respond to you; rather, she made no posts on the thread at all, which for normal human beings “creates the impression” that she was busy, rather than that they “won” some internet debate.)
1741. January 29th. 8:13 PM
I wasn’t looking for information about HLR presidents when I posted that; I was just refuting your ridiculous claim that there was an “etiquette problem” in claiming credit for an unsigned note.
You’re right; she didn’t say that. But it’s not poor reading comprehension; I hadn’t gone back and re-read what she wrote, because I was assuming that you were being a tiny bit honest when you claimed she was “implying that every other HLR president published a case note.” In fact, you weren’t; her post in no way “implies” anything about “every other HLR president.” No honest person would read her quote that way — unless that person had “poor reading comprehension.”
The fact that you don’t know something does not mean that there is “no reason to believe” it. Whether you happen to have a sufficient factual background to draw a conclusion does not mean that all other people do not. David Nieporent(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
The most likely explanation for someone believing that is partisan hackery combined with an inability to read. That’s my informed hypothesis as to why “anyone” — and by that, you mean you — think that. That’s simply not the topic of the paper. The topic of the paper is how to structure our military, not who we should or shouldn’t attack. Anybody who actually reads it would know that.
Right — and none of the goals stated in that paper were attacking anybody. In a different paper, written a couple of years earlier primarily by a different person, a goal of eliminating the threat from Iraq was discussed. One cannot import one into the other just because it is convenient for one’s case.
No, it didn’t. It did not “mention the importance of” that at all. It merely made the observation — no normative claim at all, despite the partisan hacks who attempt to fool people into thinking otherwise through links to fake sources — that transformation of the military would be gradual unless there was a new Pearl Harbor. David Nieporent(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
I showed proof she was wrong, which is rhetorically the equivalent of challenging/asking her to show support for the claims she made. This is obvious to anyone who isn’t mired in pedantry.
Laura Victoria made three posts on this thread. Are you having trouble finding them? When did the number three become defined as “no posts?” Around the same time that the number six was defined as “numerous?” Only in nieporent world is the difference between 3 and 6 equivalent to the difference between zero and “numerous.”
It’s funny how certain people somehow manage to find time to post misinformation, but can’t manage to find time to respond when challenged on their misinformation. Interesting how that works. Maybe you can help us understand this phenomenon. After all, you embody it so consistently in your own behavior (example, example, example, example, example, example, example).
Sorry, that’s little too cryptic for me. Six became “numerous” on 1/29/1741, at 8:13 pm? Huh? What? On what planet?
I don’t know why not, since we were discussing an HLR president.
I think you’re the same nieporent who recently said these words: “it’s consistent with the claim, but it isn’t at all sufficient to prove the claim.” I think you’re smart enough to understand why those words are relevant, without me spelling it out for you.
If her comment was not meant to imply something about normal practices at HLS, then her comment was meaningless, because she was making a point about someone from HLS.
It’s not just that I don’t know of HLR presidents who took credit for an unsigned case note. It’s that you were also unable to come up with any such example, even though you obviously looked. There is indeed no reason to believe that Laura has information that you weren’t able to find.
Yup, it sure is ridiculous for me to think that a call for “a substantial permanent Army ground presence in Kuwait” might have anything to do with an intention to attack Iraq. Why would anyone think such a thing? Just because the same organization had called for “military action” against Iraq? Maybe by “military action” they meant a performance by a marching band.
You’re saying that as if those concepts are divorced from each other. Trouble is, they’re not. The paper was about structuring our military in a way that would help us confront certain specific countries.
Both documents were issued by PNAC. The identity of the individual author is immaterial.
I’m not ‘importing’ anything. I’m pointing out the obvious connection between two documents issued by the same organization.
There’s nothing ‘mere’ about it. PNAC wanted us to transform our military in order to (among other things) attack Iraq. And when the “new Pearl Harbor” came along, this opened the door for them to do what they had been calling for for years: attack Iraq. Never mind that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. jukeboxgrad(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
First, it’s no such thing. You claimed you asked her something; you didn’t. In other words, you’re fabricating again. Second, you showed proof she was wrong about Obama not having published, which is obviously not the equivalent of asking for proof about what other peole may have done. “If you say, “every Republican I’ve heard of is corrupt, while no Democrat has been convicted of a crime,” and I say, “You’re wrong; Congressman Jefferson was convicted,” that is obviously not a “challenge” to prove that all Republicans are corrupt.
