April 28, 2011

Rush Limbaugh talks about Critical Legal Studies... and Obama's legal education at Harvard.

From yesterday's show:
[Obama] attended Harvard Law School at the height of something that it was promoting, education technique or a theory.  It was called critical legal studies.  Critical legal studies was in its ascendancy at Harvard Law when Obama was there.  You can look it up.  Just Google critical legal studies.  It is out and out Marxism. 

In a nutshell, critical legal studies claims that law is just politics by other means.  It is a way for the rich to keep the poor working man down and deny him opportunities for prosperity.  That is what Obama was taught at Harvard and based on what he believes and is doing it looks to me like he probably did get good grades.  Look it up if you want.  Critical legal studies.  Law is just politics by other means.  You can even turn it around.  Politics is just law by other means.

110 comments:

Fred4Pres said...

Was Obama into critical legal studies when he was at Harvard?

coketown said...

@Fred: Students are into whatever the faculty is into during their studies. You wouldn't believe how many students I went to college with went in white and middle-class and came out post-colonialist Marxists.

Carol said...

I was in law school in the same era, only in a flyover state school, and it was just being introduced. We had to read Carol Gilligan and feminists writing about their feelings and not exactly making legal arguments...it didn't pass the smell test, and some of the students put up a good fight against it. Plus, the proponent professors were roundly regarded as fools from there on.

Robert Pearson said...

I thought that politics, law and diplomacy were just war by other means. That's what "critical theory" leads to if taken to its logical conclusion. But since logic is also just a white patriarchal imposition to perpetuate the power structure, what really matters is feelings. And since my feelings are just as valid as any others human being's, let me note that whenever I hear about "critical" anything I want to go back in time and kick Max Horkheimer in the balls, hard, as a self-conscious social critique aimed at change and emanciaption.

PaulV said...

When I was in law school it was about reform in criminal justice. In a few years those students turned into throw away the key prosecutors and for reforming federal system to criminalize all behavior they disapproved of.
They make a living putting away single mother who bounced checks after their support check bounced.

rhhardin said...

I thought at the time that humanities departments sure didn't get the same thing out of Derrida that I did.

AlphaLiberal said...

Good job, Ann. You are following your leader quite well and promoting the next attack line against the President.

Now the calumny against Obama moves to his college days and Rush the Drug Addict is serving up his hateful gruel for his rubes to swallow and regurgitate.

No doubt you'll get a nice pat on the head for your service.

Joe said...

(The Crypto Jew)
Now the calumny against Obama moves to his college days and Rush the Drug Addict is serving up his hateful gruel for his rubes to swallow and regurgitate.

Well done, but you forgot “fat”…you don’t get all the Oliver Willis points you might have otherwise have gotten.

traditionalguy said...

To a collectivist, The Law is a boundary setting force created to protect owner's of private property from the king (the owner of the most guns) and therefore is enemy #1 to be disposed of so that the re-distributors of confiscated property can finish their work.

KCFleming said...

Postmodernism infected nearly every aspect of America: law (CLS), education (Antioch rules, GLBT studies), office politics, science (AGW), health care (CAM), economics (Krugman), police work (profiling), and religion (New Age).

I cannot conceive of a cure.

Simon said...

Judge Kozinski called it correctly. As if to prove that "even the silliest idea can be pursued to its illogical conclusion, Legal Realism spawned Critical Legal Studies."

madAsHell said...

Yeah, yeah....we are all indoctrinated to some extent. Most of us settle on a set of convictions that don't conflict.....because we have real life experiences that expose the convictions that don't work.

Obama??...not so many real life experiences until now. I'll bet he never even threw punches on the playground, or took a good beating from the bully. The playground mom protected him.

I wanna know....how the hell you can be law review editor, and NEVER publish anything?

Once written, twice... said...

Prominent conservatives like Sarah Palin all the way down to fringe characters like Ann Althouse are now left to trying to undermine President Obama based on race and other charges that he is "foreign" and not really an American. Pretty pathetic.

Robert Pearson said...

I cannot conceive of a cure.

The cure, dear Pogo, is the Götterdämmerung. I expect the survivors will be more interested in reality that academic theory.

