What else did the Candidate-without-scrutiny Obama embellish, you say? Well, he said he was a "law professor" and he wasn't. Why didn't he say he was a "Senior Lecturer" instead?

Sunday, March 30, 2008
Was Barack Obama a "law professor"?

This seems to be the issue of the day, and, being a law professor blogger, I feel compelled to pay attention. So, first, the Hillary Clinton campaign � stinging from the ridiculous Bosnian sniper fire lie/mistake � put out a press release that listed 10 items under the heading "embellishments and misstatements." Item #1 was:

Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, "Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter." In academia, there's a significant difference: professors have tenure while lecturers do not. [Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]
"Professors have tenure while lecturers do not"? You might want to avoid glaring mistakes of your own right at the top of your list of someone else's mistakes. A professor starts out without tenure. (Hillary Clinton herself was a law professor � at the University of Arkansas � who never had tenure.) But, let's proceed.

The University of Chicago Law School put up a statement detailing Obama's relationship with the law school: He was a "lecturer" and a "senior lecturer" and never held the title "Professor of Law."

Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.
Some law schools use the term "Adjunct Professor" instead of lecturer. Here's a list of adjunct professors at NYU School of Law (where I got my law degree). Here's a list of adjunct professors at the University of Wisconsin Law School, my home school. The term is also used at Brooklyn Law School, where I'm visiting this year. It's a very common term used to dignify the role of the outside lecturer. Outside lecturers contribute a lot to the law school and do it for comparatively very low pay, so the honor is important. To withhold the title "adjunct professor" and use only the title "lecturer" is, I think, show-offy of the school: Association with us is such an honor that we don't need to puff it up the way they do at those lesser schools.

Next, in this Chicago Sun-Times blog post, Lynn Sweet stirred the pot for Hillary:

[Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at Chicago] said there is a major distinction between a lecturer and senior lecturer, though both are not full-time positions. She said the status of a senior lecturer is �similar� to the status of a professor and Obama did teach core courses usually handled only by professors. While Obama was also part of the law school community, his appointment was not part of an academic search process and he did not have any scholarly research obligations which professors often do.

In August of 2004, I wrote a column about Obama�s U.S. Senate campaign literature saying he was a law professor at the U of C when he was a senior lecturer on leave at the school. Neither the school nor anyone in the Obama campaign complained at the time.

The University of Chicago did Obama no favor by saying he was a law professor when he wasn�t. This parsing is not necessary. There is nothing degrading about being a senior lecturer and bringing to students the experience of a professional in the field.
The question isn't whether it's "degrading" to teach law school without being called a "professor," but whether there's something wrong with applying the term "professor" to someone whose formal title is "lecturer." I think one ought to be careful about this. If your title was "lecturer" and you're applying for a job, you shouldn't say "I was a law professor." Even though it can be defended as not a lie, you're exaggerating and not being strictly scrupulous about the facts. And Clinton's press release didn't say this was a lie. It put it on a list of 10 "embellishments and misstatements." It's fair to say it's an embellishment. [ADDED: Actually, the item says Obama "falsely claims," so she is accusing him of lying. I think that's an overstatement � or, we might say, an embellishment.]

Noam Scheiber at TNR writes about what he sarcastically calls "the great 'law professor' controversy":

As best I can tell, the university regarded Obama as a professor, but didn't officially confer that title on him.

I guess I don't see the scandal in Obama describing himself that way. But maybe the voters of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana will see something I don't...
See what's going on? It was a list of 10 things, intended to show a pattern of puffery (and to balance the Bosnian sniper idiocy), and people are focusing on one item (admittedly, the first item), which is a distraction from the list as a whole. That's an okay rhetorical move, but excuse me if I see right through it.

So, the "law professor" puffery is something on its own. Not all that much, but something. Now, consider the other 9 items, and judge for yourself whether the Clinton campaign has made its point, which melds questions of Obama's honesty to the contention that he lacks experience:

.Obama claimed credit for nuclear leak legislation that never passed.
.Obama misspoke about his being conceived because of Selma.
.Sen. Obama took too much credit for his community organizing efforts.
.Obama's assertion that nobody had indications Rezko was engaging in wrongdoing 'strains credulity.' "
.Obama was forced to revise his assertion that lobbyists 'won't work in my White House.'
.Selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers pump up Obama's health plan.'
.Sen. Obama said 'I passed a law that put Illinois on a path to universal coverage,' but Obama health care legislation merely set up a task force.
.Obama�seemed to exaggerate the legislative progress he made' on ethics reform.
.Obama drastically overstated Kansas tornado deaths during campaign appearance.

Details at the Clinton press release.

Just like sitting in the pews for 20 years at Trinity and not knowing what his pastor was really saying begs credibility and speaks to Obama's judgment, so does the above embellishments. Of course, the Liberal press will give him a pass. He's their amazing Obama.

The man of Hope is playing a rope-a-dope with the American people. Are they buying it? Will they continue to buy it until the bitter end?

Published: Mar 31, 2008

Obama Fabricated, Hillary Embellished
by Michael J. Gaynor


Hillary's exaggeration of the danger she faced in a war zone is topped by Obama's whopper that the Selma marchers somehow inspired his black father and white mother to become his parents by

Obama? Hillary?

Thank God that the Democrats can only nominate one of them for president!