See what I mean about the fact that you pattern-match rather than understand the concept of “context” in reading a statement? Obviously I know she made posts in this thread; I’ve talked about them. My comment about making no posts is a reference to the time period after your (alleged) rhetorical challenge. As anybody who reads context rather than just individual words understands quite well. That is, if she had made a bunch of other posts in this thread after your “challenge,” it might be fair (if it really were a “challenge”) to say that she had failed to respond to you. But since she didn’t post at all, it isn’t.
She posted three times in this thread on February 10. You “challenged” her two days later, on the afternoon of February 12th. There’s no evidence she ever saw your challenge-which-actually-wasn’t-a-challenge. Not everyone is as obsessed as you are with finding someone on the internet to try to prove wrong. Not everyone saves up imaginary grievances to bring up days, weeks, or months later. It’s a holiday weekend. For all you know, she had left for a vacation long before your imagined “challenge.”
You want less cryptic? Okay, here: “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.” Since when was six not numerous? If you meet your friend (I’m being charitable) at the restaurant at 8:00, and he says, “Where were you? You were supposed to be here at 7. I left numerous messages for you,” are you going to check your voice mail and then say, “Liar! You left six messages! When did six become numerous?” In short, unlike when I point out that you can’t understand the meaning of what someone wrote, your ridiculous semantic quibbling here is the real “splitting of pedantic hairs.”
No, we were discussing whether there was an agreement not to claim credit for an unsigned note. You and your magic googling skills couldn’t find anybody who had claimed credit for one, so I was pointing out how your googling had failed. There was (and is) no reason to think the rules on claiming credit were different for HLR presidents as opposed to other HLR staffers, so there was no need to hunt down HLR presidents.
There is “no reason to believe” — an accurate use of the phrase — that the expectations for HLR presidents are different than the expectations for other Law Review heads.
Your premise is wrong — I did not look for examples involving HLR presidents. I just looked for a bunch of examples of people claiming credit for unsigned notes in the HLR, since that was the topic at the time — and therefore your conclusion (that Laura has information I was “unable” to find) is flawed. If she looked for it (though of course she never, as you finally admitted, made claims about HLR specifically, but just about Law Reviews in general), then that would be reason to think she might have information I didn’t.
In fact, although her claim about Obama was wrong, her underlying premise is right: it would be very unusual for a head of law review not to have published. To know that, one might need to have gone to law school (and perhaps served on law review) rather than being an anonymous internet blowhard. That’s precisely why people were so surprised when there was no record of Obama having published.
Trouble is, “confront” is such a weasel word that it means a lot of things, but if by “confront” you mean “attack,” then the claim is false. The paper was about structuring our military in a way that would help us fight major and minor wars anywhere and everywhere we might feel the need to do so, simultaneously. (The document was discussing the Gulf, Balkans, Korea, and Southeast Asia, primarily, simply because those were the places where the author(s) foresaw it as most plausible, from the perspective of 2000. But in no way was the document about “planning” to attack any of those places.)
...for the purpose of hackery, true. But for the purpose of actual analysis, it’s quite important, when one is trying to link different things together.
No. You’re tendentiously pulling part of a single sentence out of a document written at one time and pretending it’s part of a different document written at a different time by different people. The “Pearl Harbor” quote is not about attacking anybody.
No. Read the document, rather than your fake website. The authors wanted to transform the military to enable us to deal with every possible global threat simultaneously. While that would involve the ability to attack Iraq, it would also involve the ability to attack China; that doesn’t mean that the goal of transforming our military was to attack China.
In short, it is completely false to say that PNAC — let alone Bush himself, who as “the decider” was the only person actually relevant to Dilan’s underlying claim — said that they wanted a Pearl Harbor to enable them to attack Iraq. David Nieporent(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
She made a statement “about what other peole may have done.” I pointed out why I was skeptical about that statement, so I was indeed asking her to substantiate her statement.
