The Bridge: The Life And Rise Of Barack Obama Part 8

The year before Obama began law school, Tribe, at the invitation of the Senate Judiciary Committee and its chairman, Joseph Biden, of Delaware, testified against Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. So fluid and commanding was Tribe in oral argument that Biden decided to make him his cornerstone witness. In three hours of testimony, Tribe attacked Bork's judicial writings, insisting that he was "out of the mainstream" on issues of privacy, reproductive rights, school selection, and many other issues. As a liberal, Tribe believes that the Const.i.tution is a living doc.u.ment that requires constant interpretation in light of an expanding vision of human dignity; he argues that "original intent," the mantra of conservatives like Bork, is a cover for resisting evolutionary social change. Tribe was, in many ways, the intellectual backbone of the effort to spurn Bork. No one questioned his credentials; he had won nine of twelve cases that he argued before the Supreme Court. The Senate voted, 58-42, to reject Bork, and Reagan ended up nominating Anthony Kennedy instead. (Although Kennedy hardly proved a liberal, he has been far less conservative in his votes and written opinions than Bork would have been.) Tribe's testimony and his many television appearances were so effective, however, that they made up a kind of kamikaze mission where his future was concerned. Tribe craved a seat on the Supreme Court and he hoped that a Democratic President would nominate him, but, after the Bork hearings, Republican elephants, blessed with long memories, vowed that they would never forgive him.

Tribe was born in Shanghai in 1941, to Jewish parents who had fled the tsarist pogroms. His father was held in a j.a.panese-run internment camp near Shanghai, and, when the war was over and he was released, he brought the family to San Francisco. Tribe was a versatile prodigy. He won a full scholars.h.i.+p to Harvard and wound up studying math and graduating summa c.u.m laude having done all the coursework for a doctorate. He did not pursue a career in mathematics because he saw that he could not match his contemporary at Harvard Saul Kripke, an eccentric logician and philosopher, who had been writing about modal logic since he was seventeen.

Looking for a field with "real-life ramifications," Tribe went to Harvard Law School and, after graduation, began teaching. Tenured at Harvard at twenty-nine, he published, in 1978, a seventeen-hundred-page treatise ent.i.tled American Const.i.tutional Law American Const.i.tutional Law, the most authoritative volume on modern const.i.tutional doctrine. As a litigator at the Supreme Court, Tribe has presented cases on free speech, h.o.m.os.e.xual rights, and women's rights. In 1986, he took on Bowers v. Hardwick, a case in which he argued for the rights of gay men and women to practice consensual s.e.x without fear of state prosecution. The Court ruled against Tribe's client, Michael Hardwick, and for the State of Georgia, five to four. Not long after Lewis Powell retired from the Court, he publicly admitted that he regretted voting with the majority, and, in 2003, in a case called Lawrence v. Texas, Bowers was overturned. Anthony Kennedy, who, in great measure, owed his job to Tribe, wrote the opinion for the majority.

Tribe also distinguished himself among academics by becoming a wealthy man litigating corporate cases. For helping to win a ten-billion-dollar judgment for Pennzoil against Texaco, his fee was reportedly three million dollars. Not a few of his colleagues were shocked Not a few of his colleagues were shocked by a 1994 article in by a 1994 article in The American Lawyer The American Lawyer called "Midas Touch in the Ivory Tower: The Croesus of Cambridge" that reported that Tribe was earning between one and three million dollars a year. called "Midas Touch in the Ivory Tower: The Croesus of Cambridge" that reported that Tribe was earning between one and three million dollars a year.

By the time the Cla.s.s of 1991 arrived on campus, Tribe had taught thousands of students. One afternoon--on March 29, 1989-he jotted a note to himself on his desk calendar. It read, "Barack Obama, One L.!" He wanted to remind himself of an encounter that day with an impressive student who had come by his office to talk. "Barack wanted to get to know me because he was interested in my work," Tribe recalled. "I soon saw that he was very purposive about being at the law school. It wasn't a school of maintaining options as it is for many students. Barack had a clear sense that he wanted to know about the legal infrastructure of things: corporate law, const.i.tutional law as the framework. I was impressed by his maturity and his sense of purpose, his fluency."

