Obama for the Supreme Court

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Abner, May 12, 2016.

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  1. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I can't see him doing it. The world is his stage. He gets to influence all of mankind for the rest of his days. Carter did it (Nobel Prize). Gore is doing it (Nobel Prize). Obama will, too (Nobel Prize). Even Bill Clinton and GHWB did it. Only retiring types--Reagan, GWB--would fit that mold. Only one former President has ever been appointed to the SCOTUS--Taft. It's well-established that Taft didn't have the heart for being President and relished a seat on the Court. But no one before or since.

    Obama is immensely popular around the world. He isn't going to walk away from that opportunity in favor of a robe.
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

  4. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    You are being sarcastic, right?
     
  5. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I agree with Rich, somewhat. But Obama already has a Nobel Prize. So he's entering retirement with the top trophy for an ex-pres already on his shelf. He's also young enough to where he might just want a second career.

    So, would he? I think he'd at least consider it. He's not old enough to simply ride out his final days looking fondly back upon his achievements. After serving as president, what job could reasonably tempt someone, especially a legal scholar?

    But I also think that the possibility is incredibly remote. So, I predict the lecture circuit though I wouldn't rule out the possibility of academia for Mr. Obama going forward. While we know he plans to stick it out in D.C. to allow his daughter to graduate from high school, it will be interesting to see if he makes his way back to Chicago. They are already getting his presidential library. His former Chief of Staff is the mayor. He can undoubtedly walk back into teaching Constitutional Law at a prestigious school. He can probably even go back to his old church without people making a big fuss (and if they do, who cares?) If you can't pull a Taft and ride out your career as a SCOTUS Justice, that's not such a bad consolation prize.
     
  6. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    No, not at all. Though i don't know why Obama would want to tie himself down to such a position when he has so many other options in retirement. I got a chuckle out of this. I would love to see the look on Mitch "Turkey neck" McConell's face if this ever materialized! :) after refusing to consider Garland.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 12, 2016
  7. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    It would certainly be a good football spike for the spiteful to cock-a-doodle-do over for a while. But other than social smugness capital for the eternally worthless, I don't see Obama doing this. Like Rich stated, basically the world is at his fingertips. He can do so many other, less rigorous things, than being on the Court. Seems like too much stress, too much controversy, just too much.


    Obama will enjoy his post Presidential life...a lot.
     
  8. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    This doesn't sound like the background for someone qualified to sit on the SCOTUS;

    Chicago Law Professor: Obama Was Unqualified, LAZY, and... - Headline Politics
     
  9. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Does Michelle Obama have a law degree?
     
  10. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    Yes, she does.
     
  11. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Bruce,

    This isn't up to your normal standards for drivel. Are you feeling OK?

    But I suppose the conspiracy just runs so deeply that a Tier 1 law school made a guy "barely an adjunct" with an office giving ALL of the academics literally no say in the matter. I'm surprised the whistleblower wasn't arrested by the Red Guard that rules over Chicago and shot or conscripted into hard labor.

    Fortunately, despite the cowardice of every major news source (heck, Fox News couldn't get at this?) this blogger went right to the source, the "highest tenured faculty." Wow. So straight to the People's Secretary for the Suppression of the Constitution? And that person sang for an unknown blogger like a little canary. Absolutely amazing.

    FWIW, as an adjunct of a lowly community college, I have very few opinions about other faculty members. Only one person has thus far evaluated my courses so no other professor could reasonably call me "unqualified" or "lazy" even if either or both of those characteristics were true. And, if you don't show up to the faculty meetings, I find it odd that the rest of the faculty, who clearly didn't interview Mr. Obama, have an opinion on him at all.

    But if you're teaching college students and view "Headline Politics" as a credible source of information then I think that might say more about your qualifications to teach than President Obama's.
     
  12. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    As long as it's cited in accordance with APA formatting, it's okay. Now, looking at APA's 6th edition, I'm trying to find the format for referencing unsupported drivel....hmmm...it says "See Degreeinfo TOS." Got it.
     
  13. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I'm sure Mr. Obama will enjoy his retirement.

    Maybe he'll take the time to earn a PhD...
     
  14. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

  15. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    A very common thing for attorneys to do when they are holding positions that don't require bar admission. Reactivation typically requires completion of continuing education requirements and paying a fee.

    The alternative would be to allow the license to lapse and then have to re-take the bar for admission.

    President Obama opted for "retired" status which may not have the same "come on back" sort of option. But bar membership doesn't seem to be a requirement for teaching in a law school since many of the top tier schools employ foreign trained legal scholars on their faculty who are not admitted to the state bar.
     
  16. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    You hit the nail on the head; "lowly community college". I could barely pick my fellow teachers out of a lineup, never mind offer an evaluation of their qualifications and teaching ability. That's why we're adjuncts teaching for fairly generic schools.

