Been a while, huh? I'll spare you the excuses (which are many- some valid, some not). Here's an article in today's New York Times that took a peek into the academic life of Barack Obama. I was flabbergasted that it's not all praise and worship to the "Chosen One." For my post to make any sense, you've got to read the article first, so check it out
hereA few things that stick out to me. The lines in red are from the article followed by my points:
“Are there legal remedies that alleviate not just existing racism, but racism from the past?” This is code speak for "reparations"
"When two fellow faculty members asked him to support a controversial antigang measure, allowing the Chicago police to disperse and eventually arrest loiterers who had no clear reason to gather, Mr. Obama discussed the issue with unusual thoughtfulness, they say, but gave little sign of who should prevail — the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the measure, or the community groups that supported it out of concern about crime. 'He just observed it with a kind of interest,' said Daniel Kahan, now a professor at Yale. Nor could his views be gleaned from scholarship; Mr. Obama has never published any. He was too busy, but also, Mr. Epstein believes, he was unwilling to put his name to anything that could haunt him politically... 'He figured out, you lay low,' Mr. Epstein said." Seems like he honed his senate voting record in the classroom. Hillary Clinton famously cited this in the primary election, "In the Illinois state Senate, Senator Obama voted 130 times 'present.' That's not yes, that's not no. That's maybe."
"In his voting rights course, Mr. Obama taught Lani Guinier’s proposals for structuring elections differently to increase minority representation." Apparently Obama used the classroom to "test run" the gerrymandering of his voting districts. There's an interesting article From the July 14th 2008 National Review addressing Obama's uneven stance on voting district redrawing. Read it
here and see some of the juicier parts below:
Obama's answers on redistricting, to the
Midwest Democracy Network, back in November 2007:
As President, would you support federal legislation prohibiting states from redrawing valid congressional district lines more than once a decade?
OBAMA: I opposed the partisan mid-decade gerrymandering that Tom Delay engineered in Texas. I believe that mid-decade redistricting is rarely justified. There may be some exceptional cases, such as a natural disaster, that create population shifts that may warrant mid-decade redistricting. But I do not support state efforts to redraw otherwise valid congressional district lines more than once a decade.
Issue: Independent Redistricting Commissions
As President, would you support federal legislation requiring states to form diverse, transparent, and independent redistricting commissions to redraw congressional district lines?
OBAMA: I would encourage states to form such commissions.
But earlier in his career, according to the Ryan Lizza profile in The New Yorker:
One day in the spring of 2001, about a year after the loss to Rush, Obama walked into the Stratton Office Building, in Springfield, a shabby nineteen-fifties government workspace for state officials next to the regal state capitol. He went upstairs to a room that Democrats in Springfield called “the inner sanctum.” Only about ten Democratic staffers had access; entry required an elaborate ritual—fingerprint scanners and codes punched into a keypad. The room was large, and unremarkable except for an enormous printer and an array of computers with big double monitors. On the screens that spring day were detailed maps of Chicago, and Obama and a Democratic consultant named John Corrigan sat in front of a terminal to draw Obama a new district. Corrigan was the Democrat in charge of drawing all Chicago districts, and he also happened to have volunteered for Obama in the campaign against Rush...
Obama’s former district had been drawn by Republicans after the 1990 census. But, after 2000, Illinois Democrats won the right to redistrict the state. Partisan redistricting remains common in American politics, and, while it outrages a losing party, it has so far survived every legal challenge. In the new century, mapping technology has become so precise and the available demographic data so rich that politicians are able to choose the kinds of voter they want to represent, right down to individual homes...
Like every other Democratic legislator who entered the inner sanctum, Obama began working on his “ideal map.”
So, states should form diverse, transparent, and independent redistricting commissions to redraw congressional district lines. But if there's an opportunity to design an ideal district, Obama's not going to pass that up...
"Because he never fully engaged, Mr. Obama “doesn’t have the slightest sense of where folks like me are coming from,” Mr. Epstein said. “He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues.” Obama has proven to be yet another politician that has come to appreciate the sound of his own voice rather than those he wants to represent. In my opinion, bad form from The Chosen One.
