"I was born in Oslo, Norway, the son of a Volvo factory worker and part-time ice fisherman."

"My mother was a backup singer for Abba. They were good folks.... [In Chicago,] I discovered I was black, and I have remained so ever since." So goes the satirical script, written by Barack Obama's Harvard Law School classmates.

He proved deft at navigating an institution scorched with ideological battles, many of which revolved around race. He developed a leadership style based more on furthering consensus than on imposing his own ideas. Surrounded by students who enjoyed the sound of their own voices, Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener, sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with all of them at once.

Friends say he did not want anyone to assume they knew his mind — and because of that, even those close to him did not always know exactly where he stood....

Why did his fellow law review editors elect him to lead them, to serve as their "president" (most law journals say "editor-in-chief")?

The election was an all-day affair with the ego-crushing drama of a reality TV show. Inside Pound Hall, the editors picked apart the intellectual and social skills of the 19 contenders, eliminating them in batches. At the last moment, the conservative faction, its initial candidates defeated, threw its support to Mr. Obama. “Whatever his politics, we felt he would give us a fair shake,” said Bradford Berenson, a former associate White House counsel in the Bush administration.

Read the whole article. With all those lawyers to interview and all the jealousy Obama must have inspired with his success at Harvard, it's notable that nothing nasty comes up.

But then maybe this article -- in the NYT -- is a puff piece and some juicy quotes got clipped out.