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Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

Obama's reign was never about hope and change; it was always about der Wille zur Macht. Riddle me this -- what if Obama became a Constitutional law professor not so much to study, understand, and teach about the Constitution and its checks on government power, but to give scholarly support to a loose interpretation of the Constitution which does not meaningfully restrain government power?

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As far as I see, he only really taught some fluff courses on "rights, race and gender." [1] Not quite what comes to the minds of most lawyers and law students when someone says "con law professor."

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30law.html?pag...

The article says, "At the school, Mr. Obama taught three courses, ascending to senior lecturer, a title otherwise carried only by a few federal judges. His most traditional course was in the due process and equal protection areas of constitutional law. His voting rights class traced the evolution of election law, from the disenfranchisement of blacks to contemporary debates over districting and campaign finance. Mr. Obama was so interested in the subject that he helped Richard Pildes, a professor at New York University, develop a leading casebook in the field. His most original course, a historical and political seminar as much as a legal one, was on racism and law."

From that description, the equal protection and due process course sounds like a typical con law profesor?

Obama was offered tenure multiple times. Each time, he turned it down. You don't get a tenure offer at UChicago Law by teaching fluff courses.

He apparently focused on the intersection of race and constitutional law.

I think this is giving him too much credit. Obama's career is too short to think of him as anything other than a lucky ticket holder. He's Warren Harding, or even George W. Bush again - it matters less what he believes and has done and more what the prevailing wisdom is. The main story in American government is continuity: no matter who sits the throne, it's the needs of the same establishment class that get met.

This is not to excuse the behavior of the man who chose to push buttons and kill people from the sky, but Obama did not invent any of this stuff. The drone program had already been created and had a life of its own. Obama was merely willing to play along with the game (instead of, say, cleaning out the CIA of torturers). The same goes for the rest - certainly, Obama wants power, but I think he actually sold himself for precious little of it.

Also reasonable: law professor is a great job if you can get it. Plus when you run out of money you click your slippers and say 'no place like corp law'.

Also possible that he's a lizard person. Not much textual evidence for this case but if you like 45 minute youtube videos I'll recommend some good ones.

I would like to see those videos actually.

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