The University of Chicago Law School

The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer."

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

This diarist is lying.

Deal with it.

Is this lie bigger or smaller than Tuzla?

Just trying to put this gotcha into perspective.

Here is another case of his lying:

Obama's spokesman acknowledges his lie:

Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged yesterday that the senator from Illinois had erred in crediting the Kennedy family with a role in his father's arrival in the United States. He said the Kennedy involvement in the Kenya student program apparently "started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past."

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/articl e/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html?hpid=t opnews

this story could be bigger than the watergate break-in, this will sink Obama.

Is there some kind of natural law of politics governing the relationship between the pettiness and triviality of the attacks on Obama and the remoteness of Hillary's chances of winning the nomination?  This is the most ridiculous bit of fluff since his kindergarten essay was used to promote the narrative that he had been running for president longer than Hillary, which was an embarrassment to the campaign.  Her supporters are apparently beyond embarrassment, understandably, or shame, at this stage of her campaign.

After 25 years in academia, I have the knowledge base to explain this.

Oddly, enough the explanation is based in grammar. As you probably recall from grade school, you put proper nouns in capital letters, as you do titles for  particular person.
  But the more general noun starts with a lower case letter.

Thus, you would say, "The presidents of various colleges met today. I attended the meeting and had a very interesting conversation with President Smith."

With professor, the lower case is the general noun, meaning someone who teaches at a college or university.  The upper case is a title, meant to refer to someone with the rank of Professor. One typically becomes a Professor through a process of promotions with the range of academic ranks of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor.

Obama was a professor at the University of Chicago, but he was not a Professor.

So, now that this has been explained to you, stop promulgating this line of attack. It makes no sense to anyone who knows anything about academia.

You said it.

It's OK to not like Obama, and to not like him passionately.  It's not OK to blatantly mislead your readers while doing so.  The U of C press release (which you omit from your diary) buried this particular charge against Obama days ago, making it 100% clear Obama "served as a professor."  That's the same thing as saying he "was" a professor, unless you want to get into a losing debate debate about what "was" or "is" is, which I do not think would be a good thing for a Clinton supporter.  This has never been about whether he had the "title" of professor.  Move on. You only hurt your own credibility.  

There goes some more of the shine on that rapidly tarnishing armor. I think the Camelot fabrication is quite a hit for the old fundamental honesty question. Talk about fairy tales!

It will be interesting to see how Obama handles this. Will he issue a mea culpa similar to Hillary in re Bosnia?

While I rest assured BHO fans will vehemently disagree with me, i think this "lie" is bigger than the Bosnia "lie". We're talking about re-writing a family history as opposed to re-writing the events of one day.

Keep pushing this. It's making the Clinton campaign not only look desperate but unhinged. OBAMA LIED !!!!!! he was a senior lecturer on the faculty not a law professor !!!!! Wow what a scandal. The University has already released a statement that makes jackasses out of the Clinton surrogates pushing this.

Was Obama claiming that he was ducking sniper fire while he ran to class as a "law professor"? How many weeks until PA? I can't wait until this is over whoever wins. The back and forth is getting more ridiculous by the day.

This is beyond ridiculous. Are you people any familiar at all with what is going in colleges and universities? I do because I teach at one. The terms
professor and instructor are used interchangeably to describe anybody that TEACHES a class. People refer to me as professor all the time even though they have no idea whether I am an adjunct, a lecturer or a tenure-track professor. And Barack Obama did teach a class. That's the bottom line. Now, you people will stoop to any level to fabricate stupid claims that Obama lied. Get a life.

As someone who has been through law school it is clear that Obama sounds (perhaps almost too much) like a law school professor.

Whether he was technically a senior lecturer rather than a tenured professor is small potatoes.  I am proud that he is proud of his stint in the classrooms of a first rate law school.

This idea that he is some sort of an Amos 'n Andy character trying to inflate his legal credentials it totally bogus.  This is a guy who was editor of the Harvard Law Review.   For those who don't understand what the means lets just say that that fact all by itself gave him a ticket to virtually any legal job he wanted, including a full tenured professorship at the school of his choice. 

And it seems like he has had the manner of a law professor even since his law school days.  See At Harvard Law, a unifying voice

He confronted his most charged debates as president of the Harvard Law Review, the exclusive club of 80 student editors and future Supreme Court justices who publish a regular journal of legal writings. Classmates recall an especially emotional debate in the spring of 1990 over affirmative action, which conservative students wanted to abolish.

Presiding over an assembly of 60 mostly white editors in a law school classroom, Obama listened to impassioned pleas and pressed conservatives to explain their reasoning and liberals to sharpen their thinking. But he never spoke about his own point of view or mentioned that he believed he had benefited from affirmative action.

