If we elect HRC we will deserve what we get.

The term is used differently informally and formally. Formally Barack Obama was not a professor and, since he was part of academe himself and presumably aware of it, characterizing his experience in that way is resume padding.

I think it depends on if he used it formally or informally. If he just lists "professor" in his bio, with a small "p", I'd consider it informal usage, and not really resume padding.

If he lists it in his official CV as "Professor", as an official job title, instead of "Senior Lecturer", then I'd consider it resume padding.

I did some Google searching, but couldn't find his official CV.

I wholly concur that this is a silly attack for the Clinton campaign to engage in and I can’t imagine it will bear much electoral fruit.

I agree, this is much ado about what matters little to the average person on the street.

I am an older poot, who has a first cousin who spent many years in a state university system "accumulating titles before his name and the alphabet after his name," as he states. He told me one night over a bottle of wine that ridding himself of the scourge of self-perceived superiority may not be a bad thing.

He told me it was a good life, served him well, but he now enjoys just living in the country, driving his pickup, tending his land, and enjoys everyone just referring to him as "John."

No wonder, as MTP reported this morning, that her negatives are up.

There is also the issue what a "professor" is and what the various ranks mean in academia. If we go simply in terms of academic rank, the vast minority of profs are full professors and therefore can say that their rank is "Professor" (I am currently an "Associate Professor").

To James' experience specifically, I think part of what affects it is that in the South (where he went to school and taught) most faculty are called "Dr." not "Professor" and therefore discussions of the word end up taking the mind more in the direction of describing rank rather than as a description of what one does.

When I went to school in California and went to school/taught in Texas at several different institutions (in terms of teaching), it was more common for all faculty to be referred to by the honorific "Professor" and less likely that they be called "Dr." (although it did happen as well).

I will say that it would be more accurate for Obama to describe himself as having taught as a senior lecturer at the school.

If he just says that he was a lecturer, however, without clarification, many people might think that he simply gave some lectures at the school, and not understand that he actually taught there.

Saying he was a "professor" is the least ambiguous term for general public.

Hillary? I'd love to call her nominee :-)
But desperate is cool.

Formally Barack Obama was not a professor, since he was part of academe himself and presumably aware of it, characterizing his experience in that way is resume padding.

All of this is a relatively minor quibble, but if the university refers to him as a professor is it resume padding for him to refer to himself as a professor?

Note that I'm not challenging his abilities or acumen in any way and that I'm inclined to think of parlaying the differences between formal and informal usage as benign.

I looked at old faculty and student blogs written prior to this “controversy” and they referred to him as “Professor Obama”. At the end of his final year, the law students gave Obama the second highest ratings over the entire faculty of University of Chicago Law School. This isn’t resume padding. As the university maintains, Obama was a very qualified and very capable law professor.

Obama did that at the University of Chicago Law School

“someone who is a member of the faculty at a college or university”

Obama was listed among the faculty at the University of Chicago Law School

It's pretty darned brazen of Sen. Clinton, whose exaggeration of her foreign policy experience isn't an isolated example of substantial resume padding, to criticize Sen. Obama for something so minor. I guess brazen has gotten her this far so she's sticking with it.