Tribe signed up Obama as his primary research a.s.sistant, and they worked on three projects together: Tribe's book Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes; Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes; a highly theoretical article called "The Curvature of Const.i.tutional s.p.a.ce," in which Tribe called on metaphors derived from quantum physics and Einsteinian relativity to describe matters of societal obligations and the law; and an article called "On Reading the Const.i.tution." Obama caught up quickly in subjects, like physics, in which he had no background. For their work on "The Curvature of Const.i.tutional s.p.a.ce," Tribe and Obama spent hours discussing the case of DeShaney v. Winnebago County, a children's-rights issue that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989. The case centered on a boy named Joshua DeShaney. When his parents divorced in 1980 in Wyoming, his father was given custody, and the boy then moved with him to Wisconsin. Soon, social-services workers received reports of the father hurting the child. After an abuse report and hospitalization in January, 1983, the Winnebago County Department of Social Services got a court order to keep the boy away from his father and in the hospital, but a "child-protection team," consisting of a psychologist, a detective, several social-services caseworkers, a pediatrician, and a county lawyer, recommended that the juvenile court return the boy to his father. The beatings--and the complaints--resumed. In 1984, the father beat his son so severely that Joshua was in a coma and had to undergo brain surgery. As a result of repeated traumatic beatings, the boy became severely r.e.t.a.r.ded and paralyzed. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court absolved Winnebago County of any const.i.tutional responsibility for the child. a highly theoretical article called "The Curvature of Const.i.tutional s.p.a.ce," in which Tribe called on metaphors derived from quantum physics and Einsteinian relativity to describe matters of societal obligations and the law; and an article called "On Reading the Const.i.tution." Obama caught up quickly in subjects, like physics, in which he had no background. For their work on "The Curvature of Const.i.tutional s.p.a.ce," Tribe and Obama spent hours discussing the case of DeShaney v. Winnebago County, a children's-rights issue that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989. The case centered on a boy named Joshua DeShaney. When his parents divorced in 1980 in Wyoming, his father was given custody, and the boy then moved with him to Wisconsin. Soon, social-services workers received reports of the father hurting the child. After an abuse report and hospitalization in January, 1983, the Winnebago County Department of Social Services got a court order to keep the boy away from his father and in the hospital, but a "child-protection team," consisting of a psychologist, a detective, several social-services caseworkers, a pediatrician, and a county lawyer, recommended that the juvenile court return the boy to his father. The beatings--and the complaints--resumed. In 1984, the father beat his son so severely that Joshua was in a coma and had to undergo brain surgery. As a result of repeated traumatic beatings, the boy became severely r.e.t.a.r.ded and paralyzed. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court absolved Winnebago County of any const.i.tutional responsibility for the child.

Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for the majority, "A state's failure to protect an individual against private violence" was not a denial of the victim's rights. "While the state may have been aware of the dangers that Joshua faced in the free world, it played no part in their creation, nor did it do anything to render him any more vulnerable to them." This decision provoked an unusually pa.s.sionate response from Harry Blackmun in dissent: "Poor Joshua! Victim of repeated attacks by an irresponsible, bullying, cowardly and intemperate father, and abandoned by [county officials] who placed him in a dangerous predicament.... It is a sad commentary upon American life and const.i.tutional principles."

In his discussions with Obama, Tribe called the majority's decision a form of "Newtonian blindness." In other words, he said, "the law recognized only forces at a distance and not the arrangement of the way the s.p.a.ce around the kid was warped. Barack and I talked about this metaphor from physics, the way state power curves and bends social action.

"In going over the literature on Einstein," Tribe continued, Obama pointed out that "if one deemed the state responsible, then there would be no social s.p.a.ce for private choice. The theme of arranging the world so that people become more accountable to themselves as agents. I remember him talking about how the case related to black fathers needing to be responsible. The theme that so often emerged was the theme of mutual responsibility, that legal inst.i.tutions had to encourage people to take care of each other, and any inst.i.tutional arrangement that left people completely to their own devices was fundamentally flawed."

