Posted on 04/11/2010 3:19:32 AM PDT by RobinMasters
Are attorneys Barack and Michelle Obama currently licensed to practice law?
Was Barack Obama ever a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago?
In recent days, these questions have once again gone viral on the Internet.
WND has traced the current controversy to Doug Ross and a March 1 posting on his DirectorBlue.blogspot.com asserting the Obamas are no longer lawyers registered to practice law in Illinois and that claims President Obama was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago are "a sham."
This current round of the controversy harkens back to the 2008 presidential campaign when Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton made nearly the same charges in a March 25, 2008, "Hillary for President" press release entitled "Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama's Record of Exaggerations & Misstatements."
After stating Barack Obama was not a law professor at the University of Chicago, the Clinton press release insisted: "He (Barack Obama) is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there's a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter. Professors have tenure while lecturers do not."
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
I was in that third category about 25 years ago, finishing my dissertation and needing a few extra bucks. I think the pay was $1300 per course at one school and a whopping $2000 at another. That’s for preparing a lesson and examination plan, teaching the entire semester, grading (often unintelligible) student papers and scoring exams.
I don’t think Barry worked that hard. His students complained that he was usually unprepared and often just talked about sports. I’ll bet they liked him though. He probably gave everyone an “A”. The names of those kinds of instructors are typically well known in any university.
Slightly off subject, but here is something else I have often wondered about. Such a Charismatic young stud must have had many nubile young ladies worshiping at his feet as he organized the community toward the promised land. Are there any that have come out of the woodwork like they did with Bill? If they have, I missed it. Who was pre-Michelle??
Right. Few people realize just how little the job pays, compared to tenure-track jobs. I think the university counts on them to be trying to make ends meet while finishing work on a degree, or to supplement a starter income on the outside.
So whose now saying he is, and/or was?
Maybe the MSM/pundits should look through back issues of the Chicago Tribune or Sun-Times in those big buildings called a 'Library'. Plenty of articles there on Barry in those newspapers, especially in the *Slum-Times*. They had a two year journalistic orgasm over that poseur. But even they didn't exaggerate on what he was while at the U of C.
John Lott was interviewed by Mark Levin on meeting Obama at the University of Chicago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oo77QQ5gYA
I am a senior lecturer on “Beer Quality at Fine American Establishments”...considering campaigning in 2012. I’m certain I could (with the help of a teleprompter of course) convince beer drinkers everywhere of my qualifications to be president.
The money. It can be pretty good.
Maybe he was able to get a grant from the government or other left wing org. to study how to destroy America.
M,
What an education one can get at FReerepublic! Gonna have to get my donation ready again! just damn. As usual, learn more here in 5 minutes, than watching NEtwork TV for 5 years.
"Barack Obama's official titles were Lecturer and Senior Lecturer," Galer said. "These are adjunct positions on the University of Chicago faculty, not full-time tenure-track positions."
So, why bother calling him lower-case 'professor' if he wasn't a Professor? Obviously they are trying to make him out to be something he was not.
John Quincy Adams practiced law after he was President. He argued the famous Amistad case.
Why be a 'Professor' when they are willing to call you a 'professor' and you don't have to do all the extra work? Too lazy?
I believe that Nixon practiced law after the Presidency too. I don’t know if he ever appeared in a courtroom, but he joined a high powered NY law firm.
Exsqueze me but the correct terminology for that area would be 'Boystown'. Its the 'semi-official' name for that neighborhood. And I'm not being derogatory.
That's what the gays WANT their neighborhood to be called. (buncha sick puppies)
an aside: When Larry Sinclair came out with his charges about Barry being 'that way' I had doubts due to logistics and distance from 'home'. But then I looked up the boundary of Barry's IL Senate District and wha-la, there it was. It went from Hyde Park on the South Side all the way up the lake-front to the Gold Coast on the North Side.
That's a five to seven minute car ride from 'Boystown'. So all he had to do to pull it off (no pun) was tell Michelle he was going up to the Gold Coast to meet a rich donor.
Very interesting link. Thanks for posting.
I was told by someone in the Chicago area that the committee at UChicago originally didn’t want to hire him as a lecturer because they didn’t think that he had the “right stuff”. They rejected Barry and they were told by “higher ps” to make a position for him.
I’d have to take issue with your description of the hiring and tenure process at universities. Your description may be accurate for some small, local college but is not at all accurate for most. Usually it is up or out for tenure track professors. They don’t just continue without being granted tenure. The adjuncts are a different story. They have no power, no vote, no benefits, and tenure is not a consideration. The tenured and the adjuncts live in two different worlds.
Everything about Barry Soetoro is BS.
Of course, “It’s the Chicago way.”
Most of what you’ve laid out is spot-on, but there are some nuances (I’m in the business, so I’ve got some experience in the matter).
Tenure-track faculty at the prestige research universities typically have minimal teaching duties (one undergrad class and one graduate class a year is not unusual), and for many of the top researchers (not all), teaching classes is essentially a nuisance.
Somebody has to deal with the undergrad classes, and that’s where the lecturer staff comes in. Their teaching loads are typically 6 classes per academic year, generally all undergraduate, and often with pretty good size classes. It’s true that they are not (and generally cannot be) tenured, but many - perhaps most - are so essential to keeping the courses staffed that their yearly contract renewals are almost automatic - if those lecturers disappeared overnight, there’s not way the university could offer the number of classes they do.
The major difference between the tenure-line professors and the lecturers is that the former are the world-class scholars and researchers who give an institution its professional reputation. The lecturers are often great instructors, but they seldom engage in much research, and generally aren’t nearly as high-powered professsionally.
Obama was an exception even to the normal professor/lecturer distinction, in that it appears that not only was he not distinguishd in terms of his professional work (he had none), but that he wasn’t even much of a teacher. He certainly wasn’t one of the faculty who maintained the day-to-day staffing that the U of C needed to keep classes staffed. To all appearances, he was simply granted a teaching assignment or two as a resume enhancer - he essentially faked his way through teaching a couple of classes, and as a result got to associate himself with the prestige of the unviersity.
What the university got out of the deal was the political connection (the value of which is not to be underestimated in Chicago). It was a situation similar to that of his wife with the U of C’s med school - she made a good buck in a job that disappeared once the Obama’s moved on to bigger and better scams.
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