If that’s what you meant, that’s what you should have said. You don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt on this sort of thing, because you routinely make statements that are divorced from reality (example, example, example, example, example, example, example). And speaking of nonsensical statements, for some strange reason you have still failed to explain how a foreign army traveling within 150 miles of Baghdad isn’t fairly called an “invasion.”
In my opinion, people who post blog comments and then fail to follow-up and respond to the responses tend to be people who are not terribly credible. As a general rule.
You have created a remarkable track record of hackery here. It’s a noteworthy achievement, and it would be a shame to let that achievement go unnoticed. And I assure you that keeping those links on my computer does not place a great burden on my hard disk storage capacity. Just in case you were losing any sleep over that.
And if there’s anything “imaginary” about the mountain of proof I’ve presented (see the examples cited above), you should tell us what it is. There’s no time like the present.
When it represents a tiny portion of the relevant population, in context. If you have six noses on your face, it would be fair to call them “numerous,” because the expected quantity is one. Likewise, if I put six different sandwiches in your lunch bag, it’s fair to point out that I gave you “numerous” choices, because there again the expected quantity is one. On the other hand, the total number of HLR alums is much greater than six. Therefore calling that group of six “numerous” is a form of hackery. Calling them a “handful” would be far more appropriate. And it’s also a form of hackery to claim that you were “refuting” something, as if you don’t understand the principle you yourself stated (“it’s consistent with the claim, but it isn’t at all sufficient to prove the claim”). And your selective, opportunistic embrace of that principle is itself a form of hackery. Likewise for your selective embrace of the concept of context.
No one said anything about “an agreement.” It was a question of etiquette, or common practice. And we were talking about an HLR president, which means that the most relevant example would another HLR president. You found this many: zero.
Ipse dixit. You’re entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. It’s plausible that the culture could stipulate that what’s OK for other members of a group is not OK for the leader of the group. It’s logical that someone at a higher rank has to follow higher standards. And the fact that you found zero such examples is consistent with this perspective.
More ipse dixit. Your claim makes sense if one believes that Harvard is just like every other university. Trouble is, it’s not.
If she wasn’t making some kind of implied claim about HLR, then her comment was meaningless and irrelevant, because the Obama situation involves HLR.
Then how surprising that you found zero such examples (aside from Obama) regarding HLR.
The people who were surprised were mostly people who didn’t know (or pretended to not know) that HLR doesn’t publish signed student notes.
When a group that already called for “military action” against Iraq calls for a major buildup of forces just outside Iraq, it’s reasonable to believe that someone is thinking about attacking Iraq. Repeatedly denying this obvious reality just helps to further establish the depth of your denial.
I’m not “pretending” anything. I’m pointing out correctly that the two documents were issued by the same organization.
The “Pearl Harbor” quote is about the political usefulness of a “catastrophic catalyzing event.” So it’s no surprise that Bush and his PNAC pals were ready to derive maximum political usefulness from 9/11.
Except that PNAC had not previously called for “military action” against China, whereas they had indeed called for “military action” against Iraq. Likewise, the PNAC document which called for major forces to be stationed on the border with Iraq definitely did not call for major forces to be stationed on the border with China.
I guess you’re saying that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the gang around Bush didn’t have a major influence on him. A novel theory.
Hmm, let’s see. First PNAC said we should attack Iraq. And then they talked about the importance of positioning a large military force near Iraq, and they talked about how a “catastrophic catalyzing event” would make it politically easier to do this. And then after the “catastrophic catalyzing event” they indeed used that event as an excuse to attack Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with it.
Here on Earth, 1+1 actually equals 2. jukeboxgrad(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
If that’s what you meant, that’s what you should have said. You don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt on this sort of thing, because you routinely make statements that are divorced from reality. (Links). Trouble is, you didn’t ask her anything, nor did you point out why you were skeptical about that statement. Here’s what you actually said:
Unlike what you do, that’s not selective quoting; that’s everything you wrote to her. Nothing in there is a question. Nothing in there “points out why you were skeptical” about anything. You simply called her factual claims “wrong” and “ignorant nonsense.”
That is what I said. Your stubborn refusal to read any statement in context does not actually eliminate the context; it just makes you disingenuous.
In my opinion, that’s nutty. Some people have lives. That in no way relates to their “credibility.”