The article was Tribe's, not Obama's, but they spent many hours together in Tribe's office or taking walks along the Charles River talking about such cases. Obama didn't talk with Tribe about running for office, but he made it plain that he had come to the law school to find better ways of "helping people whose lives had been ripped apart," as Tribe put it. When an unsigned legal note by Obama on abortion surfaced years later during the Presidential campaign, Tribe said: "It was consonant with the ways he thought with me about the puzzles of abortion, the incommensurability of the arguments: bodily integrity on one hand and the value of unfinished life on the other. He kept both values in mind in a way that would be meaningful to both sides."

What Tribe and Obama mainly discussed was the law itself. They rarely waded into ideological abstraction. "To make a beeline to Larry Tribe is to say that you want to be a lawyer," Martha Minow, a liberal who taught a course in law and society, said. "It was the kids who self-consciously identify themselves as radical or quite left-wing who head for elsewhere. That wasn't Barack."

Minow, who became dean of the law school in 2009, was another of Obama's mentors at Harvard, and they formed a friends.h.i.+p that had great implications for Obama's professional and personal life. Minow grew up in Chicago; the daughter of Newton Minow, who was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in the Kennedy Administration and a partner at the corporate law firm of Sidley Austin. Obama met his future wife, Mich.e.l.le Robinson, at the firm as a summer intern. The more Minow learned from Obama and about his past, the more she came to understand his capacity to discuss the most explosive political or racial issue with an uncanny balance of commitment and dispa.s.sion. "Obama is black, but without the torment," she says. "He clearly identifies himself as African-American, he clearly identifies with African-American history and the civil-rights movement, but his life came largely--not completely, but largely--without the terrible oppression.

"Barack is a universalist who doesn't deny his particularity," Minow continued. "He is very specifically African African-American, but he is also someone with a white mother and white grandparents. He could and would identify with different people. In America, you are 'raced' whether you have chosen it or not. He struggled with that as a college student and as a law student. But he came to accept and embrace what and who he is, and, at the same time, he has this very special sense of universalism that would become such an important part of his political message later on."

At Harvard and, later, in a seminar led by the political scientist Robert Putnam, Minow noticed Obama's ability to s.h.i.+ft his tone and language just enough to put anyone--the white Harvard professor, a black friend from the inner city, a bank president, clergymen, conservatives, liberals, radicals--at ease. Later, when he entered politics, reporters who followed him noticed the same thing. "He can turn on and off the signals that work best," she said. "That's not a bad thing at all--just the opposite. I think that's the promise of a multicultural society.

"It's partly because he is biracial, partly because of his father and being abandoned, and Indonesia," Minow went on. "All of this leads to a search for self-definition and gives him a non-knee-jerk way of thinking about race."

Over the years, Obama stayed in touch with Tribe and Minow. They discussed electronic eavesdropping, Guantanamo, the politicization of the Justice Department under the Bush Administration, future Supreme Court justices. And they have occasionally disagreed--about same-s.e.x marriages, for instance, which Tribe supported and Obama opposed.

"Overall, Obama has, and had then, a problem-solving orientation," Tribe said. "He seems not to be powerfully driven by an a-priori framework, so what emerges is quite pragmatic and even tentative. It's hard to describe what his presuppositions are, other than that the country stands for ideals of fairness, decency, mutual concern, and the frame of reference that is established by our founding and the critical turning points of the Civil War and the New Deal, as a frame to identify who we are. When Earl Warren was Chief Justice, he would ask, after an oral argument, 'But is it fair?' For Barack, the characteristic question is, 'Is that what we aspire to be as a country? Is that who we are?'"

In the speech he made in March, 2007, at Brown Chapel, in Selma, commemorating b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday, Obama observed that, as a member of the Joshua generation, he stood "on the shoulders of giants." At Harvard, the giant was Charles Hamilton Houston. Very few students arrived at the law school knowing the name. And yet Houston was, in his way, as crucial to the civil-rights movement as the marchers in Selma. He was their precursor. At Harvard, he was Obama's precursor, too. he made in March, 2007, at Brown Chapel, in Selma, commemorating b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday, Obama observed that, as a member of the Joshua generation, he stood "on the shoulders of giants." At Harvard, the giant was Charles Hamilton Houston. Very few students arrived at the law school knowing the name. And yet Houston was, in his way, as crucial to the civil-rights movement as the marchers in Selma. He was their precursor. At Harvard, he was Obama's precursor, too.

