Top New Hampshire Story: Harvard Professor Stumps For Obama

Comments (37)

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 11:11 AM:

Maybe Obama should be in New Hampshire (or Iowa) today with the good Professor -- instead of Mountain View, CALIFORNIA (?!).

savvy wrote on November 14, 2007 11:20 AM:

I really like that Tribe is campaigning for Obama as it will highlight Obama's constitutional law expertise. Experience and skills that many voters may be unaware and which are critical today given the assault on our civil liberties and the presidents misuse of executive power.

This type of background and knowledge also adds credence to how Obama has consistent lifetime experience focused on what makes America great as a democracy in terms of the principles within the US Constitution as well as contributing to greater insight on how Obama would govern as President.

America desperately needs a leader who believes in the Constitution and the rule of law which is the entire foundation our Democracy is built on.

Hopefully Tribe will reinforce the importance of our democracy and how it is only as strong as the rule of law and how good governance begins and ends with respect for that system and the Bill of Rights along with the US Constitution.

Democrats should well understand the importance of judicial appointments judges as we have had to live with Bush for the past 8 years having been selected by the US Supreme Court.

Jeremy wrote on November 14, 2007 11:21 AM:

Obama is clearly the most intellectual of the candidates. Whether that helps or hurts with the electorate, I don't know. I've been pretty disturbed by the anti-intellectualism I've seen recently. However, it's a positive quality when it comes to making sound judgments based on the available evidence. Compared with candidates that looked more at poll data than intelligence reports when making the most important judgments of their Senate careers, Obama looks very good.

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 11:25 AM:

Jeremy:

Do you think Bill Clinton calling Obama "boy" helps or hurts Hillary?

Michael wrote on November 14, 2007 11:26 AM:

We already had a mental light-weight in the office and see where that got us. Endless war, endless budget deficits, endless criminal misconduct and endless incompetence. Let's try an intellectual this time.

john mccutchen wrote on November 14, 2007 11:27 AM:

Tribe taught the Con Law portion of the CA and DC bar courses I took years ago. The only one I really remember today. Probably the only course I didn't cut at least one class.

Jeremy wrote on November 14, 2007 11:32 AM:

I don't think he meant it like that Jack D, but you're right that he should choose his words more carefully. The entire Hillary camp has been strangely reckless in the past few weeks. I have to say though, that your comment has nothing to do with this thread and you should stop spamming.

Michael wrote on November 14, 2007 11:35 AM:

Jeremy, ignore jake d and he will go away and bother people on another board.

bob wrote on November 14, 2007 11:40 AM:

Tribe literally wrote the textbook on Constitutional law, so it's really great seeing him out there supporting his former student.

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 11:40 AM:

I am (obviously) not going away -- is it wrong to give the opposing viewpoint here -- you just want an echo chamber?

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 11:42 AM:

bob:

Douglas W. Kmiec wrote a testbook on Con Law as well -- he's stumping for Mitt Romney too -- I'd bet that Rudy and most of the GOP candidates have law professors on the legal advisory committees. It's not that big of a shocker.

thomas wrote on November 14, 2007 11:47 AM:

Mmmm, Doug Kmiec, from that esteemed Malibu U. Prestige plus.

Anonymous wrote on November 14, 2007 11:48 AM:

So who's Chemerinsky supporting? Bar review veterans wanna know.

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 11:50 AM:

Chemerinsky's just glad he got into UC Irvine -- no more making big waves for him -- he may sit this one out ; )

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 11:54 AM:

thomas:

Are Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Scalia teaching at "Prestigious" Harvard this year?

rts wrote on November 14, 2007 12:28 PM:

Are Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Scalia teaching at "Prestigious" Harvard this year?

No they are sitting on the Supreme Court. But in any event, Justice Roberts and Scalia both went to Harvard Law and Justice Alito went to Yale Law. No mention in their biographies of Malibu Law.

Michael wrote on November 14, 2007 12:32 PM:

rts, I guess they couldn't get in. See what money and upper-class connections will do for you. You get to go to prestigious law schools and then get a life-time appointment on the supreme court as a rubber stamp for republican policies and to screw average americans. Wow, what a country.

