Yes, it's time for my two cents on Barack Obama.
What prompts me to write this is Jodi Kantor's article in the N.Y. Times(7/30/08) on Obama's career as law professor at the University of Chicago.
The article portrays an unusually confident, independent and candid teacher, one whose unstuffy and intellectually challenging demeanor made him very popular with students. On the other hand, his colleagues learned that he was reluctant to take a stand on an issue if it might reflect badly on his career in the future.
Does that mean he was already dreaming of the presidency? Yes, but not for the job he's applying for today.
I have a master's and a law degree, so I've been around academics for a while. He doesn't seem to like the demands of scholarship, but holding court in the classroom is another story. His rapid rise in the "higher education industry" is remarkable, and, don't forget, it happened before his career in politics.
What I'm getting at is simply this. I think that a person's first triumph lays the groundwork for his future goals. I don't care what he might have said in kindergarten, his manner and approach to problem solving fit perfectly in the academic setting, not the arenas of Washington. Yes, it's the presidency he wanted, but of Harvard University or the University of Chicago. It's only when it became apparent that this goal was not reachable - possibly because he couldn't cultivate the support of the right power brokers - that he chose President of the United States...as a substitute.
Maybe he thinks he'll have a better shot as an Ex-President?
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