Barack Obama Open Thread.--
If you want to comment on Barack Obama, his candidacy, or any Volokh Conspiracy post relating to him, you may do so below.
Please be substantive and civil.
Barack Obama Open Thread.--
If you want to comment on Barack Obama, his candidacy, or any Volokh Conspiracy post relating to him, you may do so below. Please be substantive and civil. |
Vote for divided government. Otherwise, we have no chance to survive, make your time!
1) opposes school vouchers
2) supports a corporate income tax > 30%
3) wants to deploy military force within Pakistan
4) opposes personal accounts in partial lieu of social security
5) opposes public/private health plans
6) advocate of biofuel subsidies: helped push the ethanol bill through congress
7) does not believe that the primary responsibility of the central bank is price stability
This post is willfully misleading in its assertions. When did he say that he wants to deploy the military in Pakistan? I'm not sure what you mean by opposing public/private health plans, but his healthcare policy is allowing for private health care but also providing an option of a national health plan. He's actually pledged to lower corporate tax rates and I have no idea where you come to the conclusion that he doesn't believe in price stability.
European voucher practice is fairly mixed. It hasn't been much of a winning issue for the Tories in Britain, and it varies in other European countries, although some (like Germany) are almost fully public. More obviously, most European countries (France being a notable exception) have no institutionalized separation of church and state; many have state churches. In such a climate, one of the primary points of contention between voucher advocates and opponents in the U.S. debate is taken off the table. So this is stop 1 on the absurd hypothetical train, revealing that if Barack Obama were a politician in a different country, he'd probably have some different policy positions on issues that don't really translate all that well between the U.S. and Europe anyway.
Maybe a nominal rate of higher than 30%, which is what we have currently. What we also have, which is not quite as common in Europe, is a bewildering maze of corporate tax loopholes that ensures that corporations pay nothing like the nominal rate.
As someone has pointed out, a blatant misrepresentation. He has said that if we have actionable intelligence on high value terrorist targets in Pakistan and their government is either unable or unwilling to act, then the United States will act. I would hope any candidate running for President would be willing to commit to doing as much. Are we really going to let high-value al-Qaeda targets slip away because of the Pakistani government's weak grip over the northern tribal areas and occasional intransigence? I certainly hope not.
Where would this position supposedly make him too far left to compete? Germany, maybe? Almost all European countries have unemployment and retirement benefits far more generous than American benefits, paid out of general government revenues. If anything, Obama's American centrist position on Social Security (don't kid yourself, the Bush/McCain privatization view is a radical and unpopular position in the US) might make him unattractively conservative to European voters if he was running for election in a bizarre hypothetical.
What does this even mean? Public/private health insurance is exactly the model Obama has endorsed--employer-provided where possible, government-subsidized otherwise. Again, his lack of support for a single-payer system would assuredly make him too conservative to win election in the UK or most of the Norwegian countries, for example.
I don't know...ethanol subsidization is a stupid position, but I don't see it as being confined to liberals. It's basically an easy way for a politician of any stripe to pander to farmers, and I doubt the set of incentives to do that is quite the same in Europe. Nonetheless, the EU had mandated standards for biofuel usage before concerns were raised about their contributing to food shortages. I think this rather arcane issue of energy policy is probably a little beyond most voters' interests, whether in Europe or the US.
I don't know what you're driving at here. Are you pretending that putting some additional regulatory tools in the Fed's arsenal to prevent the perverse incentives that develop when financial institutions are privately owned and subject to little regulation, but virtually assured of a taxpayer bailout if they should fail somehow undermines the Fed's responsibility to ensure price stability? Do you think there's something wrong with the Fed allowing higher inflation during a period of recession in order to combat unemployment? I'm betting it's the latter. In which case: no, actually, voters in Europe don't like high unemployment either; I'm pretty sure he'd be just fine running on a platform of higher prices as a temporary trade-off for more jobs. This is assuming he actually had some substantial influence on central bank policy, which he wouldn't in any European country (or in the US, for that matter).
Strange grab-bag of issues, seemingly cherry-picked in order to avoid issues like Iraq (where his commitment to ending the war and reducing American unilateral adventurism is completely in step with European public opinion) or the broader energy issue (where his commitment to introducing mandatory carbon caps is solidly in line with European elite opinion and not that important to average voters). And the unfortunate part is that it's a dismal failure to demonstrate that Obama is somehow too liberal for Europe. Or for the United States, for that matter. I know, I know...you're used to liberal ideas being by definition disreputable, to Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton who only succeed by adopting conservative policies. The '90s are over, friend. The Reagan Era is done. Bush and his gang have torpedoed American conservatism for the next couple election cycles. Obama is going to get elected on a doctrinaire liberal platform, and you can sit in the ruins of your permanent majority and wonder where it all went wrong.
Europe's economically insane Common Agricultural Policy is evidence enough of European politicians pandering to farmers.
He wouldn't even rise to the "stature" of John Edwards.