Robert Pearson said...

trying to undermine President Obama based on race and other charges that he is "foreign" and not really an American.

Wait, I thought that was what the long form had completely undermined? Maybe you remember the game "Who's the Alien" from Illuminatus!? That is much more germane now.

Sprezzatura said...

This will help clear up some potential con dissonance.

Now they can say he's not so bright, w/o concern for his being magna cum laude/ Harvard Law.

That just means he's good at....Marxism!!!


Thankfully Rush et. al. are there to work for the benefit of poor folks who are victimized by the rich folks. BTW, this argument isn't populism, Rush is against populism (or, at least he was yesterday, when being anti-populist was part of his argument in favor of the (poor?) oil companies who were not popular w/ the (rich?) general public).

Or, maybe, the EIB[S] Network is full of it.

Jeremy said...

The Queen - "That is what Obama was taught at Harvard and based on what he believes and is doing it looks to me like he probably did get good grades."

So if we can assume president Obama was not the only student in the class, adn that there must have also been students who may have been right leaning Republicans or Independents...

...are we also to assume that everybody except for president Obama, was able to push aside anything they heard, and go on to be anti-Marxist, loyal Republican Americans?

Sometimes the insane right wing chum thrown out by The Queen and her loyal sidekick Needy is hard to distinguish from something one might see via The Onion.

Between an narcissistic teabagger law professor and a loud mouth radio clown (who attended college for a total of two semesters...and who's own mother had this to say: "he flunked everything", and "he just didn't seem interested in anything except radio")...

...I have a hard time deciding which is more of an out and out fool.

But considering how silly it looks for a law professor to be going out of her way to suck up to the clown...I guess I'd have to give The Queen my vote.

Anonymous said...

Prominent conservatives like Sarah Palin all the way down to fringe characters like Ann Althouse are now left to trying to undermine President Obama based on race and other charges that he is "foreign" and not really an American.

What a lame non sequitur of a statement. Even for a lame poser like Retread, this is just sad and embarrassing.

It's like the left just can't seem to try any more. Obama is going to lose every state but Illinois.

Jeremy said...

Seven Nachos Short - "Obama is going to lose every state but Illinois."

Really?

And who is he going to lose to?

The Donald?

Princess Sarah?

The Huckster?

The Paul Family?

GFL.

roesch-voltaire said...

How is this different than the discussion on right wing talk shows that constantly claim the courts base their decisions on whether they are liberal or conservative members?

Robert Pearson said...

The irony, Jeremy, is that the President governs like a law professor. Bring KSM to Manhattan for trial? Really, anyone who'd ever been a small-town councilman would have known better. Oh, wait...

Anonymous said...

It's interesting, Jeremy, that you came back to Althouse baiting in full force the other day.

Anonymous said...

...Thus did Roach Voltaire admit that he knows not a scintilla about critical legal studies.

Toad Trend said...

"...are now left to trying to undermine President Obama..."

Fail.

An honest examination of the very words and associations of the president do not lead to a conclusion that has any good news for the people of the United States.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Madashell:

Obama was law review president not editor. I think he has always been good at zeroing [heh- I bet Edutcher will like that word] in on jobs that don't require much effort or work.

Sigivald said...

@Coketown: I suppose some of them are.

Some students have, well, something other than the nature of a blank slate or a jelly, and don't just become whatever the faculty zeitgeist is expressing.

(As Carol commented: students sometimes - though perhaps not as often as they should - fight back against ridiculous Theory and fads.)

Triangle Man said...

Rush is just another boomer trying to take us back to the 60s.

Jeff said...

If you look closely into any non-science college course whose description contains either of the words "studies" or "critical", you can bet the long arm of Gramsci will be found.

Patrick said...

Hey Alpha: that's a great argument there: Rush Limbaugh was addicted to painkillers! Wow, hard to beat that.

Well, at least Obama closed Gitmo.
I mean, he at least is holding civilian trial.
And he isn't using drone attacks in Pakistan.
Or, at least he is only attacking bad guys.
Or at least he isn't getting involved in any more wars against Muslims.
Or at least he knows all about those he is backing in such wars.
I mean he got the Public Option passed.
I mean, at least he fought for the Public Option.
Plus he totally reformed the budget and entitlements.
Or he at least he's leading the nation on serious entitlement reform.

