<p>His exams and some of his answer memos below.</p>
<p>Inside</a> Professor Obama?s Classroom - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog</p>
<p>He couldn’t have been a professor. Hes just over the age mark now to qualify.</p>
<p>On October 20, 2006, Senator Obama was a guest of the [Diane</a> Rehm Show<a href=“link%20includes%20full%20audio%20of%20interview…the%20section%20transcribed%20below%20is%20at%20about%206%20minutes%20into%20the%20interview”>/url</a>. The Harvard Law Grad’s rhetoric attempts to re-write our country’s history on Habeas Corpus during the interview while making a political argument. </p>
<p>From the interview:</p>
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<p>It is a fact of history that [President</a> Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War](<a href=“http://porkopolis.blogspot.com/2006/10/porkopolis-calls-********-on-rock-star.html]President”>http://porkopolis.blogspot.com/2006/10/porkopolis-calls-********-on-rock-star.html). A fact that should be know by any high school student of American history, to say nothing of Constitutional lawyers trained at Harvard.</p>
<p>The legality of the Military Comission Act would later be argued in [Boumediene</a> v. Bush](<a href=“{{meta.fullTitle}}”>{{meta.fullTitle}}), but Senator Obama’s revision of history is too cute by half.</p>
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<p>His official title before he left was ‘Senior Lecturer’</p>
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That is humorous.</p>
<p>Corrected link for [‘President</a> Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War’](<a href=“http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/did_lincoln.htm]'President”>American Patriot Network) from post [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060815565-post3.html]#3[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060815565-post3.html]#3[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Lincoln didn’t eliminate the writ, he temporarily suspended it, under precisely those conditions spelled out in the US Constitution in Article 1, Sec. 9: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeus Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”</p>
<p>The legislation Barack referred to did something altogether different - it purported to eliminate the privilege of the writ altogether for prisoners at Gitmo. Barack criticized that legislation in 2006 on similar grounds to those used by the Supreme Court in declaring that legislation unconstitutional in 2008.</p>
<p>And yes, his title at the University of Chicago Law school was Senior Lecturer. But Chicago deems its senior lecturers to be professors, and it offered him tenure.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060817339-post7.html]#7[/url]”>quote</a>…The legislation Barack referred to did something altogether different - it purported to eliminate the privilege of the writ altogether for prisoners at Gitmo…
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<p>Obama specifically describes the actions [Lincoln</a> took against the copperhead democrats arrested under military authority](<a href=“http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/did_lincoln.htm]Lincoln”>American Patriot Network)..their plight was the same whether it’s called a ‘suspension’ or ‘elimination’ of habeas:</p>
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<p>Stich,</p>
<p>Let’s compare Obama’s best known statement on the writ of habeas corpus with McCain’s. </p>
<p>Here’s Obama’s floor statement in 2006:</p>
<p>"Mr. President, I would like to address the habeas corpus amendment that is on the floor and that we just heard a lengthy debate about between Senator Specter and Senator Warner.</p>
<p>"A few years ago, I gave a speech in Boston that people talk about from time to time. In that speech, I spoke about why I love this country, why I love America, and what I believe sets this country apart from so many other nations in so many areas. I said:</p>
<p>"That is the true genius of America–a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. …</p>
<p>"Without hearing a sudden knock on the door. I bring this up because what is at stake in this bill, and in the amendment that is currently being debated, is the right, in some sense, for people who hear that knock on the door and are placed in detention because the Government suspects them of terrorist activity to effectively challenge their detention by our Government.</p>
<p>"Now, under the existing rules of the Detainee Treatment Act, court review of anyone’s detention is severely restricted. Fortunately, the Supreme Court in Hamdan ensured that some meaningful review would take place. But in the absence of Senator Specter’s amendment that is currently pending, we will essentially be going back to the same situation as if the Supreme Court had never ruled in Hamdan, a situation in which detainees effectively have no access to anything other than the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, or the CSRT.</p>
<p>"Now, I think it is important for all of us to understand exactly the procedures that are currently provided for under the CSRT. I have actually read a few of the transcripts of proceedings under the CSRT. And I can tell you that oftentimes they provide detainees no meaningful recourse if the Government has the wrong guy.</p>
<p>"Essentially, reading these transcripts, they proceed as follows: The Government says: You are a member of the Taliban. And the detainee will say: No, I’m not. And then the Government will not ask for proof from the detainee that he is not. There is no evidence that the detainee can offer to rebut the Government’s charge.</p>
<p>"The Government then moves on and says: And on such and such a date, you perpetrated such and such terrorist crime. And the detainee says: No, I didn’t. You have the wrong guy. But again, he has no capacity to place into evidence anything that would rebut the Government’s charge. And there is no effort to find out whether or not what he is saying is true.</p>