When rookie presidential hopeful Barack Hussein Obama appeared on ABC's "The View" to hear Barbara Walters opine that he's sexy and to try to distance himself further from Rev. Jeremiah A. "God damn America" Wright,. Jr., the man who supposedly brought him to Jesus Christ, inspired him to title his presidential campaign book "The Audacity of Hope" (after one of Rev. Wright's sermons that Obama admitted in his first book, Dreams from my Father, not only hearing in person, but being brought to tears by), presided over his wedding to Michelle "Black Community first and foremost" Obama and baptized their two daughters.

This time Barack said he would have been "uncomfortable" staying in the Trinity United Church of Christ if Rev. Wright had not retired and expressed sorrow over his hateful, hurtful statements recently brought to the attention of the general public.

It's true that Rev. Wright announced his retirement.

It's NOT true that Rev. Wright had publicly expressed such sorrow.

Perhaps privately to Obama, but don't bet on even a private expression of sorrow to Obama beyond hurting Obama's chance of being elected President of the United States.

When the Wright scandal broke, what Obama initially did was wrong: he claimed ignorance.

When Obama read his "Race in America" speech from a teleprompter a few days later, however, he admitted that he had heard some of Rev. Wright's controversial sermons, but insisted that he had not "heard" the most controversial ones recently publicized.

Maybe that's literally true. But if he had not "heard of" those sermons, then why did he "disinvite" Rev. Wright to speak at the announcement of his presidential campaign last year?

In March of 2007 The New York Times reported that Obama had explained to Rev. Wright that he was "disinvited" because his sermons could be "rough."

If a white Republican conservative presidential candidate had similarly "disinvited" a spiritual mentor of twenty years based on "rough sermons," the mainstream media would have demanded to know just how "rough" those sermons were and why he had waited until he was about to make his presidential candidacy announcement to begin to distance himself from that spiritual mentor.

AND RIGHTLY SO!

Perhaps as some sort of affirmative action benefit, Obama got a whole year to prepare for that kind of scrutiny and he still wasn't ready when it finally came.

Now the Obama-entranced mainstream media is excoriated his rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for exaggerating the danger she was in when she visited Bosnia while there was a war going on.

Hillary's account of the incident in her autobiography seems to have been fair, but along the campaign trail she added sniper fire that was not there.

Foolish revisionist history exaggerating danger.

But not as bad as Obama's foolish revisionist history when he spoke on March 4, 2007 at a commemoration of the Selma Voting Rights March.

The text quotes Obama as saying "I must send greetings from Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr."

That would be the spiritual mentor from whom Obama is now trying to distance himself.

Then there is the stirring story of how the march inspired Obama's birth.

Obama:

"What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House who said, 'You know, we're battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we're not observing the ideals set fort in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites.' So the Kennedy's decided we're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.

"This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama.

"I'm here because somebody marched. I'm here because you all sacrificed for me...."

WHAT A BLATANT LIAR!

Obama was born in 1961.

The Selma Voting Rights March occurred in 1965.

Hillary's exaggeration of the danger she faced in a war zone is topped by Obama's whopper that the Selma marchers somehow inspired his black father and white mother to become his parents by marching four years after he was born.

Andy Martin:

"The truth about Obama is there in plain view. It is there for all of us, and especially the media, to see. But there are 'none so blind as those who will not see, none so deaf as those who will not hear.' And none so stupid as those who consciously avoid the truth because they want to keep on reporting Obama's lies.

"Both Mr. Obama and the mainstream media owe the American people an explanation and an apology. But don't hold your breath. Obama's too busy making up new lies to even know what the truth is any more.

"Obama is not part of any 'Joshua Generation.' He has been "joshing"' us all along, and we keep taking it. He may be a Kool-Aid salesman. But we keep buying and keep drinking.

"Two and a half years ago I held a news conference in Chicago to denounce Obama as a fraud. Events since then have all corroborated my facts and confirmed my conclusions. I told you so. In 2004."

Yes, Mr. Martin said it.

Unfortunately, very few read it, because the mainstream media wanted to tell a very different story.

Michael J. Gaynor is an independent columnist[/i]

SilentReader wrote:
Wow! Obama even got his own life's story wrong. What else has he been wrong about?

Wow! Obama credited the Kennedys for a 1959 event instead of 1960!!!! Oh Boy!

You're pathetic, SilentReader.

It doesn't bother you at all that John McCain said that Iran was training Al Qaeda?

RogerWilco wrote:
SilentReader wrote:
Wow! Obama even got his own life's story wrong. What else has he been wrong about?

Wow! Obama credited the Kennedys for a 1959 event instead of 1960!!!! Oh Boy!

You're pathetic, SilentReader.

It doesn't bother you at all that John McCain said that Iran was training Al Qaeda?

Pathetic doesn't say enough about StupidReaderette. If there is someone who can tolerate her, if she hasn't driven off all her family, why don't they muzzle her and put her back in the kitchen where she belongs?

RogerWilco wrote:
SilentReader wrote:
Wow! Obama even got his own life's story wrong. What else has he been wrong about?

Wow! Obama credited the Kennedys for a 1959 event instead of 1960!!!! Oh Boy!

You're pathetic, SilentReader.

It doesn't bother you at all that John McCain said that Iran was training Al Qaeda?
She probably thinks that too.

What you are seeing is RushReader in denial. She thinks that by heaping lots of rumor and innuendo on Obama, the American people will forget how crappy the economy is and how long we have been in Iraq and how much it has cost and how many soldiers have been killed and how it is not getting better and how in fact is starting to get worse again, violence wise and how we may really be there for 100 years.

That's her plan, and she's sticking to it.