Listening to Obama talk about economics and foreign policy is like listening to a second- or third-year undergraduate "speak out on the issues." Yes, by all means, let's hope they don't close the oil-rich Straits of Hormuz.
Sheesh.
Further, to say that I am uncomfortable with cult worship is a serious understatement. Mob think is frightening.
1. Does "American" include illegal aliens? He refuses to say. If it does I don't see how the term "American" applies unless one believes that anyone who crosses the border is an American.
2. If the 45 million (where does that number come from?) uninsured includes illegal aliens, that means from 12 to 20 million new people covered would include people who pay no income tax. Illegal aliens don't have a valid social security numbers; they must either commit identity theft (a felony) or work "off the books," which is tax evasion, another felony. In either case they pay no income tax. In theory an illegal alien could file a return using a "taxpayer identification number." However IRS rules clearly state the the taxpayer ID cannot substitute for a social security number. In using this number one signs a statement under penalty of perjury to the effect that he is not using the taxpayer ID instead of a SS number. Another felony for working illegal aliens.
3. BHO says that the amount of money people spend on premiums will be less. That means people's taxes must go up to cover the shortfall. If the US is going to cover anyone who can make it across the border, the cost of this program will skyrocket. BHO voted for the McCain amnesty bill which would have led to chain migration flooding the country with people who could make claims on this universal health care system. People who don't have to work an pay taxes.
4. BHO has an overly optimistic concept of preventative medicine. He seems to believe in the health care myths as discussed in the book Health Care Half Truths. For example, preventative medicine does not decrease life cycle medical costs; it can actually increase them. To understand why this happens you need to know about competitive risk and evidently BHO doesn't.
5. His plan covers pre-existing conditions, but as far as I can see, his plan does not have mandatory participation. Thus people can wait until they have an expensive illness to treat and then enroll.
In summary BHO proposes a new and very costly federal program that contains the seeds of its own financial destruction. Americans will have less health care so that millions of criminal illegal aliens who pay no income tax will have more. If an American needs an organ transplant he might find himself waiting in a longer line. If more people fully understood the implications of what he proposes BHO would not win come November.
At any rate, most everyone, even Congress, has caught on that ethanol from corn is a dead end.
so he's proposing corporatism...
I can't wait for Sen. Obama to sell that in San Francisco. Better yet, I can't wait to see him actually say it in Frisco. The derisive booing will be exceeded only by the hysterical laughter.
[sarcasm] Yeah, because they hand out honors at Harvard Law School on a quota basis. [/sarcasm]
I think the list was meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.
--PtM
Yep. I wonder whether the uniform shirts will be brown or black?
IMO, "the civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military" already exists in our Constitution. It's called THE MILITIA. And we may need it the way Hamilton described in Federalist 28 before we're done.
[Jim Lindgren, July 19, 2008 at 3:17am] Trackbacks
Funding Barack Obama's "civilian national security force."-- A. Obama on National Service.
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I'm pleased to see someone connect this to Obama's pledge to increase the Americorps and Peacecorps rather than argue this is some call for a paramilitary force....
However, I think Jim might also like to reference Obama's "The War We Must Win" speech. Delivered at the Wilson Center over a year ago, the speech was written by an aide to Lee Hamilton. In this speech Obama also talks about an "American VOICE corps" that will (I assume) be created with the the increase of the Americorps and Peacecorps "volunteers". He vaguely hints at this in his Wilson Center speech.
His goal for America is "...to be the light of hope in the sky for the child..." looking up at the MIL HELO. He intends to carry this out by creating "America Houses" throughout the Islamic World. This is a expansive policy of American Exceptionalism, where Americans will be teaching American English and American Historical interpretations to Muslims populations.
I have been commenting on these pledges by Obama when I get a chance -for nearly a year. It's nice someone is starting to seriously question what Obama's goals are in context to his July 2 Speech, but it would be wise to also consider this speech in context to his Wilson Center speech and notice how both tie in to one another.
Obama pledges to increase the MIL by 100k, double the Peacecorps, increase Americorps, create an America Voice Corps and build America Houses all over the "Islamic World". Total increases of 350k?
1)How to pay for it?
2)How is any of this a new vision/change/post-pol rather than a relabeling of American Exceptionalism?
3)Was Americorps' original design intended to carry out domestic federal policy?
4)Is the Americorps volunteer a clever way to secure a labor pool for liberal domestic policy programs at the state level minus state min wage pay scale?
5)Will Obama recruit USMIL personal to retrain and reclassify into Ameri/peace/voice corps, thus integrating both foreign and domestic "forces" into one? (note: all former USMIL can currently apply for Peacecorps, but very rarely, can a former PC volunteer transfer to MIL)
6)Are the American Houses in the Islamic World nothing but a soft form of assimilation? Is Obama proposing such policy when pledging to teach Muslims about the goodness of America?
7)Will the progressive America backing Obama sign up to do a tour?
Well said!
As a substitute for asking an obvious question about the Constitution, why don't you try actually reading it.
