The Harvard Law Review, generally considered the most prestigious in the country, elected the first black president in its 104-year history today. The job is considered the highest student position at Harvard Law School.
The new president of the Review is Barack Obama, a 28-year-old graduate of Columbia University who spent four years heading a community development program for poor blacks on Chicago’s South Side before enrolling in law school. His late father, Barack Obama, was a finance minister in Kenya and his mother, Ann Dunham, is an American anthropologist now doing fieldwork in Indonesia. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii.
”The fact that I’ve been elected shows a lot of progress,” Mr. Obama said today in an interview. ”It’s encouraging.
”But it’s important that stories like mine aren’t used to say that everything is O.K. for blacks. You have to remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds or thousands of black students with at least equal talent who don’t get a chance,” he said, alluding to poverty or growing up in a drug environment.
….. Professors and students at the law school reacted cautiously to Mr. Obama’s selection. ”For better or for worse, people will view it as historically significant,” said Prof. Randall Kennedy, who teaches contracts and race relations law. ”But I hope it won’t overwhelm this individual student’s achievement.”
LA Times (March, 1990): Barack Obama stares silently at a wall of fading black-and-white photographs in the muggy second-floor offices of the Harvard Law Review. He lingers over one row of solemn faces, his predecessors of 40 years ago. All are men. All are dressed in dark-colored suits and ties. All are white.
It is a sobering moment for Obama, 28, who in February became the first black to be elected president in the 102-year history of the prestigious student-run law journal.
The post, considered the highest honor a student can attain at Harvard Law School, almost always leads to a coveted clerkship with the U.S. Supreme Court after graduation and a lucrative offer from the law firm of one’s choice.
Yet Obama, who has gone deep into debt to meet the $25,000-a-year cost of a Harvard Law School education, has left many in disbelief by asserting that he wants neither.
“One of the luxuries of going to Harvard Law School is it means you can take risks in your life …. You can try to do things to improve society and still land on your feet. That’s what a Harvard education should buy – enough confidence and security to pursue your dreams and give something back.”
After graduation next year, Obama says he probably will spend two years at a corporate law firm, then look for community work. Down the road, he plans to run for public office….. 💡
CT Post: The six Newtown teachers and administrators who died protecting their students at Sandy Hook Elementary School will be the posthumous recipients of the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal.
President Obama will make the presentations to surviving family members during a ceremony on Friday, Feb. 15 in the White House….
Steve Benen: At the end of the month, deep, automatic sequestration cuts are due to kick in, hurting the economy, the Defense Department, and the general public…..
Today, President Obama said he and Congress have already approved more than $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction, and got to $4 trillion “with a balanced mix of spending cuts and more tax reform,” with the latter including changes “so that the wealthiest individuals and corporations can’t take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren’t available to most Americans.”
Is there time for a major budget agreement and a tax-reform compromise? Of course not, which is why Obama suggested Congress pass “a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms that would delay the economically damaging effects of the sequester for a few more months until Congress finds a way to replace these cuts with a smarter solution.”
And, of course, Republicans immediately rejected the idea and threatened to do deliberate harm to the economy…..
Shortlisted for a Sony World Photography Award: President Barack Obama speaks in the rain during a campaign rally in Glen Allen, Virginia, July 17, 2012. Photo by Brooks Kraft
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Today:
1:15 ET: The President will deliver remarks at the White House calling on Congress to pass a short-term budget package that would delay automatic, across-the-board cuts known as the sequester
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USA Today: President Obama will seek to build support for another ambitious agenda item – a major immigration bill – on Tuesday when he meets with labor and business leaders at the White House.
…. “… the president will hold meetings at the White House with labor leaders and progressive leaders, as well as a number of CEOs from across industries, to discuss his commitment to getting a bipartisan bill passed in 2013, and how immigration reform fits within his broader agenda for economic growth and competitiveness,” a White House statement said.
This morning, Vice President Biden and Dr. Biden met with U.S. Embassy staff and families in London. Afterwards, the Vice President visited 10 Downing Street for meetings with British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Prime Minister David Cameron.
