Michelle Obama, Bernardine Dohrn, and Sidley & Austin

NRO ^ | 100708 | Ed Whelan

[Fred]

A quick follow-up to Andy McCarthy’s intriguing and provocative essay exploring when and how Barack Obama and Bill Ayers really first met:

Michelle Obama joined Sidley & Austin as an associate in the fall of 1988. She had previously been a summer associate at Sidley & Austin—evidently in the summer of 1987.

According to Wikipedia, Bernardine Dohrn worked for Sidley & Austin from 1984 to 1988, while she unsuccessfully sought admission to the New York and Illinois bars. (According to Sidley’s managing partner, Dohrn didn’t get admitted to the bar because “She wouldn’t say she’s sorry” for her acts of domestic terrorism.) It appears that Dohrn first worked in Sidley’s New York office, and then in its Chicago office.

Did Michelle Obama and Bernardine Dohrn work together? Did they know each other at Sidley? When and how did they come to know each other?

I don’t mean to suggest by these questions that there’s any reason to conclude that Barack Obama and Bill Ayers met through their wives. As Andy suggests, it’s quite possible that they met earlier in New York. Another alternative, as Steve Diamond speculates, is that Obama and Ayers may have worked together during a battle over reform of Chicago’s public schools in 1987 and 1988 (before Barack met Michelle).

[igoramus08]

It is astounding that no journalist has asked BO and MO when did they first meet Ayers or Dorhn, and when did they know about their past.

[snarkytart]

That’s because the “journalists” know the answer. Obama is a leftist radical/socialist. It’s clear to me Michelle is probably even more of one. Obama’s political career was backed in some way by Ayers, and Obama’s “church” and Wright preached the same crap as Ayers. Obama believes this stuff.

[old curmudgeon]

You have just hit on something extremely important.

You have found the nugget that ends the question of when BO knew.

If Michelle O knew in 1988, and she had to know because you know that the law partners mention the why of Dorn being there, which means that it was talked about in the firm.

That would mean that BO would have known about it the very next time that he talked to Michelle O.

The idea that Dorn’s past would have been a secret in that firm is about is plausible as the idea that it is a secret in Massachusetts that Kennedy can't drive an Oldsmobile across a bridge.

[Plutarch]

If the office has more than 500 lawyers, it would have more than 1000 employees. Pretty big pond.

Chicago One South Dearborn Chicago, Illinois 60603 312.853.7000 312.853.7036 Fax View Map

Sidley’s largest office traces its origins back to 1866. For over 140 years, the firm has grown with the city, and remains one of the largest and respected law offices in Chicago. More than 500 lawyers in the Chicago office work on a broad range of litigation, transactional and regulatory matters.

[SaxxonWoods]

“...exploring when and how Barack Obama and Bill Ayers really first met...”

The Lake Steam Bath House?

[cw35]

Email their managing partner Carter Philips at cphillips@sidley.com He happens to supposedly be a Republican to boot.

[Fred]

Plenty of the lawyers at this firm knew about Dohrn. Dohrn got her job at this law firm because of her wealthy father-in-law who was a client of this firm. Dohrn could not get into the bar because of her criminal past. would be pretty tough to hide this in any law firm.

[TBP]

This connection just gets closer and closer.

[FreedomProtector]

Thanks for posting.