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 12:33 PM:

Of course they all attended Ivy League law schools way back then -- maybe there's a seismic shift going on in that regard now -- don't count Dean Starr out just yet ; )

DTM wrote on November 14, 2007 12:45 PM:

The fact that law professors like Tribe and Cass Sunstein support Obama is basically meaningless on its own. What can matter, however, is what they say about him.

Jake D wrote on November 14, 2007 1:01 PM:

I can agree with that, DTM.

Goldspinner wrote on November 14, 2007 1:48 PM:

Larry Tribe is no run-of-the-mill Harvard law professor. He's brilliant, well-connected, and powerful. In the legal universe, his support for Obama speaks volumes.

loki wrote on November 14, 2007 1:56 PM:

Jeremy said:Obama is clearly the most intellectual of the candidates.

Could you expound on this Jeremy?

NH Dem wrote on November 14, 2007 2:11 PM:

And what Tribe said about Obama yesterday was glowing. Much along the lines of this:

"I can't pretend that I had any idea then that he would be a serious presidential candidate -- that would have been a crazy thing for anyone to project at that stage of a career -- but he was certainly the most all-around impressive student I had seen in decades."

(Quote from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012600970.html )

And he said that Obama was not one of the students who always had their hands up to impress him, but when he did speak, it was clear that he knew what he was talking about and had extremely intelligent and well-thought-out things to say. He also mentioned that he'd never actually gone on the road for anyone for President before.

Jeremy wrote on November 14, 2007 2:24 PM:

loki: Here's his cv for your reference. Look, Hillary and Edwards were certainly "smarter" from a purely monetary stance in their law career paths, but I just admire that Obama chose the more intellectual and less lucrative course. Then again, I'm a grad student in a not particularly lucrative field so take it for what it's worth.

anns wrote on November 14, 2007 3:26 PM:

Just as long as they're smart enough not to stiff the waitress.....

loki wrote on November 14, 2007 3:36 PM:

Jeremy,

Not sure that was the exact link you meant to provide. All I see there is an article about Kerry and Clinton.

Jeremy wrote on November 14, 2007 4:15 PM:

Sorry, I copied the wrong URL in there. You could just google "Obama CV", but anyway here you go.

loki wrote on November 14, 2007 4:31 PM:

That certainly is impressive. Then again, so are Clinton's and Edwards'.

But as a straight up comparison between all three I fail to see how you came to the conclusion that Obama is clearly the most intellectual.

Does taking a "less lucrative course" in life really equate to "more intellectual?" Or is it more to do with his civil rights work?

Of course, then there's this:

Business International Corporation
Writer/Financial Analyst, January 1984 - January 1985
Researched, wrote and edited articles, reports, and how-to manuals on international business and finance for multinational corporations.

Now, he may have chosen a "less lucrative" path but I imagine that was no slouch of a salaried job!

Michael wrote on November 14, 2007 4:44 PM:

loki, is your love of clinton II making you so blind? All you have to do is listen to all three speak. He sounds more intellectual. He sounds professorial. Edwards sounds like a pi lawyer. Clinton II sounds like an over-coached and canned talking head. Hello.

Anonymous wrote on November 14, 2007 5:01 PM:

Loki,

Look, no one questions that all three of them are way the hell down at the tail end of the curve, far, far away from George W. Bush. And I also doubt that there's any evidence short of an admission from Hillary herself that would pursuade you. However, if you're really looking for evidence beyond merely excelling at Harvard Law and being President of the Harvard Law Review (words that get you a level of instant cred with lawyers that, even, say, being Editor of the Yale Law Review doesn't), I'd point you to the following in the January WaPo article cited above:

"I can't pretend that I had any idea then that he would be a serious presidential candidate _ that would have been a crazy thing for anyone to project at that stage of a career _ but he was certainly the most all-around impressive student I had seen in decades," said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional scholar at Harvard for whom Obama served as a research assistant.

"Obama analyzed and integrated Einstein's theory of relativity, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as well as the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity, for a Law Review article that Tribe wrote titled, 'The Curvature of Constitutional Space.'"

