In 1989, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe hired first-year Harvard law student Barack Obama as his research assistant. After Obama was elected president, Tribe would gush, “His stunning combination of analytical brilliance and personal charisma, openness and maturity, vision and pragmatism, was unmistakable from my very first encounter.” Obama had one other prominent mentor among the Harvard faculty, Professor Charles Ogletree, an African American. In the run up to the election, Ogletree would enthuse, "I'm so excited about this candidacy that I just can't tell you. I'm just overfull with joy.” In 2004, Tribe and Ogletree both made the news...