"Understanding Obama," the law school course.

Understanding... presumably from a legal perspective.

Ah, here: The professor — who was one of Obama's lawprofs — describes the course this way:

This reading group will focus on the way in which race, religion, and politics have impacted the development of President Obama as a leader... We will explore his views as a biracial child, his time as a student at Harvard Law School, the successes and failures of his political campaigns, and the way religion and his views on faith nearly derailed his campaign. Finally, time will be spent analyzing the challenges he faces as president of the United States in establishing both his domestic and global policies.

"Don’t sell yourself well? Think of 'you' as a superhero version of yourself."

"Make a list of your best qualities. Dress the way SuperYou would dress. Talk the way SuperYou would talk. Be SuperYou. Role play. It’s a part. Experiment. This is play."

Advice, from Susannah Breslin, via Instapundit.

Is it good advice? I don't think I want everyone following it. I think Obama follows it.



That's a great video from JibJab, which I'd never seen before. It went up in June 2009. Really interesting to watch now. I just happened upon it, Googling "Obama superman" to illustrate my little "I think Obama follows it" remark.

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH links to this hilarious "Dragnet" clip ("Would your entire life fit into one small room?"):

Obama's name appears in the bios of ALL the other Presidents on the official White House website (except Gerald Ford's).

What an embarrassment!

The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography on www.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford)....

IN THE COMMENTS: tim in vermont makes perhaps the funniest comment in the history of this blog:

"Like Jesus, Obama also sports the middle initial of 'H'."

Now we have photographs of the under-attended, supposed-to-be-huge Obama rally in Ohio.

The whole point was to get dramatic pictures of the awe-struck masses — the youth who adore the dear leader!

Beloved Dictator was never a good campaign theme, and — I love America! — it blessedly doesn't work. Not in the long run. It's tempting to laugh at Obama and his people for thinking they could make it work and for falling on their faces in Columbus, Ohio.

But I'm thinking: Good for us. In America, we don't idolize politicians.

A reading for Sunday morning: "... banish these thoughts from your Mind..."

A letter written to [George Washington] by Colonel Lewis Nicola... detailed the weakness of a republican form of government as they had experienced it, their desire for "mixed government", with him at its head, and their belief that "the title of king" would be objectionable to but few and of material advantage to the country. His reply was peremptory and indignant. In plain terms he stated his abhorrence of the proposal; he was at a loss to conceive what part of his conduct could have encouraged their address; they could not have found "a person to whom their schemes were more disagreeable"; and he charged them, "if you have any regard for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature."

Can I get my news about Wisconsin from the New York Times?

The newspaper I'd like to rely on is leading 2 main stories about Wisconsin on its website this morning: 1. "Wisconsin Puts Obama Between Competing Desire," and 2. "Protesters in Wisconsin Say They Are Staying Put."

As for #1... yes, as usual, it's all about Obama. What does it mean for Obama? And his "competing desires"? Good, lord, it sounds like jacket copy for a romance novel.

The battle in Wisconsin over public employee unions has left President Obama facing a tricky balance between showing solidarity with longtime political supporters and projecting a message in favor of deep spending cuts to reduce the debt.

What's the best way for Obama to look best? The eternal question. Is there no real Obama? Possibly not!

“This is a Wisconsin story, not a Washington one,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “False claims of White House involvement are attempts to distract from the organic grass-roots opposition that is happening in Wisconsin.”

If it's a Wisconsin story, why did Obama horn in on it? He horned in and then backed out. It's this back and forth, trying to get into the right pose to look good later on. It's so difficult for him! (As for "organic grass-roots." Organic! You just know, the Tea Party was commercially grown.) I'd like to know what's really going on! Can't the NYT ferret out some real information about the behind-the-scenes national-level politics reaching into Wisconsin instead of passing along propaganda from Dan Pfeiffer?

Now, if we can tear ourselves away from always-scintillating trials and tribulations of Barack Obama, let's look at the second article...

Union leaders urged Wisconsin teachers to return to work at schools that are open on Monday...

But the Madison schools are closed, and there was a big union vote yesterday about that, as I blogged last night. "Nearly 3,000 Madison teachers, staff and family gathered at Monona Terrace," and the press was kicked out. The NYT doesn't mention that — let alone try to find out what went on.

As the protests went on through falling sleet and snow...

But hardly anyone was out in the bad weather, as my video, taken yesterday afternoon shows. The continuing protest was indoors, in our posh Capitol building.

As for that indoor crowd, are they Wisconsin school teachers, or are they UW students and teaching assistants? Is it still about the Scott Walker budget, or has it skewed into more generic left-wing causes? Here's the video I took inside yesterday afternoon, and those are the questions that occurred to me.

Why doesn't the NYT dig out some information? Who's involved in the organizing? How are they using Facebook and Twitter to maintain the presence in the Capitol? Who's sleeping there overnight? I photographed a sign on a pillar in the Capitol rotunda that says "talk to the TAA about how we can work together." Does the NYT know or care what the TAA even is let alone its role in organizing the protest?

Democrats in the State Senate, meanwhile, who are in the minority but are needed for a quorum, said Sunday that they intended to remain out of state — and far from the voting chamber — until Republican leaders agree to remove broad collective bargaining restrictions from the proposal to increase workers’ health care and pension costs.

“This is not a stunt, it’s not a prank,” said Senator Jon Erpenbach, one of the Democrats who drove away from Madison early Thursday, hours before a planned vote, and would say only that he was in Chicago. “This is not an option I can ever see us doing again, but in this case, it’s absolutely the right thing to do. What they want to do is not the will of the people.”

Instead of passing along a cheerleader quote from Erpenbach, how about making him tell us who's paying to house the 14 Democratic Senators in Chicago? And I want some investigation into how the protest is playing with voters around the state. Are the protests stirring up support among Wisconsinites or pissing people off? Are people outraged by the teachers taking sickout days? Are working parents struggling to find alternate childcare or leaving kids alone? Do people accept the flexible ethics of doctors giving excuse notes to protesters who called in sick and legislators who don't show up for their jobs? Are people inclined to pursue remedies like impeachment or recall? What would it take to get  actual public opinion polls?

The weather here is a dreary winter mix, and the reporting drizzling in from New York only adds to slushy mush.

"He dubbed himself the King of Pop, which was a pretty daring act."

"Previously in our culture, the King of Jazz was Paul Whiteman and the King of Swing Benny Goodman and the King of Rock and Roll was Elvis Presley, all white men. This, in a way, radically redefined the black performer’s relation to music, made Jackson an auteur. In this way, Jackson may have paved the way for Obama in the sense of black man as auteur and self-mythmaker."

Says Professor Gerald L. Early of Washington University.

I'm keeping track of efforts at scholarly analysis of Michael Jackson.

And I'm also keeping track of the way Barack Obama horns in on everything (with the new tag "Obama is everywhere").