    However, tenured faculty at one of the best law schools in the world, you bet your ass they look at everything about their fellow faculty. Speaking of which, can you point out one journal article written by Obama while he was teaching at the law school?

    No? I can't find one, either.

    How about a single article he wrote when he was President of the Harvard Law Review? I came up blank with that one, too.

    Sorry, I thought this was an Internet discussion board, not a formal college course in Political Science. Do you expect everyone here to provide peer-reviewed sources whenever they type something in the political discussion section?
     
  17. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Did you actually look her up? She's on "court ordered inactive status".

    That doesn't sound good to me.
     
  18. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    No, Bruce. I'm simply suggesting that you act like an adult in an adult conversation rather than a verbally incontinent ideologue flinging whatever is within arm's reach. You don't like Obama. I get it. No one is trying to make you like him. No one is trying to change your mind in any way.

    But the fact is your entire rant about Obama's teaching career is based upon a poorly sourced, second-hand blog post which alleges that the Trustees of one of the most respected Law Schools in the nation basically engaged in a conspiracy to put an unqualified lawyer in the classroom to "further his political career." Because, as we know, all young and promising law school lecturers go on to become president of the United States. What you're suggesting is that a bunch of people basically violated the hiring practices of a top tier law school, stepping on the toes of every tenured faculty member in the process, and they all just sat back and shut up about it because their supreme overlords had "the fix" in for Obama to make his lightning fast ascent from lecturer to President. It must have been an incredibly hard pill for those professors to swallow for 12 years and up through his eventual promotion to senior lecturer.

    But, thankfully, an unknown blogger went to the "highest tenured faculty" and uncovered this vast reaching conspiracy that must have involved some serious threats and intimidation to keep all of those lawyers silent for nearly 20 years, at least half of which was spent being oppressed by Lord Obama.

    Here's the deal, Bruce. You have a more public record of workplace discipline than Barack Obama and he has a lot more people staring him down just looking for an excuse to raise a fuss.

    You don't like him? That's fine. I personally cannot stand Newt Gingrich. And I think the best thing he ever did for the nation was to stop serving in Congress. However, I'm not going to sit here telling you how he used to fart in the faculty lounge, steal other people's sandwiches from the fridge and how everyone he ever met felt he smelled like old salami. I'm not going to do that because my disdain for Newt Gingrich is tied to his politics. He might very well be a reprehensible excuse for a human being. However, there are plenty of reprehensible excuses for human beings in the world who fly under my radar. Get up and do nasty political stuff and I'll dislike that about you. But I'm not going to sit here and live in a fantasy world where I start trying to convince myself that his dissertation was plagiarized, his academic career was a sham and he's the biggest fraud in the entire world.

    I'm asking you to consider the veracity of a claim that is, apparently, so poorly sourced that even Fox News won't touch it. That should really tell you something about how reliable it is. I'm suggesting that you stop letting your personal disdain override your basic sense of reason because when a smart guy (like yourself) says something so stupid it causes my soul pain.

    I would have loved it if the whole ANG thing about GWB was true. At the time when that all came out I laughed out loud with a victorious "Gotcha!" And then when it turned out that Dan Rather fudged quite a bit of it it meant eating some serious humble pie. If GWB appeared in front of me right now, today, I would tell him he was a colossal jackass for the war in Iraq. But I would thank him for his service to the Texas ANG and apologize to him for celebrating the false story.

    And while this is not a college course and I don't expect every statement one makes to withstand peer review I assure you that I would not believe a poorly sourced blogger who levied a sizable charge against Ted Cruz even though I can't stand him either. Incidentally, I also could not care less what his Princeton roommate thinks about him becasue Ted Cruz being unlikable in college is irrelevant to his politics.

    And no, I can't find an article published by Barack Obama. What I can find is the 1990 NY Times article that was published when he was elected. That article, FWIW, says nothing about a requirement for peer reviewed publication. What is says is:

    Or is the Times in on the scam too, Bruce? Because I'm happy to go down to the library and pull the original copy. Or did the same people who influenced the trustees a few years later plant the news article? Was it the same people who planted his birth certificate and then killed the Hawaiian secretary of health? I'll run home and get my foil hat and maybe I'll understand better then.
     
  19. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Keep swinging! You're bound to keep that Obama guy from becoming President.
     
  20. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Did you actually look at the part where it says "Disciplinary History: None?"

    In New York, failing to maintain continuing education means that you get your license suspended. They put all of the people who, at that time, let their CE lapse and the court orders that their licenses be suspended. Those suspensions are lifted once you meet CE requirements and pay your fee and it isn't a disciplinary suspension.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 12, 2016

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