Uh, why did we elect this guy?

Oh yeah RUSH LIMBAUGH IS FAT!

WV: mialiya. Trump says "Whya youa callin' mialiya?"

LouisAntoine said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ann Althouse said...

"Between an narcissistic teabagger law professor and a loud mouth radio clown (who attended college for a total of two semesters...and who's own mother had this to say: "he flunked everything", and "he just didn't seem interested in anything except radio")..."

"Who's own mother"?? Who is whose own mother? Is this some kind of Rush Limbaugh birtherism? You know he and I are born on the same day. Could it be that we are secretly twins?!

Ray said...

"It is a way for the rich to keep the poor working man down and deny him opportunities for prosperity."

Isn't this pretty much the conservative argument for small government and deregulation? Extra laws/regulations inhibit innovation and distort the market, creating barriers to entry that are effectively price supports to protect entrenched interests.

Chuck66 said...

One thing I have noticed about lawyers and law students that I either now personally or have some contact with (admitted....my sample size is very small).....even the more conservative lawyers enjoy lawsuits. And most of the law students I have had contact with are very liberal. Many have the attitude that they want to be lawyers as a way to spread (I say "force") their political and social opinions on society.
They see being a lawyer as an easier way to do that. Instead of trying to change minds, you use the court system for force things.

Chuck66 said...

Perhaps the law professor can give us some insight.....but some critics of the ABA say that law schools are forced to be liberal if they want ABA accredition. And you need that to be a law school.

Kind of like the monopoly the NCAA has over sports.

Jeremy said...

Wahrheit said..."The irony, Jeremy, is that the President governs like a law professor. Bring KSM to Manhattan for trial? Really, anyone who'd ever been a small-town councilman would have known better. Oh, wait..."

How did G.W. govern? How about Nixon?

And as for your ridiculous comment relating to bringing "KSM to Manhattan for trial"...how many did Bush bring to Federal Courts?

Oh, wait...190?...250?...More?

You need to read more and post wingnut drivel less.

Owen D. said...

If you want to see some postmodernist, arch-feminist, critical legal studies, then I recommend to everyone Ann Althouse's takedown of that evil King Solomon and of everyone who thinks he was wise to order the splitting of the baby.

john harvard said...

Wait a minute, don't libertarians believe that the law is a tool of the rich and connected?

WV: ableaska - "Is she able? Aska!"

J said...

Critical legal studies, down at the hardware store with Rush in the AM on.

Per GOP-land.... a decision such as Citizens United had no political implications. No sireee. So like Rove via CU didn't get billions into elections and win for the GOP/TP. Not political. Faith, brutthrr.

Jeremy said...

Seven Nachos Short - "It's interesting, Jeremy, that you came back to Althouse baiting in full force the other day."

Yes, that is interesting.

Let's take some time to think about that...

Hmmm...

Okay.

Jeremy said...

AJ Lynch said..."Obama was law review president not editor. I think he has always been good at zeroing [heh- I bet Edutcher will like that word] in on jobs that don't require much effort or work."

Yeah, silly, effortless jobs like being president.

Duh.

Jeremy said...

Patrick - "Uh, why did we elect this guy?"

YOU didn't.

WE did.

YOU voted for Johnny and Princess Sarah.

Freeman Hunt said...

"Who's own mother"?? Who is whose own mother? Is this some kind of Rush Limbaugh birtherism? You know he and I are born on the same day. Could it be that we are secretly twins?!

I have never heard both of them speaking live at the same time.

Now Althouse attempts to hide this secret right out in the open.

Robert Pearson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robert Pearson said...

How did G.W. govern? How about Nixon?

And as for your ridiculous comment relating to bringing "KSM to Manhattan for trial"...how many did Bush bring to Federal Courts?


