Wednesday, August 06, 2008

On Obama's Law Teaching

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this.

Here's the New York Times on the subject - with the ACTUAL exams and even from the early years the exam answers! Very, very cool.

Then Slate unpacks and evaluates how he did as a teacher. Verdict - as expected!

From Slate -
Whoa. So here are the roots of Obama's statements that he will pick judges who have "heart" and "empathy" because he thinks that in a small but key set of cases, a judge must fall back on "his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings." Obama is not a man, or a lawyer, who believes that at least in these hellishly difficult matters of constitutional interpretation, judges are truly guided by legal precedent, or abstract reasoning, or anything other than their gut and the outcome they prefer. This is not the way most politicians talk about the court.
I love this guy's brain. I love the law and I love this guy's brain! The complexity he is willing to see, debate, discuss, embrace is like a cool drink of water on smoggy, muggy, digusting day that has lasted 7 and 1/2 years and seems never to end!

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