I think its pretty clear, but I am not going to hold your hand.
I don't know that he's left of some Euro's anyway. Met any German Greens lately?
However, I can't see Germany or France ever electing a Black. (their term). Though they talk and good game and the French like Afro-American entertainers, both cultures are fairly racist at the political level.
France: I think their legislature has 555 members and last I heard 11 were "Minority". No Black CEO's, French Minsters, etc.
Germany: I know less about the current state of affairs, but 30 years ago, our Afro-American soldiers faced some bad discrimination while living in Germany. Foreigners (all non-enthic Germans) do.
I would love to see Obama's LSAT score. He's conceded he doesn't know whether he benefited from racial preferences in getting into college and law school. Watching him talk without a teleprompter tends to resolve the question in my mind.
I'd also be interested in learning about the process leading to his election as president of the Law Review.
So, just to be clear, that whole "graduated from Harvard Law in the top 10%" has no bearing on whether you think he benefitted from AA when applying, but his extemporaneous speeches 25 years later do?
I don't fault Obama one bit for taking advantage of this by, for example, changing the name he went by once he realized the game. If anything, this opportunism is his most appealing quality, for it acts as a hedge against his utter lack of experience or serious thinking on big issues and his seemingly instinctive far-leftism.
"Deduction" is usually subtracted from income. "Tax credit" is usually subtracted from taxes owed.
So a deduction yields a "tax credit" of (deduction * marginal tax rate).
The lower one's tax rate, the more valuable a tax credit becomes, relative to a tax deduction.
Redlands wrote at 7.19.2008 10:31am:One (likely heretical) idea that neither Obama nor McCain has suggested, which might actually get some traction even in San Francisco given current health care costs: let individuals pay health insurance premiums by some form of national service.
F'rinstance: for every hours' service in some certified national service corps, government will pay some portion of the individual's (or his family's) health insurance premium to some certified health care provider or insurance plan. Effectively, the wage paid for national service would be in "health care scrip". That would encourage part-time national service work by a broad range of individuals who are also gainfully employed elsewhere.
So, what's not to like? Probably plenty: just for starters, the usual bureaucratic expansion, waste, fraud, abuse and mission creep. But at least it would encourage national service work from a broader range of people, and address two issues of national concern simultaneously. So I wonder why no presidential candidate or other politician interested in encouraging national civilian service has even brought it up.
Why? Because he was given a lot in life by dint of preferential treatment? So what?
I've got one word for you: Google. That election and the events leading up to it have been well covered in the press, both contemporaneously and recently. There's nothing clandestine about it.
If graduating in the top 10% of his class at Harvard Law School on merit doesn't vindicate any help he may have received getting there, just what do you think a "massive data point for AA" could possibly be?
Tell me a few things. Do you think George W. Bush "was given a lot in life by virtue of preferential treatment?"
If so, have you ever objected to it? Do you think he has gotten more preferential treatment or less than Obama?
Constantin,
Why is Obama's statement that he doesn't know if he got preferential treatment a "concession," rather than a simple statement to be taken at face value - he deosn't know. That's all.
Re the Sen. Obama affirmative action comments, do any of you critics contend that either Sen. McCain or Pres. Bush obtained their admissions to the Naval Academy, Yale or Harvard Business School based on their academic records, rather than the identity and standing of their fathers?
There is nothing wrong with BigLaw, mind you, if that is your cup of tea and it is mighty tempting to go that route (perhaps the advance from Faith of Our Fathers made the decision easier if he would otherwise have been burdened by a pile of law school debt).
But he didn't go for the big bucks when he could--and that is commendible.
This seems to be to reflect a profound misunderstanding of AmeriCorps, which makes me question the rest of the analysis. For most programs, volunteers work a forty-hour per week job in an organization. The jobs are in non-profits, schools, etc.--but they're not little part time things you combine with your undergraduate program. As a result, if you want to pay them $4000 per year, you're not going to get anyone to volunteer. You don't have to pay much--current pay scale runs around $9,000-$12,000 over the course of the year. But it's not just a stipend for a few hours worth of work each week. And administrators in AmeriCorps programs likely are not making $100,000.
This obviously does not address the impact of Obama's proposal--I'm not sure what my thoughts are on that aspect or how to fund it. But I was concerned about the analysis when I read the part that I quoted, unless I have some misunderstanding of what you were saying.
Given that Obama doesn't want the military to be stationed where/when it's not really wanted, I'd assume he'd have the same views about the Peace Corps. So I'm wondering where this doubled number of Volunteers would go?
Don't get me wrong. I'm a proud RPCV myself, but the fact is that the demand (by host countries) for Volunteers would not sustain a doubling of the numbers. Even when I was in, 20 years ago, many countries were opting out, often due to the neo-colonial stigma of having to be year-after-year grateful for the wonderful help provided by enthusiastic, well-meaning, but often clueless Americans.