They governed like practical politicians, generally. Like hardened, experienced politicians. Governing is not only an art, it is the highest art. Theoreticians like Obama and Wilson do not make great Presidents. If Obama had had some years in the Daley machine of Chicago politics he would have known in his gut, as Bush did, that The Peepul, bless their stupid hearts, would not tolerate KSM in Manhattan. Clinton would have been able to sell it, but Obama is not much of a salesman, either. Certainly he's intelligent, but that's only about a third of being a good politician

(typos fixed!)

Mark O said...

Rush admitted to drug addiction;Obama admitted to snorting cocaine.

SNORTING COCAINE.

There was a time when we cared.

Chuck66 said...

Mark, correct. Rush has some painful health issues, and like Brett Favre, got hooked on the pain killers that were given to him.

Obama snorted cocaine for recreational purposes. I wonder who his drug dealer was.

Steve Koch said...

Sounds like CLS is a post normal approach to law. Normal lefty approach that the ends justifies the means.

Althouse is a lawyer, right? Why can't she be bothered to offer any insight or context on these legal issues?

Seems like developing computer programs to adjudicate cases would be a huge step forward in that it would reduce judicial activism/corruption. It would also tend to reduce the impact of lawyers.

traditionalguy said...

To understand the confusion that Critical Legal Studies causes at Harvard, one must see that Harvard is an institution with an immense endowment invested in stocks, bonds, and perhaps gold itself. The Harvard dream is to imitate FDR and save capitalism (themselves) by preaching love for the down and out unemployed folks. Harvard was never serious about re-distributing any of their own endowment to the poor, and neither is Obama's imitation of the Communist International serious. The question is whether they will delude themselves and slip up and institute the Soros version of Liberal Communism as an experiment that they find cannot be reversed.

roesch-voltaire said...

Steve- Well I think right wing radio gives a reduced CLS view of this: There is no 'pure' law or politics, but rather the two forms work together and constantly shift between the two linguistic registers-- when they constantly point out how political views and ideology shape court decisions.

Tina Trent said...

Jeremy, perhaps you need to read more. You write:

"Between an narcissistic teabagger law professor and a loud mouth radio clown (who attended college for a total of two semesters...and who's own mother had this to say: 'he flunked everything', and 'he just didn't seem interested in anything except radio') . . ."

In addition to errors elsewhere, there are three glaring mistakes in this short passage. It should read "a narcissistic (inappropriate sexual slur)," not "an"; "whose own mother," not "who's own mother," and the comma after "everything" should be inside the quotes.

Hope this helps.

DADvocate said...

for his rubes

One of Obama's rubes call others rubes. Rich.

Whatever Obama learned in law school, college, high school, grade school, kindergarten, the womb, it hasn't helped him be an effective or good president. He's replaced W as the worst ever.

Robert Pearson said...

In other words, war by other means.

E Buzz said...

"Now the calumny against Obama moves to his college days"

I'm sorry liberal, but you must have totally forgotten the Bush years.

Did you ever say bad things about Laura Bush being in a car accident?

How about Bush in his single years?

How about Bush and his supposed draft dodging?

Cheney shooting some guy?

Of course, you remember you did, because you are a jackass hypocrite just like the rest of you softbrained liberal imbeciles.

DADvocate said...

effortless jobs like being president

For Obama it's effortless because he expends no effort. Golf, anyone?

Phil 314 said...

Do we really need to bandy about words like "Marxist" to be critical of BO & his policies?

Robert Pearson said...

Wow, Jay Retread summarizes the questiolns many have about Timmy Geithner, only he put Althouse in by mistake!

Skyler said...

"Postmodernism infected nearly every aspect of America: law (CLS), education (Antioch rules, GLBT studies), office politics, science (AGW), health care (CAM), economics (Krugman), police work (profiling), and religion (New Age)."

At first I was going to say, but not engineering. Then I remembered when I took some graduate engineering classes at Stanford that I was appalled that it had become so squishy. They taught us that you should make some silly chart to rank design criteria in order of importance based on some arbitrary matrix, and then if you don't get the results you expect, you should change the assumptions of your arbitrary matrix until you get what you expect.

I learned some useful things at Stanford, but I also learned that engineering had shockingly become quite squishy.

Skyler said...

Phil 3:14 asked, "Do we really need to bandy about words like "Marxist" to be critical of BO & his policies?"

If the shoe fits, shouldn't we be horrified?