"If anybody had walked by, they would have assumed he was a professor," said Thomas J. Perrelli, a classmate and former counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno. "He was leading the discussion but he wasn't trying to impose his own perspective on it. He was much more mediating."

So calling himself a "professor" is not only technically true but also tells us something true about who he is.  Some say he is too professorial to be president, perhaps compared to many of our past presidents he is, but it is one of the things I myself like best about him.  But then I am the sort of strange guy who actually liked going to my constitutional law classes.

"If Obama is so bright, and so understanding of language, why would he dabble with a term ('professor') which he should have known could cause him a problem?"

Because he assumes that people have some basic level of intelligence and understanding of the English language.   (Actually knowledge of how English works is not necessary since this same grammatical distinction is common in other languages.  For one examples, see this on usage in Italian: http://www.geocities.com/f_pollett/i-17- 1.htm)

Universal is a right wing shill hell bent on destroying the Democratic Party by fomenting civil war and giving John McCain a cakewalk into the White House this November!

The University of Chicago said Friday Barack Obama accurately described himself as a onetime law professor at the school.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/200 8/03/28/university-of-chicago-obama-was- a-professor/

As long as people keep pushing things like this and scandals related to people 2 or 3 removes from Obama, I'm pretty damn sure that they can't find anything real on him.

Obama has a clear pattern of 'enhancing' the truth to portray himself in a better light...that means, in 'just words' semantics that Obama lies.

Here's a pretty good rundown of Obama's enhanced truths, or in concise language: Obama's lies.

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/24/ barack-i-didnt-know-obama/

You clintonites are unbelievable. At a university, a professor is someone who stands in front of the room and teaches.

Obama did that at the University of Chicago.

Where is the argument?

Trying to compare this to someone who made up being shot at is incredible. Hillary said there was sniper fire. Not likely you can forget about being shot at.

The Laundry List of Obama Lies:

http://audacityofhypocrisy.com/?page_id= 15

When

When I was in law school, I took a class taught by Ralph Nader.  He was a part-time guest lecturer, but I (and everyone else) still called him Professor Nader.

This is what you call the "common usage" of a word.  Given that Obama was speaking to the masses and not solely to those in academia, it makes sense that he would use the word in this sense.

By the way, Universal, when you were in school, did you ever address any of your instructors as "Senior Lecturer Smith" or "Lecturer Johnson?"

giusd's concern-trolling is not substantively different from your concern-trolling.

A politician must be able to speak to the masses, not just pointy-headed intellectual and academics.  Thus, he used the generic term professor, which is the common usage for someone who teaches classes at a college or university.

Alright, this truly is hilarious: this story was debunked by a release from the university, and we know that the original story came from the RNC. Here's what the university said, in full:

"The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

On the university's own web site, Obama is listed as a professor.

That should close the matter; there are no lies (except those coming from the RNC and certain diarists), and there is no controversy. It stands to reason that if the faculty itself lists you as a professor, that you can call yourself a professor.

And didn't Jerome post something the other day about banning people who spread republican talking points?

... at MyDD these days.

Oh gee, 51% of the Obama haters who occupy this site agree with your bizarrely twisted and meaningless rant about your imaginary "flap".
I love the smell of desperation. If you could step back and look at what you are doing you would realize that you are simply hurting your own cause with this kind of childish BS.

Congratulations :D

Look at yourself, MyDD.

THIS made the rec list.

What a pathetic community this has become.

As a soft Obama supporter, I've got to say, this line of attack doesn't do anything to convince me otherwise. Nobody cares about the semantic difference between "senior lecturer" and "professor," as it could be written off as a legitimate misstatement. The American public is willing to forgive a lot of silly mistakes.

What this line of attack does do, however, is help Obama a great deal. When I read that Obama wasn't a real professor, he was just a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago law school, I don't think to myself, "Aha! The man is a liar!"

When I read diaries like yours, I think to myself, "Holy shit, this man taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago!" U of C is an amazing school (which I'm even willing to say having chosen to go to that other Chicago school instead, Northwestern), and if you get hired to teach constitutional law there, it's a pretty good bet that you know your stuff.

Frankly, I think that kind of experience counts a lot more than two decades in the Senate or eight years as First Lady. I want my president to be the smartest kid in the room, and I want my president to have a deep respect for the Constitution. And having heard award-winning, well-respected professors make mistakes and misstatements in the classroom, I'm willing to forgive them if they make the same little goofs in the stressful environment of the campaign trail. Hey, Hillary Clinton-- the experienced, seasoned campaigner who's ready to take on the GOP-- can make misstatements and get away with it. Why hold others to a higher standard?