In May, 1915, The Crisis The Crisis, the official publication of the N.A.A.C.P., published a one-sentence item: "Charles H. Houston, a colored senior of Amherst College, has been elected to the Phi Beta Kappa." This is the first public recognition of the man who became, in the nineteen-thirties and forties, the chief architect of the legal war against school segregation.

Houston's civil-rights movement, however, was not one of culture or protest. It was a movement of lawyers, who argued a stream of cases that sought equal rights of citizens.h.i.+p for people of color. Following the end of the Civil War and, between 1865 and 1870, the pa.s.sage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, the hopes of Reconstruction faded and were overrun by nearly a century of lynchings, segregated public schools and facilities, and all the other elements of inst.i.tutionalized racism in America. "Charles Houston became "Charles Houston became the critical figure who linked the pa.s.sion of Frederick Dougla.s.s demanding black freedom and of William DuBois demanding black equality to the undelivered promises of the Const.i.tution of the United States," Richard Kluger wrote in the critical figure who linked the pa.s.sion of Frederick Dougla.s.s demanding black freedom and of William DuBois demanding black equality to the undelivered promises of the Const.i.tution of the United States," Richard Kluger wrote in Simple Justice Simple Justice, his history of the fight for desegregation and Brown v. Board of Education.

Born in 1895, Charles Hamilton Houston was raised in Jim Crow Was.h.i.+ngton. His father was a well-to-do lawyer, a member of the capital's tight-knit black bourgeoisie. A member of Harvard Law School's cla.s.s of 1922, Houston was the first black ever to win a spot on the Law Review Law Review.

After Harvard, Houston taught at Howard University. Founded in 1867, Howard was an outgrowth of the Freedman's Bureau; the original property was a beer hall. Many of the doctors, dentists, lawyers, nurses, engineers who emerged from that era and created a black middle cla.s.s and a black intelligentsia attended Howard. The great power behind the school's expansion was its first black president, the economist and minister Mordecai Johnson. On the advice of Louis Brandeis, Johnson reorganized the law school and hired Charles Houston to a.s.semble a faculty--and it was to be a faculty with a distinct political purpose. Houston's most important student was Thurgood Marshall, who became his protege at the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund.

Attacking the "separate but equal" principle of the Supreme Court's 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, Houston piled up numerous victories for racial justice. In the 1936 case of Murray v. Pearson, for example, Houston established that the University of Maryland could not exclude African-American students--as it had Thurgood Marshall. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada required equal educational opportunities for young people of all races, a principle that was extended to the entire country by the Supreme Court. Houston was committed to purpose Houston was committed to purpose; as he put it, "a lawyer's either a social engineer or he's a parasite on society."

The battles that Houston and proteges like Marshall, Spottswood Robinson, A. Leon Higginbotham, and William Hastie waged at the time had little support in the white world. As Houston's biographer Genna As Houston's biographer Genna Rae McNeil points out, Houston came along before the rise of King and the civil-rights movement, at a time when other courses of action were limited to "advocacy of black separatism, accommodation to the system, collaboration with the predominantly white working-cla.s.s" left, or "affiliation with groups promoting justice for all through the overthrow of the government." Rae McNeil points out, Houston came along before the rise of King and the civil-rights movement, at a time when other courses of action were limited to "advocacy of black separatism, accommodation to the system, collaboration with the predominantly white working-cla.s.s" left, or "affiliation with groups promoting justice for all through the overthrow of the government."

Houston died in 1950, four years before Marshall argued Brown v. Board of Education, the case that ended the legal structure of school segregation. Houston was just fifty-four. After the great victory in Brown After the great victory in Brown, Marshall paid tribute to Houston, saying, "We were just carrying his bags, that's all."