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Isn't it kind of late to be having this discussion?

The President has a record. Who cares what his early influences were? He IS an influence now. Look at what he does.

There's this curious reluctance to let go of the 2008 campaign on both sides. The birth certificate, the President's past in general, doesn't matter much anymore. We elected him, he has governed for two years, there's plenty to talk about.

Why waste time on his motivations 25 years ago?

Anonymous said...

One person I heard speak who was on the law review when Obama was editor said that he was good at smoking cigs on the fire escape, and shooting the breeze, and not sweating much else.

Others did the hard work of editing.

NYU Law Professor and nobody's fool Richard Epstein said of Obama that he was cordial and calm, and never let his true feelings or beliefs out. He never took a side in any discussion, or made any statement showing what he himself thought or felt.

My conclusion - a pretty slick operator with an ability to be everything and nothing, who has conned his fans into elevating and doing the hard work for him while he plays and plays cool.

But oh how he wants people to love him, and that is his Achilles' heel.

He's flailing and failing so publicly ant it is starting to get to him.

We shouldn't criticize him, we should laugh at him.

He has flown too close to the sun and the wax on his wings is melting.

Anonymous said...

"Why waste time on his motivations 25 years ago?"

I think his 25 year old motivations are a clue to his decisions today.

If Obama wanted to bring about American decline, what would he do differently....?!

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

So we look at what he is doing. This is the sort of thing to look at when someone is running for President with no record. He has a record. I think it speaks for itself.

Anonymous said...

I agree but with a MSM that's indifferent to Obamas many failings and willing to trumpet the supposed racism of any who dare question him, where does that leave the nation?

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

A person's motivations are revealed by their actions.

If you divorce the two you can believe anything you want about what goes on in their head.

Obviously, people often do things that don't turn out the way they want. But that's usually obvious.

The President has governed in a way that, it seems to me, reveals a worldview. It's a worldview where what government does is the most important part of any equation, where foreign powers simply react to what we say, and where nothing is too complex that a team of experts can't untangle it. Everything can be solved by rules and process. It's a worldview of an educated and disciplined mind. I think there is also great ambition and love of power (totally normal for a President).

So far, the world isn't cooperating.

mariner said...

Triangle Man,
Rush is just another boomer trying to take us back to the 60s.

I devoutly wish we could go back. Perhaps we could get it right that time.


WV:sworse -- unfortunately, it is

edutcher said...

Triangle Man said...

Rush is just another boomer trying to take us back to the 60s.

There are Boomers and Boomers.

No Conservative Boomer wants to return to the 60s.

KCFleming said...

"No Conservative Boomer wants to return to the 60s."

Pre-AIDS free love has its proponents, at least theoretically.

Anonymous said...

I hear you but....too bad Obama can't have a educated and disciplined American mind.

Here is where he runs afoul of the people, I think.

Jeremy said...

Tina Trent - Thanks much for the typo tips, but I have no idea what they have to do with the context of my point.

And if you're just trying to suck up to your fellow teabaggers here...get in line.

This is pretty much nothing more than a suckfest.

Jeremy said...

Do the regular teabaggers here EVER consider not whining and bitching about literally ANYTHING the president says or does?

It's like a bunch of crybabies, all clamoring to say something even more denigrating to the president than the one before.

What a sad crew you are.

madAsHell said...

Pre-AIDS free love has its proponents, at least theoretically.

It wasn't free. I had to pay for my penicillin....and the women that were giving it away had self-esteem problems. So, it was a lose-lose situation.

E Buzz said...

"Do the regular teabaggers here EVER consider not whining and bitching about literally ANYTHING the president says or does?"

Are you really serious? That's some trolling right there, but I'll bite.

After allllll the panty wetting you douchebags did over and over because of mean Bush, you
re bitching about some mild Barry criticism? Unreal.

Then you go and say that anyone who criticizes the Man is a goddamn racist.

"How'd he do in college?"

"That's a racist accusation, you racist white pig."

Spare the fuck out of everyone pal, you and your mushbrained kind have no room to talk at all.


What pieces of crap you people are.

KCFleming said...

@madAsHell:

I was joking.

edutcher said...