This afternoon, the Vice President will attend a meeting of the United Kingdom National Security Council. In the evening, he and Dr. Biden will depart London en route Washington, DC.
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Eugene Robinson: The moment that most deserves to be remembered from Sunday’s thrilling Super Bowl came before the game, when Jennifer Hudson joined students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in singing “America the Beautiful.” It was a heart-rending elegy for the fallen — and a stirring call to action.
…. It was a reminder that life goes on but also that we must not lose sight of unfinished business: reducing the awful toll that barely regulated, insufficiently monitored commerce in powerful weapons takes on innocent victims, day after day after day.
Despite the best efforts of the NRA and like-minded groups to make sure this business remains unfinished, reducing gun violence remains stubbornly high on the nation’s agenda. This is partly due to the ravings of Wayne LaPierre …. who almost single-handedly, or single-mouthedly, is making the pro-gun argument sound even crazier and more irresponsible than it is. And that’s saying something.
ThinkProgress: What We Can Learn From Minneapolis’ Progressive Approach To Reducing Gun Violence
Monday afternoon, President Obama [delivered] his first speech on a tour promoting his plan to reduce gun violence in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The choice of location is anything but accidental: Minneapolis has, in recent years, developed a progressive, highly effective approach to gun violence prevention that has seen firearm crime plummet.
Trayvon Martin would have been 18 today. Rest in peace.
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Three years ago today: President Barack Obama greets a young visitor in the Oval Office, Feb. 5, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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“…. unless you’re a secretly gay married Muslim bulldozing Reagan” …. love it.
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ThinkProgress: Eight Senators on Monday voted not to consider the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a bill that protects victims of domestic violence. The Senators who voted against moving to debate on the bill were: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Rand Paul (R-KY), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and James Risch (R-ID)
Steve Benen: In its decision last year on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court majority ruled that Medicaid expansion can proceed, but it must be entirely optional for states. Almost immediately, right-wing groups delivered a stern message to Republican governors: to accept expansion would be an outrageous betrayal of conservative principles.
Some GOP governors are doing it anyway, and yesterday, Ohio’s John Kasich joined the group….
Steve Benen: We’ve no doubt had plenty of Supreme Court justices who’ve been widely recognized, and some who’ve kept a relatively high public profile, but I can’t remember the last time a sitting justice reached a level of celebrity on par with Sonia Sotomayor.
…. The NYT piece is a fascinating read, largely because I can’t think of a modern judge who can illicit the kind of reactions Sotomayor is currently receiving….
Reading about these public receptions, I kept thinking back to Sotomayor’s 2009 confirmation process, and the ugliness of some of the criticisms she received from the right …. Given her popularity, I wonder how many of them would care to explain their opposition to Sotomayor’s confirmation now?
Charles Pierce: I guess I’m supposed to be rolling around in schadenfreude at the news that Karl Rove has found a new brand of cheap aluminum siding to sell to the rubes and suckers of what is laughingly referred to as the Republican Establishment. It seems that the money boys are getting tired of losing winnable Senate races because the Help keeps hiring candidates out of the Chronic ward, so Karl’s going to (reluctantly) take their money this time to teach them how to craft winning campaigns on the general theme of Ix-Nay on the Apey-ray. That the Republican party actually should need to pay someone to explain this to its candidates is a measure of a rather more systemic problem. That the feral children in the wilder precincts are birthing cows all over the landscape is entertaining as all hell, but it doesn’t move us any greater distance along toward the day when we once again will have two sane political parties.
LA Times: Jon Favreau’s career took off when, at age 23, he interrupted U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama during a speech rehearsal to offer some suggestions for improvement.
That cheeky move led to a seven-year tour as Obama’s lead speechwriter, an assignment that ends March 1 as Favreau considers trying his hand at another form of drama — as a screenwriter, perhaps in Los Angeles.
Four years ago today: President Obama wears a AF1 jacket on his first flight aboard Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Newport News, Va., Feb. 5. 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
The Obama Diary 
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