While the focus has changed to more technical and ESL-type skills, skills the Volunteers may be far better able to provide than when 20-somethings from suburban Philadelphia would try to teach rural development in sub-Saharan Africa after a two-month crash course, I still don't hear any clamoring by other nations for more Peace Corps Volunteers that we are currently unable to fill due to budgetary problems.
Sure.
"If so, have you ever objected to it?"
Yes: I hate legacy admissions and admission based on cronyism or family connections/wealth.
"Do you think he has gotten more preferential treatment or less than Obama?"
Who knows? What is clear is that people regularly tear Bush to shreds based on his advancement on grounds other than merit. By contrast, people go straight into high dudgeon and racist indignation at any suggestion that Obama profited from unfair preferences.
As for advancement at Harvard, so what? I'm an alum (GSAS) and know how the place works. The entire system is designed to give everyone enrolled credentials that they can use on the market profitably. The only challenge is getting in to begin with.
Statistical summary complete.
Regarding our military, Obama states:Not, "I propose." Rather: "We've got to have."
Either Obama is proposing to add another $500 billion to our taxes, or he wants to cut spending on our military by 50%, and give the other 50% to his new domestic force [as his handlers would certainly like, and which the media absolutely refuses to question him about]. Either course of action would have a couple of extremely undesirable results for our country:
1. It would directly equate Obama's "National Service Force" with the U.S. military. Guess who would be the Commander-In-Chief of Obama's new national force.
2. To fund this new "force" as well as the U.S. military would add another $500 billion per year to our tax burden. As if $4 gas isn't enough of a burden, that added tax would be in addition to the other really huge tax increases that Obama proposes to put on the shoulders of American workers.
Finally, regarding Just Dropping By's apology for Obama's Affirmative Action generated credentials:In fact, they do hand out honors at Harvard; the mindset is that minorities need a leg up from all concerned. I will stand corrected on this point if Just Dropping By can provide Obama's SAT, LSAT and other test scores that were disregarded by Harvard. Let's see his high school transcripts. Where are they? Why are they kept hidden? Obama is incapable of even speaking without a prepared script.
Are we expected to buy a pig in a poke?
"If graduating in the top 10% of his class at Harvard Law School on merit doesn't vindicate any help he may have received getting there, ...?"
To draw inferences about BHO's class standing, we need accurate information about HLS's grading system and the correlation between LSAT scores and grades. If the tests are easy enough (normed to the high talent pool they have) then a student's class standing could have a large random component making the correlation between grades and LSAT weak. In other words class standing might not be an indicator of ability. Thus a good but nevertheless middle ability student could end up in the upper 10% by chance alone.
We need to know things like the typical distribution of grades on tests (to see if they're too easy) , and HLS LSAT-grade correlation. Absent this kind of knowledge, I'm not going to draw conclusions about BHO's class standing one way or the other.
Dave N,And here we see the anti-business bias again raise its ugly head. Why one earth would we presume being a "community organizer" is any more beneficial to society at large than being an attorney at a firm that serves businesses and government agencies? (Lots of smaller municipalities and agencies contract out some or all of their legal services, so just saying "biglaw" doesn't imply that working for eeeevil corporations is the only possibility there.)
(*) Although there's something wrong with community service when it merely constitutes lobbying the government for handouts.
And I think you meant Dreams from My Father.
That may be true of the college (where there are also legacy admissions), I couldn't say for sure, but Obama sure as hell didn't get magna cum laude from the law school because the system was giving it away like candy.
Actually, Bush got a lot more benefit than just admissions. He was repeatedly bailed out of business failures, and got his deal with the Rangers because of political clout, not ability.
As much as you hate legacy admissions and family privilege, did you actually speak out about them when Bush was running? Or is this a new-found hatred?
I would have to agree with Dave N on finding this commendable. I'm not sure if we would agree on the reasoning, but for me its commendable because most law students do big law out of a need to either pay off debt, because of peer pressure, because it is the easiest, or from pure greed, or some combination of the above. Now if you actually want to go to big law, that's fine. But most people really don't. And given all the pressures pushing the other way, not doing so is generally a good example of having the courage of your convictions, if nothing else.
And guess what? Obama has left the door open for slight changes, much to the cries of "OMG! flip-flops!"
As I've noted elsewhere, it seems to me that if we're there as liberators, we sort of should keep in mind the Iraqis wishes.
We now return to your regularly scheduled oh-so-clever mentions of Obamas middle name.
GSAS is not the college. The system in the graduate and professional schools does, in fact, give credentials away like candy. It's in the school's best interest to place people after graduation in positions of power and wealth that can profit Harvard in the future. It therefore gives people plenty of treats to enhance their vitas and bring about that goal.
A.Zarkov: The LSAT/GPA correlation is generally fairly strong, although it is far from perfect. Although if you want to be very skeptical about this, why are you even accepting that the LSAT would be an acceptable benchmark?
You are right. I got the title wrong. My point is that Obama was idealistic to want to be a community organizer when he went to law school and that is what he returned to Chicago to do after he graduated from law school.