Jeremy said...

Do the regular teabaggers here EVER consider not whining and bitching about literally ANYTHING the president says or does?

Objection to seeing the country destroyed does not constitute whining and bitching.

It's called patriotism.

hombre said...

Paul IV wrote: They make a living putting away single mother who bounced checks after their support check bounced.

What absolute horseshit!

One could practice law for 40 years in as many different jurisdictions without finding a prosecutor who would seek to "put away" such a "transgressor" or a judge who would comply.

hombre said...

Jay Retread spewed (5:00): "Ann ...."

Is this the kind of stuff that is considered witty and enlightened among the lefties these days?

Impressive. LOL

Francisco D said...

Does "Rush Limbaugh" in the title motivate the usual lefty trolls to action?

They really are out in force on this one.

Chip Ahoy said...

Good job, AL. You are following your leader quite well and promoting the next defense for the President.

Now the defense for Obama moves to his college days and Huffington Post, Moveon, MSNBC, CNBC, PBS, NYT, chief among all MSM, drug-addled from the start to the finish, are serving up their hateful gruel for their rubes to swallow and regurgitate. No doubt you'll get a nice pat on the head for your service.

Kirby Olson said...

I went in a green anarchist and came out a conservative interested in having the country remain in the black.

somefeller said...

The critical legal studies movement didn't last very long as an important part of campus life at HLS. It already was mostly a minor subculture and something for the history books by the time I was there in the mid-90s. I wasn't all that impressed by what I saw of it, in that it seemed like its main thesis was pointing out the obvious - that laws are the result of political activity and need to be analyzed as such. Wow. What an insight. That's the sort of thing one usually picks up in Political Science 101, if not just by watching the news. Also, a lot of crit-leaning students acted as though the crit method of analysis would always lead to left-wing results. I remember asking a couple of the big crit professors whether they thought that, or if they thought (as I did and do) that the crit method can just as easily be used by libertarian conservatives to critique and undermine social-democratic laws and policies. They agreed with me, even if some of their dimmer acolytes didn't catch that.

In any case, I suspect (as mentioned above) the main reason Rush is saying this is to delegitimize (what a great crit tactic!) the idea that Obama's good grades at HLS (you don't graduate magna by just being well-liked) doesn't prove anything academically because all they teach at Harvard Law School is Marxist theory. And his sad, resentful fans, most of whom haven't stepped foot on the campus of a decent university, will lap it up, of course.

Steve Austin said...

Two words

Joe Thome

That is all.

somefeller said...

Well, looking back I see I completely butchered the first sentence of the second paragraph of my comment. Embarrassing. It should say: In any case, I suspect (as mentioned above) the main reason Rush is saying this is to delegitimize (what a great crit tactic!) the idea that Obama's good grades at HLS (you don't graduate magna by just being well-liked) proves anything academically because all they teach at Harvard Law School is Marxist theory.

The second sentence stands unrevised.

Floridan said...

Does this mean that all the law students at Harvard during that time are Marxists? Or only the black ones?

Floridan said...

NotYourTypicalNewYorker "If Obama wanted to bring about American decline, what would he do differently....?!"

Join the Tea party?

JAL said...

I cannot conceive of a cure.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

The first step.

JAL said...

I wanna know....how the hell you can be law review editor, and NEVER publish anything?

Be Laurence Tribe's BFF?

JAL said...

Why waste time on his motivations 25 years ago?

Because he prides himself on being a blank screen you can project your stuff on, whatever that stuff is.

Since some of us (more and more) are not enamored with that particular style and we want to understand what makes Obama run, it is necessary to explore his roots. So to speak.

It's also a curiousity on our part to help understand how someone who says he is American with Kansas roots, (!?) can in fact, have a close to zero connection emotionally or practically with America's "street."

JAL said...

"David King" is a joke.

Right?

Like Americo whatever that other appartition was.

sarge said...

"Well done, but you forgot “fat”…you don’t get all the Oliver Willis points you might have otherwise have gotten."

sarge here let sarge try fat drug adict viagra poppin needin pederast

ps miz ann of althouse sure gits more than a pat on the back hell ifn rnc pays upkeep on all them white power krypto kkk sites thn thar sure as hell pay anns billz

sarge said...