Every time you bring this up, you're just reminding people that Obama's a bright guy who has academic experience no other candidate has. So please, feel free to continue reminding everyone! We all appreciate the support!

I have worked in Higher education in the role of professor/instructor/adjunct faculty for over ten years. This topic has come up more than once in my experience. It is generally accepted that anyone who is defined as the instructor of record for a university/college level class is refereed to and able to call themselves a professor when referring to their teaching role. The formal title is only important within academic settings on a vitae (resume). If Obama had assert that he held the formal title of tenured Associate Professor, that would be a lie. He did not make this FORMAL assertion and really can't be consider having lied about this in the context he defined his role as professor.

To assert that Obama lied when calling himself a professor is truly laughable.

When one considers the communication from The University of Chicago and the context under which Obama was describing himself as a professor, it becomes very clear that this diary is decisive and false smear with no footing in reality.

Can we stop the truthiness based decisive garbage like this please?

Why don't you find someone from the communications department of a major university to opine that you may drop all the positive votes. That way, your precious poll can be 100% in concordance with your twisted sense of facts.

You, Universal, are in desperate need of being slapped back into reality. Or just slapped.

You distort facts, fabricate lies around smoke screen claims, and then claim that "truth matters"?

Do keep running on your fantasies, and take the others in simpering agreement with you. You can claim to not need a doctorate in BS-ology, but you certainly appear to have specialized in it.

i HATE THE WAY OBAMA PEOPLE GO AROUND CALLING PEOPLE LIARS.  ITS JUST LIKE 2000 AND WITH AL GORE.  

nEVER BEFORE IN dEM POLITICS HAS ONE DEM CALLED ANOTHER A LIAR UNTIL bILL bRADLEY CALLED gORE ONE IN THE PRIMARIES AND SO SET UP THE ENTIRE  GOP "gORE' IS  A LIAR" FALL CAMPAIGN.

AND HERE WE GO AGAIN.  AND OF COURSE THE MEDIA IS RIGHT WITH YOU! THE MSM ARE THE BIGGEST BUNCH OF LIARS IN WORLD HISTORY,ONCE AGAIN ACTING ALL SHOCKED AND APPALLED THAT HUMAN'S EXAGGERATE OR TELLS TALES...

WE ALL DO.  STUDIES HAVE SHOWN HUMANS "LIE", IN VARIOUS WAYS, ON AVERAGE 100 TIMES A DAY.  

LIKE THE COMMENT ABOVE...THERES NO EVIDENCE THIS COMES FROM THE GOP....BUT LEFCOASTER THOUGHT IT HELPS HIS ARGUMENT SO    - IN IT GOES ...EVEN THOUGH ITS UNTRUE...

ALL PEOPLE LIE, BUT THAT DOESNT  MEAN ALL PEOPLE ARE LIARS.

I SUGGEST THE OBAMA PEOPLE STOP THIS "HILLARY SAYS SHE INVENTED THE BOSNIAN INTERNET" FARCE RIGHT NOW.

According to the American Heritage dictionary definition professor has two main meanings:

pro·fes·sor (pr...-fµs"...r) n. 1.a. A college or university teacher who ranks above an associate professor. b. A teacher or an instructor.

It is the hallmark of an inferior mind not to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in mind at the same time. It's also known as fallacious reasoning, specifically, presenting a false dilemma.

If anyone is interested in finding out the truth on this, you don't need to believe Universal, or me, or anyone else on this site.  All you have to do is talk to a couple professors at any university, read them the exact Obama quote, and ask if that means that Obama is a "LIAR" (make sure you use all caps so you're not accused of speaking a different language from Universal).  

You will find out, as everyone who is associated with academia knows, that lecturers are regarded as professors, just like the University of Chicago statement still says.  Yes, it is not the same thing as the title of Full Professor, but the latter is not what Obama claimed.  It is truly pathetic that garbage like this gets recommended on this site.

If I wasn't familiar with the diarist, I would say that this was satire.  Unfortunately, this is the kind of diary that passes for recommended reading by the MyDD regulars.

No 'Professor' Obama at U. of C.
TAUGHT CLASSES | Political flap over his precise law school title

March 30, 2008

BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

WASHINGTON -- The University of Chicago released a statement Thursday saying Sen. Barack Obama "served as a professor" in the law school -- but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed on Friday.

"He did not hold the title of professor of law," said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an assistant dean for communications and lecturer in law at the school.

... begtween you and FleaFlicker (whom I have already stopped reading entirely for lack of credibility), I have to think that Rove would be proud of you.

