BHO you don't know

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. September 26, 2012 By Jonathan V. Last COLD OPEN Last week, my friends at the Washington Examiner published a work of deep-dive research. It's called "The Obama You Don’t Know " and it's absolutely worth your valuable time. It is, in essence, the due diligence America’s media should have done back in 2007. My favorite part of the report is the debunking of Obama's "rock star" status as a University of Chicago law school lecturer. Here’s the bigger picture: [D]uring his first two years, when he ranked first among the law school's 40 instructors, with students giving him a rating of 9.7 out of a possible 10.

 But law student evaluations made available to The Washington Examiner by the university showed that his popularity then fell steadily. 

In 1999, only 23 percent of the students said they would repeat Obama's racism class. He was the third-lowest-ranked lecturer at the law school that year. And in 2003, only a third of the student evaluators recommended his classes.

 His classes were small. A spring 1994 class attracted 14 out of a student body of 600; a spring 1996 class drew 13. In 1997, he had the largest class of his tenure with 49 students. But by then, his student rating had fallen to 7.75. Twenty-two of 40 faculty members ranked higher than Obama. The story of Obama’s time at the University of Chicago, of course, begins with the strangeness of his hiring. Obama was hired at Chicago for no particular purpose but rather simply because he was Barack Obama. As the school's Douglas Baird would later explain, "You look at his background—Harvard Law Review president, magna cum laude, and he's African American. This is a no-brainer hiring decision at the entry level of any law school in the country." Obama was given carte blanche for teaching, but instead he told the school that he was working on a book about voting rights. So they made him a lecturer, instead of a professor, and basically subsidized what they thought was scholarly writing. Instead, he spent the time writing his (first) memoir. And all of that squares with the Examiner’s reporting on Obama’s presence at the school: The new faculty status put him on par with Posner, Easterbrook and a third federal judge, Diane Wood. As the Chicago Law School explained, senior lecturers “have high-demand careers in politics or public service which prevent full time teaching."
" Senior lecturers were, however, still expected to participate in university activities. University of Chicago Law School Senior Lecturer Richard Epstein told The Washington Examiner that Obama did not do so.

 Obama, Epstein said, "did the minimal amount of work to get through. No one remembers him. He was not a participant in luncheons or workshops. He was here and gone." … Obama was also a no-show for the faculty workshops, nonclassroom lectures and moot court cases judged by sitting members of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals… Current Chicago Law School professor Lisa Bernstein said faculty lecturers are still encouraged to participate in as many such events as possible.

 The pattern of minimal performance at the Chicago campus was not an exception to the rule for Obama. In the state Senate during the same years he was lecturing, Obama voted "present" nearly 130 times, the most of any legislator in the chamber. If only he had taken the same approach to his presidency. LOOKING BACK "Somehow I'd forgotten that summer isn't truffle season, which made my recent visit to DB Bistro Moderne in midtown Manhattan almost pointless. After all, why order the DB burger stuffed with foie gras and braised short ribs marinated in red wine if I can't also get my fresh shavings of black Péri-gord truffle? (That a preserved truffle is blended into the meat is beside the point.) This might sound excessive, but the DB is still a magnificent creation. The flavor combination of the sirloin and short ribs is divine—even without the fresh black truffle. Its inventor, the French chef Daniel Boulud, describes the DB, which weighs nine ounces and is four inches tall, as a 'burger for grown-ups.' Boulud had the idea for 'a fancy French-American burger' in late 2000, and to this day, out of 100 lunchtime customers at DB Bistro Moderne, roughly 80 will order the $32 indulgence. (When in season, a roughly $150 version is available, with a double portion of black truffle shavings.)" —Victorino Matus, “Burger Triumphant," from our September 29, 2008, issue. Remember you get full access to THE WEEKLY STANDARD archive when you subscribe.   Elections Are About the Future Advice for Team Romney.     Palin to Romney: 'Go Rogue' America needs a "come to Jesus" moment.   THE READING LIST William Cohan reassesses Robert Rubin. * * * China's attack of the gerbils. * * * Teller and the magician’s code. INSTANT CLASSIC "A study from economists at the Kansas City Federal Reserve reports: Fewer than 60 percent of college freshmen graduate within 6 years; student debt now totals about $1 trillion; for 25 percent of borrowers, annual repayments exceed $4,584; default rates are almost 9 percent. 'Defaulted borrowers may be sued, tax refunds may be intercepted, and/or wages may be garnished,' the report notes." —Robert Samuelson, September 24, 2012. LOOKING AHEAD We'll have stories on Romney's tax policy, the Massachusetts Senate race, and Europe in upcoming issues of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. THE LAST WORD We had a minor flare-up of Obama-as-Messiah Syndrome last week when the president's campaign started selling a piece of pop art that depicted a version of the American flag in which Obama’s campaign symbol replaced the blue field of stars representing our 50 United States. Over the weekend, the campaign quietly disappeared the art. (If you were lucky enough to have snagged one of these before they became scandalous, you could probably make a mint on eBay right about now.) I don't want to make too big a deal over this—there are plenty of serious things happening in the world today—but this little episode is a nice reminder of how completely the political landscape has changed in four years. In 2008, Barack Obama inspired the creepiest, silliest kind of support you could possibly imagine. How ridiculous was it? If you saw political propaganda like this or this in a movie, you'd never imagine you were watching a documentary. You'd think it was high camp. (Or maybe low camp. I'm not a connoisseur of these things.) Yet when works of art depicting then-candidate Obama as Lincoln or Robin Hood or a magical man riding unicorns appeared, they were serious as a heart attack. People actually believed that stuff in 2008. Today, all of that insanity has been blown clear by four years of economic "recovery" as punishing as any recession—and by four years of the most polarizing presidency in modern history. What's amazing isn't that the median voter can no longer see Obama in the same messianic light they did four years ago. It's that even his most ardent supporters can't see him that way anymore. The central fact of the 2012 election is Obama's loss of support. I've said this before and I'll say it again: Since 1832, only two presidents have won reelection without enlarging their share of the popular vote. To succeed as president is, by definition, to enlarge your coalition. This year, the odds are exceedingly high that Obama's base of support will shrink. Even if he were to defeat Mitt Romney, the best we will be able to say about President Obama is that he managed to lose just enough support to remain viable. Win or lose, his magic is long gone. Have a great week and remember that you can always follow me on Twitter @JVLast and you can always email me with tips, thoughts, etc., at editor@weeklystandard.com. Best, Jonathan V. Last  Share P.S. To unsubscribe, click here. I won't take it personally. MORE FROM THE WEEKLY STANDARD A Rocky Start in the Rockies Romney needs to win Colorado, but hasn't closed the deal. Read more…   Permanent Spin Stephen F. Hayes on Obama's Libya deception. Read more…   'Do You Feel That Guilt?' Liz Warren gets grilled on local radio. Read more…     Online Store Squeeze the head to the left to relieve stress. Yes you can! Only at our store.     Subscribe Today Get the magazine that The Economist has called "a wry observer of the American scene."   Read probing editorials and unconventional analysis from political writers with a dose of political humor at weeklystandard.com.  Share To unsubscribe, click here.