Rush admitted to drug addiction;Obama admitted to snorting cocaine.

sarge here only rushbo gits caught in thar conspiracy...lots o folks dabbled i nthe swing dust here or thar most likey lots of them althouser regs an sirtainly miz anne hersef but old rushbo had thar habit causin him to conspire wiv othrz to obtain 'is deadly hillbilly heroin reminds sarge of thar wild and wonderful whites of west virginia onle the pig rushbo cannot to sarge knowlege dance a lick

dick said...

david King,

And if you are smart enough not to want Obama anywhere near the seat of power, in fact want him out of office ASAP, what do you do. I personally cannot think of many people I would rather see less of in the seat of power than Obama. The man is a walking disaster and a total incompetent.

sarge said...

"Between an narcissistic teabagger law professor and a loud mouth radio clown"

sarge here yar cant pssibly blieve this mizz ann has the thar belief systemz intact to even be a teabagger? narkassisitc sure teabagger hardly miz anne dont have thar spine er spunk er even nuttyness requird

sarge sees this althouse as purty milktoast much like obama hsself thar teabgg werirdos project thar own wishs an dreams an sordid soocial sychopathology upon the empty slate that is mizz althouse an her alleged blerg

thar loud mouth clown well...hard to call jaba thar rush a clown when yar consider the likely end of the line for our poor down trodden tho once pristine amerika should his ilk suckcede

Anonymous said...

madAsHell said... "I wanna know....how the hell you can be law review editor, and NEVER publish anything?"

He was pretty busy with cocaine in those days.

tadcf said...

And I suppose you are denying that the school of critical legal studies group is totally wrong? Like Marxism, do you totally reject Dialectical Materialism?

tadcf said...

Do you deny that the school of critical legal studies is totally incorrect? Do you totally deny that Marx's theory of Dialectical Materialism is totally incorrect?

Fred said...

Obama reports taking series of classes with the "Critical Race Studies" guys at Harvard as well...

SPImmortal said...

"Does this mean that all the law students at Harvard during that time are Marxists? Or only the black ones?"

No, just the ones that were raised by Marxists, admitted to hanging out with Marxists in their book, were friends with Marxist terrorists long after graduation, and have Marxists in their presidential administrations.

You know, like Obama.

Milwaukee said...

Being Conservative is not the opposite of being liberal. Ann is not a conservative blogger, and probably wishes y'all would back off on that. She is contrarian who enjoys throwing bones and watching people fight over them.

Of course Obama is a Marxist. Obama has played this birth certificate business poorly, and I am looking forward to Donald getting him to show his grades. A discussion of how such a poor student graduated from Harvard, and was editor of the Law Review, will expose the academic elite and affirmative action. That house of cards is going to fall sooner or later. I can see the rubble from my house. It won't be pretty.

Jay Retread said...

Prominent conservatives like Sarah Palin all the way down to fringe characters like Ann Althouse are now left to trying to undermine President Obama based on race and other charges that he is "foreign" and not really an American. Pretty pathetic.

Mainernow said...

You Rush haters on the left are very amusing! Why attack the messenger?
Because you cannot deal with the fact that your Messiah is a fraud that's why!

SPImmortal said...

To oppose affirmative is racist.

To suggest that any minority may have been the benificiary of affirmative action is also racist.

Even if said minority admits to being a benificiary.

Hilarious idiocy from leftists as usual.

I bet the average leftist doesn't even have a clue how affirmative action works, especially in college admissions.

They probably think that some deserving minority that in years past would have had his college application thrown in the trash now gets the full consideration that they're due.

In reality, colleges routinely add hundreds of points to the SAT scores of underperforming minorities (read: not Asian) when doing admissions. It's often a de facto quota system.

SPImmortal said...

"Obama reports taking series of classes with the "Critical Race Studies" guys at Harvard as well..."

That's some lovely stuff. It even argues for black separatism.

Of course we know he wasn't affected by any of this at all because he went on to attend Jeremiah Wright's church. Oh wait...

Obama is the racist but leftists are always attempting to invery reality by claiming his critics are racist.