For African-American students at Harvard, Houston was an important symbol. "Houston was a big figure in the background of our minds," Ken Mack said. "And when Barack and I arrived it happened to be a moment when Houston was being recovered in historical memory. He was an especially big figure for all the black students on the Law Review Law Review. That book"--Genna Rae McNeil's 1983 biography of Houston, Groundwork Groundwork--"had come out. You'd walk through the building and there are all these pictures of the editors since 1900, all these white faces, dozens each year, until you hit 1922--and then you see that one black face. Houston. It was a powerful thing to think that you were in some way the heir of one of the most powerful civil-rights figures in American history." (In 1991, Obama filmed, for TBS, a "Black History Minute" on Houston's life.) For decades, the Law Review Law Review retained all the characteristics of an elite American inst.i.tution, including racial prejudice. In its first eighty-five years, there were precisely three black members: Houston; William Henry Hastie, who later worked with Houston at the N.A.A.C.P. and became a federal appeals-court judge; and William Coleman, who was appointed Secretary of Transportation in the Ford Administration. (The first female president of the retained all the characteristics of an elite American inst.i.tution, including racial prejudice. In its first eighty-five years, there were precisely three black members: Houston; William Henry Hastie, who later worked with Houston at the N.A.A.C.P. and became a federal appeals-court judge; and William Coleman, who was appointed Secretary of Transportation in the Ford Administration. (The first female president of the Review Review was Susan Estrich, who was elected in 1976 and went on, in 1988, to run Michael Dukakis's ill-fated Presidential campaign.) was Susan Estrich, who was elected in 1976 and went on, in 1988, to run Michael Dukakis's ill-fated Presidential campaign.) The Harvard Law Review Harvard Law Review is a precipitate of the school's best and most ambitious students: only about three or four dozen are selected out of a cla.s.s of more than five hundred students. Felix is a precipitate of the school's best and most ambitious students: only about three or four dozen are selected out of a cla.s.s of more than five hundred students. Felix Frankfurter once said Frankfurter once said that life at the that life at the Review Review creates the "atmosphere and habits of objectivity and disinterestedness, respect for professional excellence, and a zest for being very good at this business which is the law." There are other publications on campus--the creates the "atmosphere and habits of objectivity and disinterestedness, respect for professional excellence, and a zest for being very good at this business which is the law." There are other publications on campus--the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (where Obama had some experience), the (where Obama had some experience), the Harvard Journal on Legislation Harvard Journal on Legislation, the Harvard International Law Journal Harvard International Law Journal, the conservative Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy--but the Law Review Law Review has always been the focus of greatest attention, whether from corporate law firms, investment banks, or judges looking for clerks. The sense of election and ent.i.tlement could not be greater among the editors. It is an old tradition. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis began automatically selecting, each year, two high-ranking has always been the focus of greatest attention, whether from corporate law firms, investment banks, or judges looking for clerks. The sense of election and ent.i.tlement could not be greater among the editors. It is an old tradition. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis began automatically selecting, each year, two high-ranking Law Review Law Review editors as their clerks. The editors as their clerks. The Review's Review's alumni include Felix Frankfurter ('06); Antonin Scalia ('60); Richard Posner ('62); Nuremberg trial counsel Telford Taylor ('32); former Secretary of State Dean Acheson ('18); former Attorney General Elliot Richardson ('47); Senators Thomas Eagleton ('53) and Robert Taft ('13); former Yale president Kingman Brewster ('48); Was.h.i.+ngton alumni include Felix Frankfurter ('06); Antonin Scalia ('60); Richard Posner ('62); Nuremberg trial counsel Telford Taylor ('32); former Secretary of State Dean Acheson ('18); former Attorney General Elliot Richardson ('47); Senators Thomas Eagleton ('53) and Robert Taft ('13); former Yale president Kingman Brewster ('48); Was.h.i.+ngton Post Post publisher Philip Graham ('39); the poet Archibald MacLeish ('19); and Alger Hiss ('29). publisher Philip Graham ('39); the poet Archibald MacLeish ('19); and Alger Hiss ('29).

Obama nearly botched his bid to get on the to get on the Law Review Law Review--and join this inner sanctum of the establishment--when, on the way to the post office to mail his application form, his balky Toyota Tercel broke down. After a flurry of frantic phone calls, he got a ride from his cla.s.smate Rob Fisher. Obama's grades were good--he graduated magna c.u.m laude--and he got in.