I have nothing against making money, capitalism, or BigLaw in general. I choose to work for the government and in that respect I am glad I have been able to spend my legal career practicing a type of law I really enjoy (criminal prosecution) as opposed to doing something I would find less satisfying but more financially lucrative.
GSAS is bascially the college in the broad sense--graduate version of the same subjects. But anyway, again, specifically speaking of the law school that Obama attended, what are these credentials that are given away? And most importantly, which of these unmerited credentials did Obama receive?
This is grasping at straws. Obama did well in law school, so it must have been an accident. Is that right?
The trouble with your "analysis" is that if LSAT's and grades are poorly correlated you are going to take the LSAT score as the "true" indicator of ability rather than grades. Why? Why aren't grades the true indicator and LSAT scores somewhat random? Well, I know why you're doing it. Because that gives you the result you want. But what's the argument?
The amount of bending over backwards to find fault with Obama's academic performance is going to give some of the commenters here serious back trouble if they're not careful.
Hmmm, don't see it anywhere in this thread. But, I'm guessing you never read most of it, so you wouldn't know.
And as for al-Maliki's comments -- yeah, thanks to "the Surge," (remember, the one that had no chance of success, the one that up until a few months ago still supposedly hadn't even reduced violence to 2006 levels, the one that was supposed to create a window for political progress, but there was no political progress, the one that showed what a dismal failure the whole Iraq policy was, so that even up until last month Obama wanted to scrap the entire Iraqi government and have the United Nations oversee a whole new Constitutional Convention for Iraq?) we may (hope upon hope) actually be able to get out within 2 years of the next president assuming office -- something we should all be cheering, something both candidates would welcome, and something Obama had no hand in, whatsoever.
You expressed my reasoning better than I did. Thank you.
You mean everyone at the law school is in the top 10%? How do they get away with that, I wonder.
Fixed.
Simple. It's Law, not Math ;-)
I definitely read the part that implied Obama is a Nazi, which is much more clever than the whole "Hussein" thing (I was of course, referring to a past practice that has mercifully resulted in bannings). I hereby withdraw any slights against the wonderful and insightful blog commenters of VC.
I believe HLS uses blind grading. But I'm sure you have some theory about how Obama tricked the system into giving him grades he didn't deserve.
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Explain to me the use of the words "national security objectives." What does he say they are? What are they as defined by others? What does AmeriCorps (domestic) or the Peace Corps (foreign) have to do with that exactly?
The 'power' and 'strength' picture the military evokes in my mind bears no resemblance to the feel good (pie-in-the sky) plan for 250,000 AmeriCorps workers. (Please ... we do not need you in our lives. Go away.)
After all, as he has consistenty reminded us, he would be the Commander in Chief -- and HE sets the Mission. (!!) He wants to be Commander-in-Chief of [militant] Community organizers, so he creates them? Weird.
From the Military Times:
He did so in a speech August 3rd 2007. He declared that would attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from the Pakistani government. This is a pattern with him: he believes in "bullying" other nations to do Washington's bidding. e.g., in supporting his position on Iraq he often cites the benefit of making the Iraqis fearful.
I think there is a potential argument to be made that America's frequent use of soft power--such as Obama advocates--produces a lot of resentment.
Would it be just as accurate to translate matters into the traditional format: "Instead of going to work for biglaw, BHO chose to go to work as a Ward Heeler for a Chicago political machine?" If not, why not?
I have to tell you I get most of my news from British publications: the FT and the economist. The former is avowedly Labor, and the latter is liberal and free-market. Personal accounts ala McCain is long-standing policy in several countries there. I am aware of such programs in: Germany, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Hungary.
Obama is very out of touch on retirement programs vis-a-vis those countries--as is most of the US based reporting on the topic.
"The LSAT/GPA correlation is generally fairly strong, ... ... why are you even accepting that the LSAT would be an acceptable benchmark?"
But is the LSAT grade correlation strong at Harvard? The LSAT is a heavily g-loaded test, and g correlates with success at many cognitively demanding endeavors.
byomtov:
"The trouble ... if LSAT's and grades are poorly correlated you are going to take the LSAT score as the "true" indicator of ability rather than grades. Why?"
Harvard is a highly selective institution, (even the AA admits are good) producing a fairly homogeneous body of students with respect to ability. As such it's difficult to distinguish the outstanding students from the good, and very good ones. To do so would require carefully crafting the tests. Otherwise some of the very good students could get into the top 10% by chance alone. For example Stanford University has high admission standards, but low grading standards. The average GPA for Stanford graduates is something like an "A-." So what does it mean to have an "A" versus an "A-" at Stanford? Not much. Without more information, I don't know is being in the top 10% at HLS means any more than being in the top 20%.
Why is this important for judging BHO? As far as I know, he has no solid record of outstanding accomplishment in this chosen field: law. The top 10% of my graduate and undergraduate schools went on to do very significant things, like writing important articles and getting awards. What can we judge him on? If we knew his LSAT was above 175 (median for HLS is 172) that would tell us a little, better than nothing, perhaps better than class standing.
jukeboxgrad:
"I believe HLS uses blind grading."