Ann Althouse said...

"Also, a lot of crit-leaning students acted as though the crit method of analysis would always lead to left-wing results. I remember asking a couple of the big crit professors whether they thought that, or if they thought (as I did and do) that the crit method can just as easily be used by libertarian conservatives to critique and undermine social-democratic laws and policies. They agreed with me, even if some of their dimmer acolytes didn't catch that."

The Crits *loved* to aim critique at all manner of liberal policies and judicial decisions. Whatever happened was, in their view, another way that the powerful served their interest, and if it looked liberal, that was just the way the people were bamboozled. The Crits I knew sneered at liberals. No fun attacking conservatives. They weren't writing the law review articles of the time. They weren't your colleagues!

"In any case, I suspect (as mentioned above) the main reason Rush is saying this is to delegitimize (what a great crit tactic!) the idea that Obama's good grades at HLS (you don't graduate magna by just being well-liked) doesn't prove anything academically because all they teach at Harvard Law School is Marxist theory."

He was talking off the top of his head at that point, but what he means to say mostly is that Obama thrived in that environment. Obviously, there were plenty of law school exams that tested traditional legal skills and knowledge, and he couldn't have graduated magna cum laude unless he could ace exams like that.

I'd be interested in seeing what electives he chose. Did he opt for the crit stuff or not? That would say something about his ideology.

The question of how smart he is is quite dull. The real question is what is his true ideology and what part of that is he actually trying to inflict on us? That's all I care about.

I voted for him, and as I've said a hundred times, my intuition was that he was pragmatic and interested in doing well as President, solving problems and listening to experts and so forth, which pretty closely corresponds to what I want in a President.

Fr. Philip Powell, OP said...

In grad school during the 90's--American lit. and literary theory. . .

The power of Marxist/feminist and postmodernist theories was absolute. Any deviation from the Party Line was met with swift and terrible rebuke. We were forced to use Freire's "pedagogy of the oppressed" to teach our white, middle-class students how to write. Disaster. We didn't "grade papers;" we "normed portfolios." We didn't "instruct;" we "coached." We weren't allowed to correct spelling or grammar errors, and we all of the assignments were required to deal in some way with race, class, and gender issues. Only leftist/statist solutions to these problems were allowed.

Unfortunately, I bought the whole, ugly mess and loved it. I've grown up. Just in time.

Fr. Philip Neri, OP, PhD

davis,br said...

Whoa. What happened here? - Huffpo discover the post?

...it's apparently Troll Fest' Day.

David R. Graham said...

"I cannot conceive of a cure."

Here are two suggestions:

Duty is God. Work is Worship.

What you talk about do. What you cannot do, do not talk about.

@Fr. Philip - Well done.

Anonymous said...

"Why waste time on his motivations 25 years ago?"

The only way Obama can get sufficient independent votes to win reelection is to convince independents that, no, really, he's going to fix everything, and his appalling record of the last two years is just the natural product of someone fresh at the job trying to clean up the mess left by his predecessor. He'll be different in his second term, promise.

Bringing up Obama's record from 25 years ago is germane in that it demonstrates that the last two years was deliberate, and we can reasonably expect more of the same.

Jay said...

"Why waste time on his motivations 25 years ago?"
I bring it up in convo usually only to make the point that the Media chooses sides... and anyone who voted for Obama should thoughtfully consider the depth to which they were influenced by a media that maintains double standards. Even Tom Brokaw admitted they didn't know who Obama was.

Anonymous said...

"Why waste time on his motivations 25 years ago?"

Because Obama should have been properly investigated the first time around by our missing-in-action in-the-tank so-called "guardians of truth" media.

Obama is a phony, plain and simple. He did not tell us what his intentions were except in secret and in code.

Now under his policies and with the full support of fools like Reid and Pelosi, we have four times the deficit he hypocritically decried as a worthless senator, more war, onerous fiat regulations, signing statements, unending debt, rising gas prices even as we finance Brazil oil, nameless unelected czars and a disintegrating dollar. Gold is over $1500, silver near $50.

All because nobody was concerned with what this charlatan did twenty-five years ago.

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Anonymous said...

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