Keep the laffs coming.

So I can't help but note with amusement that, while this piece of garbage wound up on the wreck list here, the only one ending up in hidden comments is the diarist himself.

Hahaha!

Wow.

Really, wow. I am gobsmacked.

My fiancée is a classics professor at Boston College. This is what we tell everyone, and what everyone calls her, even though she does not hold the title of Professor of Classics. She's in the first year of a tenure-track position; she won't achieve the title for another six years or so (*fingers crossed*). And yet, somehow, we get away with calling her a classics professor, in front of our families, in front of her chair, in the alumni notes of our alma mater.

Are you calling me and my fiancée liars, Universal? Let me answer for you: yes. Yes indeed, you are. You are because you fail to understand academia and its complex system of titles. That's actually pretty offensive, Universal.

Is this really what Clinton supporters want to be recommending?

This is the type of diary which causes people to say Hillary should drop out of the race.  Where we really are at in the race is the stage where we need to start coming together as a party with an eye toward the general election.  That does not necessarily mean ending the race because there are a lot of positives involved in the contest - increased voter registration and participation, and candidates doing retail political events in every State.  But the idea of win at all costs has long since passed.  Obama has been vetted on the two most potentially damaging hurdles for his campaign: Rezko and Wright.  He has passed both those tests.  To now try to create controversy where none exists, to say you know better what the U of Chicago considers a professor than they do, to play word games which only leads to thoughts of the definition of is is which increases Hillary's negatives, is not something we should be doing at this point.  Everyone should be cognizant of the bitterness factor and start doing what they can to tamp that down.  The idea of Direct Democracy should be we all have a role and a stake in these events.

Wow, I feel like I've been here before.  It feels familiar, yet not quite right.

Oh, now I know, I feel like I'm in a candidate diary on dkos.

Geez, the petty smears and faux outrage doesn't work anywhere, on behalf of either candidate.  It just makes the participants look like a bunch of fools, in my humble opinion.

That makes him a grad student or something? The best law and medical professors have jobs outside the classroom because they take actual cases, medical or legal. These are the best of the best, working 80 hour weeks but giving up the corporate partner track so they can also teach. And yes Universal is a Republican troll

Hillary isn't even pretending any more, from recycling RNC bull, praising McCain, meeting Scaife. She's hoping for a big trounch of GOP cash.

The Tuzla fantasy is making a lot of people queasy.  Deal with it.

OHS NOEZ, THE SKY IS FALLING!!!

www.freerepublic.com   That way===>

The rest of your Republican wingnut shills are waiting for you.

These is a easy way to finish this.  Simple.  Just admit that BO misspoke.  End of story.  He should have said Senior Lecturer and not Professor of Constitution Law.  Done.  That is not to much to ask, right.  People make mistakes.  He just simply I misspoke and lets move on.  But funny how we never hear this.

Becasue HRC was able to do it.  

david

Wow, that will be real change on day one. Someone smart enough to be offered a tenure track Law Professorship in a distinguished university like UC, to replace GWB. And to top it of, he's not only extremely smart, but also likeable and inspiring.
It convinces me even more that professor Obama will be a very good and transformational President.

 YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN

...to your blatant hit diary thinks Obama is liar?

Wow. What's happening here? Are you losing support? Are people beginning to see through the thin veneer of factual journalism to the mud beneath?

That's almost newsworthy. This diary has made my weekend.

he was a teacher.  To me, he taught at a college, so I would call him Prof., whether that is is technically correct or not.  The only way I think this would be damning is if they found out that he didn't teach or "lecture" there at all.

Thanks. This gives us a good baseline against which to compare mydd readers to the Democratic electorate, and boy are those groups different!

This post just gets more pathetic with every change in title.

Honest to god, do the proprietors not get embarrassed by this nonsense?

Too freakin' funny. 49 (I'll be generous with the math) 49 Clinton Crankpots on MyDD think alike.

There goes the general!!!

We can easily find out if Obama is "misspeaking" by merely asking him "Are you a professor of Law or a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago?"

Let his answer be your guide.

Trust me when I say you're lucky the smack wasn't with a 2 by 12 -- and a 12 foot one to boot, if it matters.

Pace yourself dude -- you'll live longer. This thread was like a stick of dynamite being past around!  Got me major pissed!  Three hours later I came back and got straightened out.

Trust me when I say you're lucky the smack wasn't with a 2 by 12 -- and a 12 foot one to boot, if it matters.

Pace yourself dude -- you'll live longer. This thread was like a stick of dynamite being past around!  Got me major pissed!  Three hours later I came back and got straightened out.