Blind grading is not enough for the reasons given above.
"But I'm sure you have some theory about how Obama tricked the system into giving him grades he didn't deserve."
He could simply have been lucky.
I find that hard to reconcile with his recent Medicare vote. Words vs. actions. How Obama votes says more about the man than mere words.
Moreover, you're a bit out-of-date with your examples. Although Britain does have the NHS, most people have supplementary private plans and seek advanced treatment from private centers. Similar programs exist in Norwegian countries. You'd have been better off citing Italy as an example of a true single-payer system, but then you'd have to contend with their rationing program.
He is unintentionally making my point.
I think his comments might be better directed at Obama, who is proposing to change the underlying nature of Americorps by having it be as well funded as the military.
I have the prefect name for it: The Freikorps.
The Republican Party is disqualified from making this argument for at least 25 years.
Now granted he was talking about increasing the size of the Peace Corps, Foreign Service, AmerciCorps, and create new civilian organizations previously, so maybe it was really just a poor choice of words. If not, what does he mean? What “national security objectives we've set”. President Chavez of Venezuela has his civilian Territorial Guards Militia to suppress internal dissent and defend Chavez’s presidency. Will President Obama need a similar civilian national security force? And why are the transcripts missing that statement and why hasn’t Mr. Obama been asked about this or explained it on his own.
If one knew the details of his NATIONAL SECURITY objectives, one might feel a little more comfortable with what he said; excluding the costs you have calculated.
before you withdraw anything, you should ctrl-f for "BHO".
If we could see something of legal substance--anything--he wrote at Harvard, it might help to answer this question.
The issue isn't that the grading system is "lax" but that the mean has been set at "3.4". It would be as meaningful to call the grades 1 (the 2.5 minimum) to 19 (the 4.3 maximum), with the mean at 10. Or 2.3 to 4.1, with a mean of 3.2 The absolute number doesn't mean anything, just where it fits relative to the mean.
I do not support Senator Obama. But I am not going to question his J.D. from Harvard, his membership in Order of the Coif, or how he became president of the Harvard Law Review.
There are serious, substantive reasons I oppose Senator Obama. The debate over his time at Harvard Law School is just silly.
Okay Mark, I'll bite and ask for an elaboration, but as a Democrat I guess I still get to cry foul by your rules anyways. I think the paradox of my compatriots is that they recognize destructive effects of "bullying" but tend to miss that soft-power is bullying and by nature proceeds at a drawn-out pace that tends to breeds resentment.
The Bush Administration's only approach to foreign policy has been bullying. For Republicans now to criticize Obama on the ground that his foreign policy *might* be bullying, would be the height of hypocrisy.
You're basically saying that the student body at HLS is "homogenous," and there isn't much meaningful difference between the bottom of the class and the top of the class, because the grades don't mean much.
You should tell the professors. They put a lot of effort into grading. Imagine how much valuable time could be saved if they just used a dartboard instead. According to you, it wouldn't make much difference.
You should also tell the firms who recruit there. I'm pretty sure they pay a premium for students with high grades. What a scam! They're only getting students who are "lucky."
You might as well take your argument a step further and tell us that McCain was at the bottom of his class simply because he wasn't "lucky."
You seem to be blatantly contradicting yourself. Unless you're claiming that they went on to do those things only because they were "lucky."
By the way, I think running a presidential campaign and winning a nomination falls into the category of "very significant things." Then again, this also might just mean he's "lucky."
You should explain how this works in the context of a system of blind grading.
Methinks he let the cat out of the bag.
Obama's conceptions in this vein are of a decidedly corporatist nature, a type of updated Mussolini-lite, updated to au courant sensibilities, very much in the vein of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. Resisting such indulgences has - e.g., from Truman to Reagan during the Cold War - helped to provide a more sound basis for genuine historic achievements in a pronounced ideologically faith based epoch.
What BHO is conceptualizing here is maladdictive at foundational levels. The U.S. is, it goes without saying, imperfect. Still, it can decide to continue to be an anchor or it can drift. That is November in a nutshell, which by no means imagines McCain to be an apotheosis or an ideal candidate, but McCain does carry some real-world gravitas and weight.
"Change" as a mantra and banner, absent the substance, is not what is needed, nor is a modified Mussolini-lite the prescription that needs to be filled.
why do i get the feeling that you're reading a different thread than us normal folks?
Obama seems like a guy I could have over my house for a barbeque, go to a ball game with, or to a bar and have a few beers, and he would be a cool guy to hang with, as long he avoids talking about politics. But, he is too much of a Socialist for my tastes and I can visual a wimpy America with handouts galore under his Presidency.
As such, I have to vote for the old liberal over him. It's that simple.
