TW: I had not heard of Prof. Sunstein but he knows Obama well. He has written an endorsment which encapsulates best why I believe Obama has a chance to be not merely an improvment over the feckless Bush but a great POTUS.
From Sunstein via Politico:
"...This was a pretty amazing conversation, not only because of Obama's mastery of the legal details, but also because many prominent Democratic leaders had already blasted the Bush initiative as blatantly illegal. He did not want to take a public position until he had listened to, and explored, what might be said on the other side. He took the law exceedingly seriously, and he wanted to get the statutory and constitutional provisions right. This is the Barack Obama I have known for nearly 15 years -- a careful and even-handed analyst of law and policy, unusually attentive to multiple points of view.
The University of Chicago Law School is by far the most conservative of the great American law schools. It helped to provide the academic foundations for many positions of the Reagan administration.But at the University of Chicago, Obama is liked and admired by Republicans and Democrats alike.
He is strongly committed to helping the disadvantaged, but his University of Chicago background shows; he appreciates the virtues and power of free markets. In this sense, he is not only focused on details but is also a uniter, both by inclination and on principle.
Obama speaks enthusiastically about Doris Kearns Goodwin's description of Lincoln's "Team of Rivals." His enthusiasm for such a team is entirely characteristic. Obama wants to know what ideas are likely to work, not whether a Democrat or a Republican is responsible for them"
http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Cass_R__Sunstein_BDDDA786-0C3A-44E4-B22C-6FA964EB6199.html
2 comments:
....care must be taken re: Doris Kearns Goodwin, I believe that she was slammed a number of years ago for plagiarizing passages for one of her books. She was a regular on the AM national talk show circuit and then controversy and poof. She was yanked.
McCain would love to sink his teeth into something else to push onto Obama.
However, she seems to have made a recovery in recent years. I've seen her back on TV. I've always liked her though---glad to see her back.
Had not heard that so looked her up on Wiki. The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol's rag, came after her in 2002. She apparently had some culpability but then she won literary prizes for Team of Rivals in 2005 and she still appears on several TV shows.
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