You have invented new meanings for both the words “numerous” and “hackery” here. In any case, even by your own bizarre definition, “numerous” is correct, since you foolishly thought the expected quantity was zero, and I gave you six counterexamples. (To be precise, I gave you three, and then you moved the goalposts and I gave you three more to refute even your new claim.)
It’s true that no one said anything about an agreement. Except you. This many times: twice. At least. You claimed that “The fact that the note is unsigned means that the author is agreeing to not take credit for it.” You then claimed that “When such an author agrees to not take credit, it’s not fair to claim they ‘hid it.’”
Wrong on both fronts.
Ipse dixit. No, it isn’t plausible that it would be acceptable for other members of the HLR to take credit for their notes but not for the president to do so.
No, it isn’t, and in any case it’s moot since there is no such “standard.”
Are you going to keep repeating this dishonesty? I did not “find zero such examples.” I didn’t give them because I wasn’t giving a complete catalog of every such situation, and because the discussion wasn’t about HLR presidents per se so there was no particular reason to focus on them. But HLR presidents, too, take credit for their (unsigned) notes.
Give it up. Please. Your “explanations” are getting more and more desperate. Maybe you can move the goalposts yet again, and claim that there was an “agreement” that people whose last names begin with the letter “O” don’t claim credit for their student notes.
Guess again. It’s funny how your guesses, inferences, and speculation about what other people are saying are never right, isn’t it? One might almost think it’s deliberate on your part.
Unfortunately, in jukeboxgradland, when one pulls things out of context, one can often “prove” that people said something entirely different than they actually said. David Nieporent(Quote)
David Nieporent says:
Oh, and just to give you fair warning: in my opinion, every issue in this little discussion has been addressed; there’s nothing else to say on these topics. I will therefore not read the thread anymore, and thus will not respond when you make another post repeating your arguments with yet more tendentious spin, or move some more goalposts. (And I concede in advance that I cannot disprove your people-whose-last-names-start-with-the-letter-O speculation.) If you would like to make another post, wait an hour or two and then crow, “He didn’t respond, so that must prove I’m right,” and then add that to your pathetic little database of links where you’ve declared yourself to be the winner of a debate because you’ve outlasted your interlocutor, go ahead; I can’t stop you. But to be clear: I am not failing to respond because you’ve dazzled with some brilliant, irrefutable argument; I am choosing in advance not to respond because IMO you’ve got nothing new to offer and I’m bored with this exchange.
I think it’s only polite to let you know, so you don’t waste your time crafting a long reply for a non-existent audience. (That’s charitably assuming you were even the tiniest bit interested in exchange; if all you really want is the last word because you think that doing so counts as victory, feel free to post again.) David Nieporent(Quote)
jukeboxgrad says:
The significance of the examples I cited (example, example, example, example, example, example, example) is not primarily a matter of who posted last. Those examples are important because they demonstrate that you routinely create your own reality.
This thread contains new examples that you refuse to address, such as your curious definition of the word “invasion.” I pointed out that the Gulf War was an invasion. You responded by claiming I was wrong to apply that word to the Gulf War. You said this:
Except that the Gulf War didn’t just consist of “briefly crossing the border to surround troops in Kuwait” (a nonsensical statement that you haven’t bother to explain). It included moving troops to within 150 miles of Baghdad. It was an invasion. Why did you claim otherwise?
Yet again, you rely on your special GOP dictionary where words take on magically elastic meanings. jukeboxgrad(Quote)
markm says:
If Truman said that, he had very little understanding about what being the commander of the European Theater of Operations actually entailed. Ike had to deal on a daily basis with the heads of at least five different military services (US Army, US Navy, British Army, British Navy, RAF), none of whom were used to taking orders from anyone. He had to keep Montgomery from undercutting Patton at every opportunity, and keep Patton from executing his wackier ideas. (Unfortunately, he failed to stop Monty’s wackiest idea, the “Bridge too Far” plan.) He also had to gain cooperation from British civil authorities in housing and moving his men, keep on top of what the OSS and other spy services were doing (and if they didn’t follow his orders, how would he ever know?), keep the Free French satisfied enough to stay in the war, and so on and on.
All in all, it was an excellent preparation either for being President with a hostile Congress, or herding cats. markm(Quote)