If anyone doesn't want BHO to be their next president, go to one of his appearances, ask him one of these, and then upload his response to Youtube and similar sites. BHO's major vulnerability is that he's never had to face any real questioning, and he's gotten sloppy by frequently lying or being misleading. If someone calls him on that he's probably not going to be able to handle it. If he gets embarrassed by a real question, it's going to get hundreds of thousands or millions of views.
Search for his name at my name's link to learn much more about his lies, misleading statements, and policies than the MSM will ever tell you.
I never said that LSAT is the only thing that counts or there was no difference between the top and the bottom of HLS. I said that the more homogeneous the class the harder it was it make meaningful differences. I specifically said I don't know it means much to be in the top 10% versus the top 20% at HLS. Not the top 10% versus the bottom 10%. If we knew more about grading other than "it's blind" and about the correlation between GPA and LSAT at Harvard, then we better decide how significant BHO's class standing is.
"You seem to be blatantly contradicting yourself. Unless you're claiming that they went on to do those things only because they were lucky."
Not at all. These places were not as selective as HLS, which is extraordinarily selective. Look if you had 50 Nobel Prize winners in physics in a room, how would you test for the best physicist in the group? It would be really hard if not impossible. If I had a group of 50 physicists chosen at random it would be far easier.
BTW this applies to anyone in the top 10% from HLS. I really wouldn't favor them over people in the top 20% at a hiring interview.
Obama is fluff. Listen to him speak without a script in hand and it doesn't take long to understand that he doesn't have the stuff to be chief executive. Which does not mean that he won't be elected. There are lots of people, including the UN, who mistake Angelina Jolie for a substantive voice about world affairs.
Maybe Obama should put Angelina on the ticket?
George W. Bush opened up his scholastic record. Why is Obama hiding his?
And why does the media emit the sound of crickets chirping when that question is asked?
Do they want us to buy a pig in a poke? And if so, why?
BTW, I consider myself pretty normal. So do my neighbors.
Now you're contradicting yourself. The whole point of your argument is that AA allows in people who are NOT homogeneous. Any blind grading policy would separate them out.* By making this argument now, you are in effect conceding that Obama was homogeneous with the rest of the class.
Then the whole issue is frivolous. If your only point is that we should treat "top 10%" as a somewhat imprecise designation that actually includes the top 20%, that's in no way relevant to Obama's qualifications to be President or his performance at HLS.
*If it didn't separate them out, that would undermine the claims of the LSAT for predictive accuracy.
Two things frighten me most about Obama: He talks as if he, as President, will have almost unlimited executive power. His plans to use the Presidential power to expand and strengthen the executive branch and to establish a nanny state controlled by militant and heavily armed federal nannies.
I am astonished at his level of public support. It seems as if people hear only the sliver of his message that they like and ignore the heavy club that is the bulk of his message.
Do you believe that the score of a one-day LSAT is a more meaningful measure of ability than a three-year record in law school? That's patently ridiculous.
By the way, your point about physicists and grades applies much more strongly to LSAT scores. It's likely that, with a generally highly talented student body, there will be a poor correlation between grades and LSAT's. That's because the LSAT's will fall into a relatively narrow range. (Think of it this way: Height is correlated with skill at basketball, but once you restrict the field to guys 6' 8" or taller a lot of that goes away because the differences are small. Restrict it to 7-foooters and you probably get no correlation at all).
So the actual performance over three years is what tells the tale, just as actual performance will tell you whether the 6-9 guy is a better player than the one who's 6-10.
yet on this thread the argument (at least based on the comments) seems to be that people think that Barack Obama's presidency of the Harvard Law Review is somehow hugely relevant.
Go back to the beginning of the thread. The first two comments on this subject (at 7:19 and 7:45) were unsupported assertions that Obama is where he is only because of AA and that he is not too bright. I think it's fair to respond to this by pointing out his academic achievement. Of course then we haqve those claiming his grades were just blind luck, etc., so it's necessary to point out how stupid that is.
In short, the reason it's an issue is because some of Obama's opponents are making it an issue and, unlike you, refusing to take these things at face value.
OK. So you're not saying he's in the top 10% on account of being "lucky." You're only saying that he's in the top 10%, instead of the top 20%, on account of being "lucky." Thanks for that helpful and meaningful clarification.
This would be a good start: have them write papers, and then have judges apply blind grading to those papers. I bet there would be differences in quality. Funny thing: this is the system HLS uses. The result of that system was that Obama was in the top 10%. But of course all this proves is that he's "lucky."
Please tell us specifically which courses at HLS do not use blind grading. It should be easy for you to name them, since there are "plenty."
I am in agreement that Obama's years at HLS is a stupid issue. I say this as a McCain supporter. I am not faulting Obama supporters for defending him on this stupid issue. What I am saying is that those who oppose Obama should be talking about something more substantive than this.
"This would be a good start: have them write papers, and then have judges apply blind grading to those papers. I bet there would be differences in quality."
How would I know the grades were reliable performance measures? If all I knew were the top 5 grades and who got them, how could I be sure that outcome was repeatable? If the grades show a good spread compared to the mean (large coefficient of variation) then I might have a good test. If I could repeat the grading process many times with a set of equivalent tests, and the same physicists always got the top 5 scores, then I would know I have a reliable measure.