The Law Review Law Review is situated in Gannett House, a white three-story Greek-Revival house. It is named for Caleb Gannett, a minister who lived nearby in the eighteenth century. is situated in Gannett House, a white three-story Greek-Revival house. It is named for Caleb Gannett, a minister who lived nearby in the eighteenth century. Law Review Law Review editors routinely spend forty, fifty, sixty hours a week there, with first-year editors proofreading and copyediting articles and checking footnotes and citations, all according to the strictures of editors routinely spend forty, fifty, sixty hours a week there, with first-year editors proofreading and copyediting articles and checking footnotes and citations, all according to the strictures of A Uniform System of Citations A Uniform System of Citations. (The style guide, better known as The Bluebook The Bluebook, is sold by the Review Review and is the publication's biggest money-maker.) and is the publication's biggest money-maker.) The masthead positions on the Law Review Law Review are filled by second-year students, who compete for them. The top position is president; there are also Supreme Court co-chairs, a treasurer, a managing editor, a few executive editors, two notes editors, and three supervising editors. Any one of those positions is an enormous boost in the race for jobs at the best law firms, judges' chambers, and corporate offices. are filled by second-year students, who compete for them. The top position is president; there are also Supreme Court co-chairs, a treasurer, a managing editor, a few executive editors, two notes editors, and three supervising editors. Any one of those positions is an enormous boost in the race for jobs at the best law firms, judges' chambers, and corporate offices.

Obama's first year on the Law Review Law Review was typical: excruciating detail work and meetings, relieved only by the necessity of going to cla.s.ses and keeping up with coursework. What spare time he had he spent playing basketball or hanging around the editors' lounge at Gannett House. The lounge, Mack recalled, is "the place where impressions and a.s.sessments quickly took root among a group of very ambitious people." was typical: excruciating detail work and meetings, relieved only by the necessity of going to cla.s.ses and keeping up with coursework. What spare time he had he spent playing basketball or hanging around the editors' lounge at Gannett House. The lounge, Mack recalled, is "the place where impressions and a.s.sessments quickly took root among a group of very ambitious people."

The political debates at Gannett House were even more furious than elsewhere on campus. Radicals argued with liberals, liberals argued with the conservative Federalists; as one editor put it, "Everyone was screaming at everyone else." Brad Berenson, a cla.s.smate of Obama's and a member of the Federalist Society who went on to work for the Bush Administration, said, "I've worked in Was.h.i.+ngton for twenty years--in the White House, in the Supreme Court--and the most bitter political atmosphere I've ever experienced was at the Harvard Law Review Harvard Law Review."

Both as undergraduates and as law students, the African-Americans on the Law Review Law Review were negotiating an elite white world, but here the arguments and status anxieties were particularly vivid. "Being on the were negotiating an elite white world, but here the arguments and status anxieties were particularly vivid. "Being on the Law Review Law Review was the most race-conscious experience of my life, and race-based att.i.tudes and prejudices crossed political and ideological lines among the ambitious law students on its staff," Mack said. "Many of the white editors were, consciously or unconsciously, distrustful of the intellectual capacities of African-American editors or authors. Simply being taken seriously as an intellectual was often an uphill battle." was the most race-conscious experience of my life, and race-based att.i.tudes and prejudices crossed political and ideological lines among the ambitious law students on its staff," Mack said. "Many of the white editors were, consciously or unconsciously, distrustful of the intellectual capacities of African-American editors or authors. Simply being taken seriously as an intellectual was often an uphill battle."

"Honestly, we were just very polarized on the on the Law Review," Law Review," Christine Spurell, an African-American who was a friend and cla.s.smate of Obama's, said. "It's like you got to campus, and the black students were all sitting together. It was the same thing with the Christine Spurell, an African-American who was a friend and cla.s.smate of Obama's, said. "It's like you got to campus, and the black students were all sitting together. It was the same thing with the Law Review Law Review. The black students were all sitting together. Barack was the one who was truly able to move between different groups and have credibility with all of them.... I don't know why at the time he was able to communicate so well with them, even spend social time with them, which was not something I would ever have done ... I don't think he was agenda-driven. I think he genuinely thought, Some of these guys are nice, all of them are smart, some of them are funny, all of them have something to say."