Damn!

NCSteve wrote on November 14, 2007 5:30 PM:

And, once again proving that I am not down at that end of the curve with them, I forgot to enter my lame-ass nick before I hit send on that last comment. Doh!

NCSteve wrote on November 14, 2007 5:32 PM:

. . . and screwed up the quotation marks as well. It should have been:

"'I can't pretend that I had any idea then that he would be a serious presidential candidate _ that would have been a crazy thing for anyone to project at that stage of a career _ but he was certainly the most all-around impressive student I had seen in decades,' said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional scholar at Harvard for whom Obama served as a research assistant.

Obama analyzed and integrated Einstein's theory of relativity, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as well as the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity, for a Law Review article that Tribe wrote titled, 'The Curvature of Constitutional Space.'"

Jeremy wrote on November 14, 2007 5:39 PM:

Maybe we're talking past eachother, but on my understanding of "intellectual" constitutional law and issues like the nature of human rights and the nature of textual interpretation are more intellectual than corporate law or personal injury law. However, unlike me (philsophy and pure math are my interests) that Obama studied constitutional law out of a concrete concern for civil rights shows that his motivations were as much to serve people in concrete ways as the study of abstractions. I admire that. Maybe you see similarly admirable qualities expressed in the more lucrative choices that Hillary and Edwards made. If so, what are they?

atty wrote on November 14, 2007 6:39 PM:

The Curvature of Constitutional Space?

I don't know, NCSteve. I was pretty happy to go along with the general warm and fuzzy feelings about Tribe campaigning for Obama (and even overlook the slight to The Yale Law Journal) until I hit this. It reminds me both of the law prof-as-astrophysicist gag and of why I often think ConLaw is the most vapid and solipsistic area of legal scholarship. Anything to convince a bunch of 23-year-old law review editors that a topic hasn't been "pre-empted." Gag. I'll agree with Jeremy that Obama is probably the most intellectual of the three (or the whole field, for that matter), but this is a watered-down and self-important form of intellectualism in my book.

Just my .02.

Joe Lisboa wrote on November 14, 2007 10:04 PM:

Hey Jeremy, speaking of math and (I suppose more tangentially) philosophy:

"Obama analyzed and integrated Einstein's theory of relativity, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as well as the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity, for a Law Review article that Tribe wrote titled, 'The Curvature of Constitutional Space.'"

That's from the WaPo article on Obama's student tenure at Harvard Law. I mention only because I laughed to myself for a solid two minutes even trying to *imagine* our current President spelling "Einstein" or "Heisenberg" correctly, much less tackling the job of summarizing and integrating such difficult material in a wholly different (i.e., legal) context. Thought others would get a chuckle, too.

It's high time we had a chief executive who not only has respect for the Constitution but, you know, actually understands it and all.

Joe Lisboa wrote on November 14, 2007 10:06 PM:

Oops, just saw atty's post. I share your suspicions about the cross-applicability of, say, physics to law, but if Tribe's going to argue by analogy (which seems to be the approach of said paper), then I certainly see no harm in having your brightest student get the basic facts right about the object of your intended analogical comparison.

loki wrote on November 15, 2007 7:46 AM:

Maybe we're talking past eachother, but on my understanding of "intellectual" constitutional law and issues like the nature of human rights and the nature of textual interpretation are more intellectual than corporate law or personal injury law. However, unlike me (philsophy and pure math are my interests) that Obama studied constitutional law out of a concrete concern for civil rights shows that his motivations were as much to serve people in concrete ways as the study of abstractions. I admire that. Maybe you see similarly admirable qualities expressed in the more lucrative choices that Hillary and Edwards made. If so, what are they?

OK, well your consistent reference to "lucrative choices" makes it abundantly clear the shallow notion you have of intellectual.

And Michael,

Being articulate does not make an intellectual.

For the record, it appears Obama is a fairly brilliant fellow. I happen to think the same for more than a few the Dem candidates. I don't think twice about their net worth when evaluating their thinking processes. Jeremy's blanket statement ("clearly he's the most intellectual") struck me as fanboyism.

His explanation for it hasn't changed my thinking.

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