"After winning a spot on the [Harvard Law Review], Obama beat out 18 other contenders to become the first African-American president in the then-103-year history of the Review, and his duties included leading discussions and debates to determine what to print from the mountain of submissions from judges, scholars and authors from across the country, supervising the thorough editing of each issue's contents and giving every article what's known as a 'P-read' once it was finally considered ready for publication.

"Once a piece is set, the [Review's] president also sends a letter or fax and makes a follow-up phone call to each author. Federal Judge Michael W. McConnell, who was nominated by President Bush and has frequently been mentioned as one of Bush’s potential Supreme Court nominees, recalls receiving one such letter and call in early 1990 for his article 'The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion.'

McConnell told Politico, 'A frequent problem with student editors is that they try to turn an article into something they want it to be. It was striking that Obama didn’t do that. He tried to make it better from my point of view.' McConnell was impressed enough to urge the University of Chicago Law School to seek Obama out as an academic prospect."

Which, as I say, is further evidence that the U. of Chicago decided to give Obama an additional leg up because even their more conservative members recognized that they had something intellectually unusual there.

As the article that I just finished quoting said, "crafting original presentations based on their own research, interests, and insights" was exactly what he did in order to provide major assistance to Pildes and McConnell. Which, I presume, is why he ended up as that "senior lecturer, a title otherwise carried only by a few federal judges" -- and probably why the faculty (including its conservative members) was willing to bend the rules somewhat to make him a professor. I fully agree that YOU are not throwing a fit about this issue -- but Beldar (predictably) is, and he was my target.

His most original course, a historical and political seminar as much as a legal one, was on racism and law. Mr. Obama improvised his own textbook, including classic cases like Brown v. Board of Education, and essays by Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as conservative thinkers like Robert H. Bork.

This is simply what professors do. I was doing that as an assistant professor at Troy State. Hell, I was doing it as a graduate teaching assistant at Alabama. The essence of higher education -- the reason those in charge of classes are called "professors" rather than merely "teachers" -- is that they are crafting an original presentation for students based on their own research, interests, and insights.

Nobody, by the way, is arguing that Obama was incapable of being a first rate scholar. Rather, the point of the piece was that he was mostly interested in his political future and did whatever he had to do in order to preserve his options.

In many ways, that's praiseworthy. Or, at least, demonstrative of remarkable self-discipline. But, generally speaking, it's not the path to tenure at an elite law school.

As for his supposedly disastrous "lack of publications", well: "His voting rights class traced the evolution of election law, from the disenfranchisement of blacks to contemporary debates over districting and campaign finance. Mr. Obama was so interested in the subject that he helped Richard Pildes, a professor at New York University, develop a leading casebook in the field....At the school, Mr. Obama taught three courses, ascending to senior lecturer, a title otherwise carried only by a few federal judges...His most original course, a historical and political seminar as much as a legal one, was on racism and law. Mr. Obama improvised his own textbook, including classic cases like Brown v. Board of Education, and essays by Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as conservative thinkers like Robert H. Bork...As his reputation for frank, exciting discussion spread, enrollment in his classes swelled. Most scores on his teaching evaluations were positive to superlative...[A]s a professor, students say, Mr. Obama was in the business of complication, showing that even the best-reasoned rules have unintended consequences, that competing legal interests cannot always be resolved, that a rule that promotes justice in one case can be unfair in the next."

As I say: scandalous! And even more scandalous that all those very prominent conservative legal scholars at the School (including such eminent pinko sympathizers as Posner, Epstein, McConnell and Easterbrook) didn't raise hell about his proposed tenure! And most scandalous of all, of course, is that we're now seeing evidence that he (shudder) is starting to agree publicly that his initial campaign statements on some subjects were overly simplistic! (Which, as Richard Nixon among others has pointed out, is the only possible way to get as far as the nomination in our rather bizarre political system.)

Scandalous! Scandalous! Why the hell didn't they show more respect for a REAL intelllectual, such as John McCain?

WTF? Nobody's suggesting that McCain was more deserving of tenure than Obama, merely that it's unheard of to offer tenure to someone who has never been on the tenure track, has no published scholarship, and no record of distinguished public service at a high level.

"The course materials and examination questions prepared by then-Professor Obama demonstrate a deep and nuanced command of the law, but for that to have resulted in an offer to the tenured or even tenure-track faculty, the normal course (indeed, nearly the only course) is for that command of legal subjects to have first manifested itself into published articles."

Scandalous! Scandalous! Why the hell didn't they show more respect for a REAL intelllectual, such as John McCain?

Bush the elder banned drilling in the early 90's. GW could have lifted that ban at any time during his presidency with the stroke of a pen, but he waited nearly 8 years to do so. He also blocked drilling in FL to help his brother politically.

The GOP controlled congress for 12 years, but did not lift the congressional ban.

In 2000, Bush/Cheney assured us they had an energy plan. In this instance, they told the truth. Oil companies are making mind boggling profits. The plan worked.

Tlaloc, that is not what oil companies say.

And it's not like they have a few financial incentives to lie exaggerate or anything...

Only the nay sayers claim we do not have the technology.

Can you find me a single operating plant that produces any significant volume of oil from oil shale? I'm not talking a proof of concept lab setup that is grossly cost inefficient, I mean a real world industrial mass production application of this technology.

I don't believe you can, because it doesn't seem to exist, but feel free to prove me wrong.

Do you honestly think we can grow our way out? What happens if a blight attacks the fuel crop?

I think biofuels are generally a bad idea. More to the point any energy source we choose will be a problem because our model to date has been to use as much as possible as fast as possible. Since every energy source has drawbaks that kind of thinking means you inevitably reach a point where that drawback becomes critical.

What we need is a change in energy usage patterns. I can pretty much guarantee you that we could knock 20% off of our current energy usage in ten years if we really wanted to. And that's just eliminating waste, not even getting into real changes in lifestyle (which we should also do).

But I think it's reasonably clear that (a) Dean Fischel was sufficiently smitten by the Chosen One to extend him a tenure offer without prior authorization from his faculty

You have any evidence that the faculty was upset by the offer? Just asking.

...the position of "senior lecturer." As the law school correctly points out on its Web site, that title is used for such long-established legal scholars as Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, both of whom continued to teach after their appointment to the United States Court of Appeals.

Posner teaches a class, I believe called "Law and Drama," which meets about once a month through the year and culminates in students meeting at his house to act out a play.

This is not a knock on Posner or Obama, but is meant to illustrate categorical differences between them.