Mic e Obama's thesis, but not Barack's

[ChumpDumper]

He actually jokes that he graduated 894 out of 899, so I don't think he's hiding anything.

And Obama graduated with honors, so i don't think he's hiding anything.

[DarrinS]

Just out of curiosity, why do we hold people that have gone to law school in such high regard?

[Anti.Hero]

Only his birth certificate.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

From NYT's David Brooks...



The guy is riffing on Reinhold Niebuhr because of a spontaneous question by a reporter. How many politicians can pull that off? How many politicians would even know who Reinhold Niebuhr was, much less be able to summarize the tenets of his philosophy?

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American theologian. A Protestant, he is best known for his study of the task of relating the Christian faith to the realities of modern politics and diplomacy. He was an important contributor to modern "just war" thinking.

how could any politician have known someone that deals with relations of politics and diplomacy? [<------please ask self with oozing sarcasm]

[Mr. Peabody]

i don't doubt their endorsement of him. he graduated top of his class. i don't think that is the point of this thread. that's out in the open. his record of columbia is not.

The original point of the thread was the claim that none of his written works as a student were published. I pointed out that, in fact, he had a case note published in Harvard Law Review during his first year in law school.

Also -

Obama and the case of the missing 'thesis'
Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:01 PM ET
Filed Under: Politics
. . . .
So we turned for answers to the former professor who graded the now-elusive paper.

Ace student
In 1983, as a senior at Columbia in New York, Barack Obama enrolled in an intense, eight-student honors seminar called American Foreign Policy. His former professor, Michael Baron, recalled in an interview with NBC News that Obama easily aced the year-long class. But Baron says he never had any inkling that the gangly senior would scale such heights.

“You wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, he’s going to be secretary of state or president someday’,” Baron said. Obama was whip smart and “clearly one of the top one or two students in the class,” he said, but Obama’s seven classmates also could hold their own. “No real dolts in the class,” Baron remembered.

Twenty-five years later, Baron is president of a digital-media company in Florida and has hung up his professorial tweeds for good. He had saved Obama’s senior paper for years, and even hunted for it again this month in some boxes. But he said his search was fruitless, and he now thinks he tossed it out eight years ago during a move.

Baron described the paper as a “thesis” or “senior thesis” in several interviews, and said that Obama spent a year working on it. Baron recalls that the topic was nuclear negotiations with the Soviet Union.

“My recollection is that the paper was an analysis of the evolution of the arms reduction negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States,” Baron said in an e-mail. “At that time, a hot topic in foreign policy circles was finding a way in which each country could safely reduce the large arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at the other … For U.S. policy makers in both political parties, the aim was not disarmament, but achieving deep reductions in the Soviet nuclear arsenal and keeping a substantial and permanent American advantage. As I remember it, the paper was about those negotiations, their tactics and chances for success. Barack got an A.”

Baron said that, even if he could find a copy of the paper, it would likely disappoint Obama’s critics. “The course was not a polemical course, it was a course in decision making and how decisions got made,” he said. “None of the papers in the class were controversial.”

So would it provide any political ammunition today? “I don’t think it would at all,” Baron said. “It wasn’t a position paper; it was an analysis of decision-making.”

[ChumpDumper]

Just out of curiosity, why do we hold people that have gone to law school in such high regard?

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to opine about this once a person who is a lawyer became someone you didn't want to be president?

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Again, why specifically do you want to see the transcript?

Have you seen McCain's Naval Academy transcript? I didn't see any links to it on the timeline on his website.

your not reading what i'm writing so there's no use with you. we know that he graduated at the bottom of his class. that's known. again, and hopefully you'll internalize it, what did obama do at columbia?

[DarrinS]

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to opine about this once a person who is a lawyer became someone you didn't want to be president?

I've always wondered about it.

[ChumpDumper]

Only his birth certificate.

Nope. It's there for anyone who chooses to see.

[Mr. Peabody]

how could any politician have known someone that deals with relations of politics and diplomacy? [<------please ask self with oozing sarcasm]

If you think most politicians could riff on Niebuhr out of the blue, then maybe I'm wrong. But, I doubt that your average politician could pull that off.

, even David Brooks was impressed by his knowledge of the topic.

[ChumpDumper]

your not reading what i'm writing so there's no use with you. we know that he graduated at the bottom of his class. that's known. again, and hopefully you'll internalize it, what did obama do at columbia?

Graduated and did well enough to get into Harvard Law.

What dispute do you have with this?

You aren't being specific at all.

[ChumpDumper]

I've always wondered about it.

So do you hold them in high regard?

[DarrinS]

So do you hold them in high regard?

I work with one and she's a real . Her and her husband are about to get bent over by Barack's "fair" tax. LOL. They have a 7500 sq ft house.


EDIT> Presonally, I have more respect for doctors and engineers than I have for attorneys.

[ChumpDumper]

I work with one and she's a real . Her and her husband are about to get bent over by Barack's "fair" tax. LOL. They have a 7500 sq ft house.

So from a class warfare standpoint, you don't hold them in high regard.

[Mr. Peabody]

Just out of curiosity, why do we hold people that have gone to law school in such high regard?

Because, at a minimum, it's a form of post graduate education. People that have gone to law school first had to get a bachelor's degree (4-5 years) and then, pursued another 3 years of education. It's the same reason we hold people with Master's degrees and Ph.Ds in such high regard.

Should we have contempt for them?

[DarrinS]

So from a class warfare standpoint, you don't hold them in high regard.

I think they are overpaid for what they do. I saved a lot of money by doing my own divorce papers (~15 years ago). They don't do anything that your average person couldn't do, with a little research.


I wouldn't mind if their wealth gets spread around to me.

[ChumpDumper]

I think they are overpaid for what they do. I saved a lot of money by doing my own divorce papers (~15 years ago). They don't do anything that your average person couldn't do, with a little research.

I wouldn't mind if their wealth gets spread around to me.

Socialist.

[Mr. Peabody]

I work with one and she's a real . Her and her husband are about to get bent over by Barack's "fair" tax. LOL. They have a 7500 sq ft house.


EDIT> Presonally, I have more respect for doctors and engineers than I have for attorneys.

Well , that's all the reason I need....

[Ginofan]

so...you guys want to see the details of Obama's transcripts, for what purpose i have no idea...but then you get all butt hurt over the details of Joe the Plumber's fraud being dug up and splashed all over the media. That doesn't make a lick of sense.

[Mr. Peabody]

I think they are overpaid for what they do. I saved a lot of money by doing my own divorce papers (~15 years ago). They don't do anything that your average person couldn't do, with a little research.

That reminds me of my buddy who insists that he doesn't need to see a doctor ever again because he can just look everything up on WebMD.

[DarrinS]

That reminds me of my buddy who insists that he doesn't need to see a doctor ever again because he can just look everything up on WebMD.

[DarrinS]

so...you guys want to see the details of Obama's transcripts, for what purpose i have no idea...but then you get all butt hurt over the details of Joe the Plumber's fraud being dug up and splashed all over the media. That doesn't make a lick of sense.

Is Joe the Plumber running for president?

[ChumpDumper]

It's a nice option if both parties are amicable.

[DarrinS]

It's a nice option if both parties are amicable.

true

[Ginofan]

Is Joe the Plumber running for president?

Does a candidate's transcript decide your vote?

Joe the Plumber is not running for president, but the republican's sure do seem to make him the be all representative a "small business" owner. Honestly, I could care less about him and his back taxes and what not, but the hypocrisy showed by some of you republicans is laughable.