Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Obama and the Elites

There is a great article in the New York Times about Obama's tenure as a law professor at U. Chicago. In it you see all the reasons why he will be a great president: he is thoughtful, able to see multiple sides of an issue and well versed in the issues. However, there is an interesting undercurrent that runs through the article, which suggests that Obama is aloof and uninterested in his teaching peers.

Unfortunately, I think the point of this exercise is to continue with the campaign narrative that Obama is an elitist; as he continuously spurns the advances of other faculty at Chicago to join them or their causes. Furthermore, the article also mentions that he was a favorite among the students and had many followers.

You can see then, why this is such a difficult narrative to maintain- Obama avoids the famous faculty in order to hob-nob with the lowly students. Obama doesn't join the other elites, instead he tries to keep himself in the real world- which oddly means that he is out of touch.

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