If HLS would give us details about their grading other than it's "blind," we could have more confidence that being in the top 10% means something in his case. If BHO had followed up with documented performance as a lawyer, we ignore ignore his academic performance completely. It would be largely irrelevant. His supporters seem to bring up his class standing all the time because they have little else.
I agree with you, and that's why I wrote a somewhat detailed critique of his health care plan. Let's stick to the issues. But his supporters keep promoting him on the basis of his campaign (does he really run it?) or other vague bona fides, such as his class standing.
This is nuts.
Ha-ha!
My neighbors consider me a quiet guy who kept to himself. Not at all the sort you'd expect to do something like THIS.
First, as has been repeated, most HLS courses use blind grading. Want a list of course click here. Seminars and clinics tend not to have blind grading, but you could never earn enough credits just taking those classes to graduate.
Second, here are this years and some historical honors distributions. HLS much like FAS (but different from FAS) uses an idiosyncratic grading system in which A+=8, A=7 and so on. Thus you can see the grades needed to get you in the top 10% and the next 30%. Of course the grades are all relative, but top 10% of HLS is still pretty impressive no matter one's GPA or LSAT score going in.
Finally, although Zarkov and Smokey keep hammering on this point, I think the transcripts are just a distraction. What is the worse that they will show? Even if he was an abysmal high school and college student and he got bumped along because of AA, he has managed to do pretty well for himself. (How many other members of Obama's class are Senators?) Besides how far back to you take this kind of inquiry? Kindergarten? The guy wants to be president, let's ask what qualifies him to do that not what qualifies him to get into graduate school. Even if he's never had a grade lower than A+ in his life, that doesn't qualify him to be president.
There are employers that recruit at Harvard graduate schools, year after year. And they seek out students with high grades. They are seemingly not so troubled by these questions that trouble you. I guess that means you're smarter than they are, even though they have actual experience observing the relationship between grades and job performance. And that experience seems to influence them to believe that the grades actually mean something.
You must be joking. This thread is a perfect example. His supporters here did not spontaneously raise the subject of his "class standing." You've got it backwards. The subject came up because his opponents like to introduce statements like this:
His opponents seem to bring up this bogus AA claim all the time because they have little else.
Neither does Obama. Perhaps we are supposed to just avoid discussing him altogether?
German left-leaning publications would prefer things to do be other than they are. "Iraqi PM disputes report on withdrawal plan"
It is quite apparent you've never been to law school.
Could not agree more. There are plenty of substantive areas to criticize.
Don't get me wrong, I probably would choose Harvard over either of those two schools too (and all 3 are ranked higher than my alma mater, but I digress). The puzzling this that Obama had already spent time in Chicago and was planning to return to Chicago. Why leave Chicago for three years? I have no doubt that both Chicago and Northwestern would have accepted him since Harvard did.
Yes, I saw the correction issued out of the CentCom press office.
I predict that Obama's strategy for Iraq in January 2009 would be McCain's strategy for Iraq on November 6, 2008. Obama was propelled to his current position on a tide of anti-war sentiment, but he may find that his war has gone by, and he misses it so.
I'm willing to play devil's advocate to see if we can put this LSAT question to rest. First, for the purpose of this exercise a fixed percentile rank will work better than a range, so we'll start by converting Obama's class standing to an average of the range of indeterminate possibilities. In other words, since he graduated in the top 10% of his class, i.e., somewhere between the 90th and 99th percentiles, we'll call it the 94th percentile.
You say the homogeneity of the HLS student body could allow a lucky kid in the top 20% to sneak into the top 10%. OK, let's say Obama was in the top 20%, not the top 10%. That drops him to the 89th percentile. Here's the HLS page showing the LSAT quartiles for the entering Class of 2007-2008. This page has a table of the percentile equivalents for all LSAT test takers between June 1998 and February 2001. [A page with those years was just the first one I found on Google.]
"But wait," you say. Quartiles and percentile equivalents can drift a little from year to year. How do we know those are accurate for Obama's class? We don't, so even though that small potential fluctuation should be more than covered with the adjustment we already made, we'll knock off another 5 points. That takes Obama down to the 84th percentile. And even though I assume the homogeneity we adjusted for is just another way of saying there's a loose correlation between the LSAT and HLS's GPA, let's double dip and hack off 5 additional points. We can call that the "we hate affirmative action penalty." And finally, because one can never be too careful when dealing with a Stalinist like Barack Hussein Mohammed Obama, I say we ding him 4 more points, marking his adjusted class rank at the 75th percentile. That happens to be the number I was heading for all along, since HLS releases LSAT data at the 25th and 75th percentiles, but still... could I bend over backwards any farther to humor your doubts and suspicions than dropping Obama from the 94th to the 75th percentile?
The bottom line is the 75th percentile LSAT score for HLS's entering class is 175, which corresponds to the 99.67th per