In the summer of 1989, Obama's professor and friend Martha Minow recommended to her father, Newton Minow, that he hire Obama as a summer a.s.sociate. She called him "the best student I've ever had." As it turned out, the firm's recruiter had already seen to it. At Sidley, in Chicago, Obama met an a.s.sociate and Harvard Law graduate named Mich.e.l.le Robinson. She was slated to be his "adviser" for his three-month stint there. Robinson, like everyone at the firm Robinson, like everyone at the firm, had heard about Obama--this "hotshot," as she called him--and it was her job to take him to lunch and watch out for him. She had heard that Obama was biracial and had grown up in Hawaii. For Robinson, who was born and reared on the South Side, Hawaii was not where anyone was from; it was where rich people went on vacation. Obama's background and his intellectual reputation were all daunting.

"He sounded too good to be true," she said to David Mendell of the Chicago Tribune Tribune. "I had dated a lot of brothers who had this kind of reputation coming in, so I figured he was one of these smooth brothers who could talk straight and impress people. So we had lunch, and he had this bad sport jacket and a cigarette dangling from his mouth and I thought, 'Oh, here you go. Here's this good-looking, smooth-talking guy. I've been down this road before.'"

To her surprise, Robinson found Obama funny, self-deprecating, "intriguing"--"We clicked right away"--but she was intent on keeping their relations.h.i.+p professional. She fended off Obama's requests for a date. At the beginning of the summer, Mich.e.l.le had made a "proclamation" to her mother: "I'm not worrying about dating ... I'm going to focus on me." Besides, she and Obama were two Besides, she and Obama were two of the very few African-Americans at the firm; the idea of dating Obama struck Mich.e.l.le as "tacky." Instead, she introduced him to a friend. This did not put Obama off. of the very few African-Americans at the firm; the idea of dating Obama struck Mich.e.l.le as "tacky." Instead, she introduced him to a friend. This did not put Obama off. "Man, she is hot!" "Man, she is hot!" Obama told a friend. "So I am going to work my magic on her." Obama told a friend. "So I am going to work my magic on her."

Finally, Robinson agreed to go out with Obama--"but we won't call it a date." Robinson was living with her parents in South Sh.o.r.e, not far from Obama's apartment, in Hyde Park. They spent a long summer day together. They went first to the Art Inst.i.tute and then had lunch in the museum's courtyard cafe. A jazz band played as they ate. Then they walked up Michigan Avenue and went to Spike Lee's latest film, "Do the Right Thing." Mich.e.l.le thought to herself that Obama was pretty good: he knew something about art and now he was showing off his "street cred." She was both amused and smitten. Not long after, they wound up back in Hyde Park, at a Baskin-Robbins, the ice-cream chain where Obama had worked as a teenager in Honolulu. They also had their first kiss They also had their first kiss and, as Obama recalled years later, "It tasted like chocolate." and, as Obama recalled years later, "It tasted like chocolate."

"Probably by the end of that date," Mich.e.l.le said, "I was sold."

Robinson had dated, but she had never had a serious boyfriend before; none had ever made the grade. Barack, for his part, had dated quite a lot but bothered to bring a girl home to meet his family in Hawaii only once before. After a few dates, Mich.e.l.le invited Barack to dinner at her parents' house, a modest brick bungalow on Euclid Avenue, in South Sh.o.r.e. He won over her parents, who had been concerned about Obama's being biracial. Like their daughter, they had never met anyone like him. The Robinsons had not had to fas.h.i.+on an African-American ident.i.ty for themselves in the prolonged and complicated way that Obama had. The richness and history of black American life was evident in their family history: Mich.e.l.le's great-great grandfather Jim Robinson worked as a slave harvesting rice on Friendfield Plantation, near Georgetown, South Carolina. But the genealogical complexity that is so common among African-Americans was a fact of life among the Robinsons, too. The genealogist Megan Smolenyak eventually discovered that Mich.e.l.le Obama's great-great-great-great-grandparents included a slave named Melvinia who gave birth in 1859 to a biracial son, the result of a union with a white man. Although most s.e.xual unions between blacks and whites then were coercive, nothing is known of the father of Melvinia's first-born son except for his race. Mich.e.l.le Obama's family background also includes a Native American strand.