<p>"And it proceeds like that until effectively the Government says, OK, that is the end of the tribunal, and he goes back to detention. Even if there is evidence that he was not involved in any terrorist activity, he may not have any mechanism to introduce that evidence into the hearing.</p>
<p>"Now, the vast majority of the folks in Guantanamo, I suspect, are there for a reason. There are a lot of dangerous people. Particularly dangerous are people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Ironically, those are the guys who are going to get real military procedures because they are going to be charged by the Government. But detainees who have not committed war crimes–or where the Government’s case is not strong–may not have any recourse whatsoever.</p>
<p>"The bottom line is this: Current procedures under the CSRT are such that a perfectly innocent individual could be held and could not rebut the Government’s case and has no way of proving his innocence.</p>
<p>"I would like somebody in this Chamber, somebody in this Government, to tell me why this is necessary. I do not want to hear that this is a new world and we face a new kind of enemy. I know that. I know that every time I think about my two little girls and worry for their safety–when I wonder if I really can tuck them in at night and know that they are safe from harm. I have as big of a stake as anybody on the other side of the aisle and anybody in this administration in capturing terrorists and incapacitating them. I would gladly take up arms myself against any terrorist threat to make sure my family is protected.</p>
<p>"But as a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence.</p>
<p>"This is not just an entirely fictional scenario, by the way. We have already had reports by the CIA and various generals over the last few years saying that many of the detainees at Guantanamo should not have been there. As one U.S. commander of Guantanamo told the Wall Street Journal:</p>
<p>"‘Sometimes, we just didn’t get the right folks.’</p>
<p>"We all know about the recent case of the Canadian man who was suspected of terrorist connections, detained in New York, sent to Syria–through a rendition agreement–tortured, only to find out later it was all a case of mistaken identity and poor information.</p>
<p>"In this war, where terrorists can plot undetected from within our borders, it is absolutely vital that our law enforcement agencies are able to detain and interrogate whoever they believe to be a suspect, and so it is understandable that mistakes will be made and identities will be confused. I don’t blame the Government for that. This is an extraordinarily difficult war we are prosecuting against terrorists. There are going to be situations in which we cast too wide a net and capture the wrong person.</p>
<p>"But what is avoidable is refusing to ever allow our legal system to correct these mistakes. By giving suspects a chance–even one chance–to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit.</p>
<p>"Let me respond to a couple of points that have been made on the other side. You will hear opponents of this amendment say it will give all kinds of rights to terrorist masterminds, such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But that is not true. The irony of the underlying bill as it is written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial, with all of the bells and whistles. He will have counsel, he will be able to present evidence, and he will be able to rebut the Government’s case. The feeling is that he is guilty of a war crime and to do otherwise might violate some of our agreements under the Geneva Conventions. I think that is good, that we are going to provide him with some procedure and process. I think we will convict him, and I think he will be brought to justice. I think justice will be carried out in his case.</p>
<p>"But that won’t be true for the detainees who are never charged with a terrorist crime, who have not committed a war crime. Under this bill, people who may have been simply at the wrong place at the wrong time–and there may be just a few–will never get a chance to appeal their detention. So, essentially, the weaker the Government’s case is against you, the fewer rights you have. Senator Specter’s amendment would fix that, while still ensuring that terrorists like Mohammed are swiftly brought to justice.</p>
<p>"You are also going to hear a lot about how lawyers are going to file all kinds of frivolous lawsuits on behalf of detainees if habeas corpus is in place. This is a cynical argument because I think we could get overwhelming support in this Chamber right now for a measure that would restrict habeas to a one-shot appeal that would be limited solely to whether someone was legally detained or not. I am not interested in allowing folks at Guantanamo to complain about whether their cell is too small or whether the food they get is sufficiently edible or to their tastes. That is not what this is about. We can craft a habeas bill that says the only question before the court is whether there is sufficient evidence to find that this person is truly an unlawful enemy combatant and belongs in this detention center. We can restrict it to that. And although I have seen some of those amendments floating around, those were not amendments that were admitted during this debate. It is a problem that is easily addressed. It is not a reason for us to wholesale eliminate habeas corpus.</p>
<p>"Finally, you will hear some Senators argue that if habeas is allowed, it renders the CSRT process irrelevant because the courts will embark on de novo review, meaning they will completely retry these cases, take new evidence. So whatever findings were made in the CSRT are not really relevant because the court is essentially going to start all over again.</p>
<p>"I actually think some of these Senators are right on this point. I believe we could actually set up a system in which a military tribunal is sufficient to make a determination as to whether someone is an enemy combatant and would not require the sort of traditional habeas corpus that is called for as a consequence of this amendment, where the court’s role is simply to see whether proper procedures were met. The problem is that the way the CSRT is currently designed is so insufficient that we can anticipate the Supreme Court overturning this underlying bill, once again, in the absence of habeas corpus review.</p>
