Posted on 05/22/2015 12:43:43 PM PDT by pabianice
Constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe, author of a comprehensive new book, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution, says Barack Obama was an amazing law student.
During a broad discussion on Tuesday with The Fiscal Times about some of the most significant cases to come before the Roberts court and how those decisions may profoundly alter American life, Tribe reflected on the president as a young man.
Obama was his research assistant for two-and-a-half years at Harvard Law School where Tribe has taught for four decades.
“He was amazing. I met him when he was a first year law student,” said Tribe, referring to what would have been the fall of 1988. “This kid comes in wearing jeans and a sweatshirt – lanky kid, strange name – but I was quite amazed by him and we talked for a long time, even though he hadn’t taken constitutional law yet, let alone take it from me."
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“He asked me whether I would be interested in giving him some research assignments,” Tribe said of Obama. “In all of my years of teaching, I don’t think I’ve ever been that impressed with a first year law student. Certainly I asked him to do some very challenging stuff. He worked with me on one of my most challenging articles in the Harvard Law Review, ‘The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn from Modern Physics.’”
The article appeared in November 1989, volume 103 of the Harvard Law Review. (Obama graduated from Harvard Law in 1991.)
“If you look at that article,” recounted Tribe, “the first footnote acknowledges the help of Barack Obama and, of all people, Gene Sperling [former director of the National Economic Council under President Obama].”
The footnote thanks Obama, Sperling and several others “for their analytic and research assistance.”
Tribe said Obama also worked with him “on a book called Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes, and a number of other things.”
Related: Why Obamacare as We Know It May Not Survive
Even back then, says Tribe, Obama had the ability to see all sides of complex issues – and not necessarily to his detriment.
“He displayed the ability to see a multifaceted problem in all of its complexity – and you want presidents to do that. The separate question of decision-making style, of managerial style, how somebody handles himself or herself on the world stage – I obviously had no [foreknowledge of that]. He certainly saw every side of everything – and deeply. He really has deep insight into a number of things, including physics, and history, and political science, and seemingly a lot of law, though this was before he [finished] law school.”
So did Tribe give Obama an ‘A’?
Tribe laughed. “At a minimum,” he said. - See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/07/09/How-Barack-Obama-Amazed-His-Harvard-Law-Professor#sthash.kLvPyveF.dpuf
I think Tribe is trying to make amends.
Jim Young/Reuters/The Atlantic
DAVID A. GRAHAM
MAR 27, 2015
Climate-change activists and advocates seldom have trouble finding villains. But recently, they’ve found a new one in a strange place: famed legal scholar and Obama mentor Laurence Tribe, in his office at Harvard Law School.
Tribe has been the highest-profile legal scholar to criticize the Obama administration’s rules for carbon-dioxide emissions from coal plants, which were formally proposed in June 2014.
So, how’d he go from a certifiable genius to a complete moron?
O HAS SOMETHING ON HIM. Hes being blackmailed. That’s the Chicago way !
Just as an aside, last I looked there were no requirements to take a course at HLS to gain a degree. They do offer Constitutional law an as elective...
Sorry; meant to say, last I looked there were no requirements to take a Constitutional law course at HLS to gain a degree. They do offer Constitutional law an as elective...
The story has the ring of pure BS, and mighty late in showing up since Obama has been a national figure since sat least 2007.
was appointed in 2010 by President Obama and Attorney General Holder to serve as the first Senior Counselor for Access to Justice
Tribe actively supported the Barack Obama presidential campaign, and described Obama as “the best student I ever had,”[1] a sentiment previously reserved for Kathleen Sullivan.[21]
Alongside Harvard’s Cass Sunstein, Tribe served as a judicial adviser to the Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.[22] In February 2010, he was named “Senior Counselor for Access to Justice” in the Department of Justice. He resigned eight months later, claiming health reasons.
Wasn’t he a foreign exchange student going under the name of Barry? This is very confusing.
That’s some weapons-grade shameless gushing.
And 73 is a little old to be a giddy fanboi.
The "Hair Club For Men" guy? "I'm not only the Hair Club president. I'm also a client."
It's not so surprising that a law professor might find an older student better organized and more self-possessed than somebody just out of college.
Race may likely have entered into it as well, faculty expectations for Black students being lower than for students of other races.
There's some skepticism and outright disagreement with Tribe's "Curvature of Constitutional Space" paper on law and physics.
It may not be that impressive, save as flim-flam or pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo -- the sort of thing it's easy to churn out but that doesn't bear much scrutiny.
Very insightful.
More like Obama just parroted back the mouthings of that Law Professor nut.
I don’t know how publications in the law racket work, but in most scholarly fields if you make a significant contribution, your name shows up as a co-author.
In other fields, footnoted acknowledgements are generally little more than a courtesy.
But when people are giving away Nobel Peace prizes like Cracker Jack tokens, I guess Tribe might have felt left out unless he threw in his contribution.
I’m having a real difficult time believe one word of this article.
Was this written by Bill Ayers, too?
It's like he wasn't even there.
>>“He was amazing. I met him when he was a first year law student,” said Tribe, referring to what would have been the fall of 1988. “This kid comes in wearing jeans and a sweatshirt – lanky kid, strange name – but I was quite amazed by him and we talked for a long time, even though he hadn’t taken constitutional law yet, let alone take it from me. “He asked me whether I would be interested in giving him some research assignments,” Tribe said of Obama.<<
We would have called him a “Brown-nosing Flamer.”
This reads like something someone would write about Dear Young Leader Kim Jong Un, like how Kim climbed North Korea’s highest mountain in record time without even breathing hard.
The needle on my B.S. meter departed at warp speed in defiance of physics and the truth. Wonder what this cost the putter? Flat arsed unbelievable....edited
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