<p>"I have had conversations with some of the sponsors of the underlying bill who say they agree that we have to beef up the CSRT procedures. Well, if we are going to revisit the CSRT procedures to make them stronger and make sure they comport with basic due process, why not leave habeas corpus in place until we have actually fixed it up to our satisfaction? Why rush through it 2 days before we are supposed to adjourn? Because some on the other side of the aisle want to go campaign on the issue of who is tougher on terrorism and national security.</p>
<p>"Since 9/11, Americans have been asked to give up certain conveniences and civil liberties–long waits in airport security lines, random questioning because of a foreign-sounding last name–so that the Government can defeat terrorism wherever it may exist. It is a tough balance to strike. I think we have to acknowledge that whoever was in power right now, whoever was in the White House, whichever party was in control, that we would have to do some balancing between civil liberties and our need for security and to get tough on those who would do us harm.</p>
<p>"Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody’s right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.</p>
<p>"In Sunday’s New York Times, it was reported that previous drafts of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate, a report of 16 different Government intelligence agencies, describe:</p>
<p>.‘… actions by the United States Government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. …’</p>
<p>"This is not just unhelpful in our fight against terror, it is unnecessary. We don’t need to imprison innocent people to win this war. For people who are guilty, we have the procedures in place to lock them up. That is who we are as a people. We do things right, and we do things fair.</p>
<p>"Two days ago, every Member of this body received a letter, signed by 35 U.S. diplomats, many of whom served under Republican Presidents. They urged us to reconsider eliminating the rights of habeas corpus from this bill, saying:</p>
<p>"‘To deny habeas corpus to our detainees can be seen as a prescription for how the captured members of our own military, diplomatic, and NGO personnel stationed abroad may be treated. … The Congress has every duty to insure their protection, and to avoid anything which will be taken as a justification, even by the most disturbed minds, that arbitrary arrest is the acceptable norm of the day in the relations between nations, and that judicial inquiry is an antique, trivial and dispensable luxury.’</p>
<p>"The world is watching what we do today in America. They will know what we do here today, and they will treat all of us accordingly in the future–our soldiers, our diplomats, our journalists, anybody who travels beyond these borders. I hope we remember this as we go forward. I sincerely hope we can protect what has been called the `great writ’–a writ that has been in place in the Anglo-American legal system for over 700 years.</p>
<p>"Mr. President, this should not be a difficult vote. I hope we pass this amendment because I think it is the only way to make sure this underlying bill preserves all the great traditions of our legal system and our way of life.</p>
<p>“I yield the floor.”</p>
<p>Here’s McCain:</p>
<p>“The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country. Sen. Graham and Sen. Lieberman and I had worked very hard to make sure that we didn’t torture any prisoners, that we didn’t mistreat them, that we abided by the Geneva Conventions, which applies to all prisoners. But we also made it perfectly clear, and I won’t go through all the legislation we passed, and the prohibition against torture, but we made it very clear that these are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have. And my friends there are some bad people down there. There are some bad people. So now what are we going to do. We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called, quote, Habeas Corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate, because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases. By the way, 30 of the people who have already been released from Guantanamo Bay have already tried to attack America again, one of them just a couple weeks ago, a suicide bomber in Iraq. Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation, and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that.”</p>
<p>And you’re getting snarky over Obama’s understanding of US history and constitutional law?</p>
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<p>Sen. Obama was a Senior Lecturer which is non-tenure track. </p>
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<p>[University</a> of Chicago Law School > Media](<a href=“http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media/index.html]University”>http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media/index.html)</p>
<p>Sen. Obama was invited to join the full time faculty but that would only mean he would be in a tenure-track position, not that he would be given tenure immediately. Sen. Obama has no significant legal publications that would justify granting him tenure. If he had been given tenure immediately, it would have been a fraud on the other faculty who actually earned their tenure.</p>
<p>John McCain once crashed an airplane into a carrier, killing many U.S. servicemen. </p>
<p>Seriously though, who cares if Obama was a “professor” or not? He stood in front of a university class and students listened to him.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060818424-post9.html]#9[/url]”>quote</a> Let’s compare Obama’s best known statement on the writ of habeas corpus with McCain’s…And you’re getting snarky over Obama’s understanding of US history and constitutional law?
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<p>If snarky is pointing out the facts, then I’m guilty as charged.</p>
<p>And those facts speak for themselves that Senator Obama’s rhetoric was historically inaccurate at best and misleading at worst. Obama’s response in the interview asserted, without qualification, that:
when clearly in our history we had a challenge of such magnitude that [President</a> Lincoln did exactly we he claims the Military Commission Act would do](<a href=“http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/did_lincoln.htm]President”>American Patriot Network), in his own words, “for the first time”. Now, either [“words</a> matter”](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS127486+12-Jun-2008+PRN20080612]"words”>http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS127486+12-Jun-2008+PRN20080612), or they don’t!</p>
<p>Furthermore, Senator McCain had much more to say on the Militiary Commission Act, Habeas and Judicial Review. He, along with Senator Warner and Graham, wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled ‘Look Past the Tortured Distortions’:</p>
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<p>Did Lincoln “eliminate the principle of habeas corpus” when he suspended it? If he didn’t, your whole argument here is baseless. Not to mention silly.</p>
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<p>You need to get your history straight! The USS Forrestal incident was in no way McCain crashing an aircraft. His jet was parked on deck, when a 2.75in high explosive rocket ignited and hit his aircraft (which was fueled and armed). The resulting fire and explosions (caused by bombs engulfed in the fire) killed over a hundred crew members. It was one of the worst, and most accurately recorded major mishaps aboard a carrier. </p>
<p>So how about trying to place the blame somewhere other than on the guy who’s aircraft got blown out from under him…</p>
<p>Here’s the language the Supremes found unconstitutional:</p>
<p>“Except as provided in section 1005 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.” §1005(e)(1), 119 Stat. 2742. </p>
<p>That’s far more dramatic, and far less limited, than Lincoln’s decision to suspect the writ of habeas corpus in limited regions of the country during the darkest days of a civil war that resulted in the deaths of 8% of the country’s white males between the ages of 13 and 43.</p>
<p>Razorsharp writes, “Sen. Obama was invited to join the full time faculty but that would only mean he would be in a tenure-track position, not that he would be given tenure immediately.”</p>
<p>Not according to the New York Times article published on July 30, 2008:</p>
<p>"… the faculty saw an opening and made him its best offer yet: Tenure upon hiring. A handsome salary, more than the $60,000 he was making in the State Senate or the $60,000 he earned teaching part time. A job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic.</p>
<p>“Your political career is dead, Daniel Fischel, then the dean, said he told Mr. Obama, gently. Mr. Obama turned the offer down. Two years later, he decided to run for the Senate. He canceled his course load and has not taught since.”</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060820695-post13.html]#13[/url]”>quote</a> Did Lincoln “eliminate the principle of habeas corpus” when he suspended it? If he didn’t, your whole argument here is baseless. Not to mention silly.
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<p>By your logic, the [many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority](<a href=“American Patriot Network”>http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/did_lincoln.htm</a>) by Lincoln should have been sanguine while in jail because their habeas rights were only “suspended” and not “eliminated”. Did they have more freedom of movement because it was a “suspension” instead of an “elimination”? Did they have the “basic hearing in court” and the ability to “answer those charges” Obama rhetorically asserts in his interview? </p>
<p>Furthermore, Senator Obama was incorrect on his “elimination for the first time in our history of the principle of Habeas Corpus” assertion on another front. [Johnson</a> v. Eisentrager](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_v._Eisentrager]Johnson”>Johnson v. Eisentrager - Wikipedia) also dealt with habeas rights of non-citizens disproving his rhetoric of:</p>
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<p>For the Johnson v. Eisentrager Germans held in a U.S. administered prison, their habeas rights were effectively ‘eliminated’ and not just suspended. As a reminder, the Military Commission Act was also dealing with non-U.S. citizens just like the Germans in Johnson v. Eisentrager.</p>
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<p>It was a joke. I don’t care if McCain crashed a plane or not. He went to Vietnam. Accidents happen in the military. </p>
<p>My point is that this “Is Obama a professor or merely a senior lecturer?” debate is an equally pointless and desperate attempt to sully a politician’s image.</p>