The Robinson family had come North with the Great Migration. The students at Mich.e.l.le's high school, a magnet school for gifted kids, were mainly African-American; the school was named after civil-rights leader Whitney Young. One of Mich.e.l.le's closest friends there was Sant.i.ta Jackson, Jesse Jackson's daughter. Mich.e.l.le's father, Fraser Robinson III, worked for the city for thirty years, doing maintenance on boilers and pumps at a water-filtration plant. He was eventually promoted to foreman. He was also volunteer precinct captain for the Democratic Party. He suffered from multiple sclerosis and walked with two canes; when he could no longer walk he used a motorized wheelchair. (Fraser Robinson died of complications from kidney surgery, in 1991.) Mich.e.l.le's mother, Marian, stayed at home with the children until they were in high school and then worked as a secretary for the Spiegel's catalogue store.

The Robinsons were hard-working, close, and ambitious for their children. "When you grow up as a black kid "When you grow up as a black kid in a white world, so many times people are telling you--sometimes not maliciously, sometimes maliciously--you're not good enough," Craig Robinson, Mich.e.l.le's brother, said. "To have a family, which we did, who constantly reminded you how smart you were, how good you were, how pleasant it was to be around you, how successful you could be, it's hard to combat. Our parents gave us a little head start by making us feel confident." in a white world, so many times people are telling you--sometimes not maliciously, sometimes maliciously--you're not good enough," Craig Robinson, Mich.e.l.le's brother, said. "To have a family, which we did, who constantly reminded you how smart you were, how good you were, how pleasant it was to be around you, how successful you could be, it's hard to combat. Our parents gave us a little head start by making us feel confident."

In 1981, Mich.e.l.le followed Craig, a basketball star, to Princeton. In a cla.s.s of fourteen hundred, she was one of ninety-four African-Americans. Among African-Americans at Ivy League schools, the feeling was that Princeton was an especially unwelcoming place. Even as late as the nineteen-eighties there were pockets of the university--some of the eating clubs, in particular--that supported its lingering reputation as "the northernmost college of the old Confederacy." There were only five tenured African-Americans on the faculty and just a handful of courses in African-American studies. One of Mich.e.l.le's freshman-year roommates at Pyne Hall, a girl named Catherine Donnelly, from New Orleans, moved out midway through the year. Donnelly's mother was so upset at the notion of her daughter rooming with a black girl that she telephoned influential alumni and hectored the university administration to get Catherine another room. "It was my secret shame "It was my secret shame," Donnelly recalled.

In her soph.o.m.ore year, Robinson roomed with three other women of color and joined various black organizations, including the Organization of Black Unity. Much of her social life revolved around the Third World Center. Robinson majored in sociology, with a concentration in African-American studies, and wrote a senior thesis ent.i.tled "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." "My experiences at Princeton "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before," she wrote. "I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and cla.s.smates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circ.u.mstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second." Mich.e.l.le sent out hundreds of questionnaires for her thesis to black alumni asking about their lives, their att.i.tudes, and whether they favored an "integrationist and/or a.s.similationist" ideology or a "separationist and/or pluralist" view. The thesis conveys a deep disappointment that, in her view, so many black alumni a.s.similate so quickly and completely into mainstream white society. The thesis shows a young woman struggling not only with Princeton but also with the larger questions faced by someone who grew up on the South Side, acquired an Ivy-League credential, and then has to decide how to live her life. have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before," she wrote. "I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and cla.s.smates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circ.u.mstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second." Mich.e.l.le sent out hundreds of questionnaires for her thesis to black alumni asking about their lives, their att.i.tudes, and whether they favored an "integrationist and/or a.s.similationist" ideology or a "separationist and/or pluralist" view. The thesis conveys a deep disappointment that, in her view, so many black alumni a.s.similate so quickly and completely into mainstream white society. The thesis shows a young woman struggling not only with Princeton but also with the larger questions faced by someone who grew up on the South Side, acquired an Ivy-League credential, and then has to decide how to live her life.

Marvin Bressler, a sociology professor at Princeton who knew Craig and Mich.e.l.le Robinson well as undergraduates, said that the two grew up in an African-American version of a "Norman Rockwell family": a tight-knit family that emphasized loyalty, hard work, church, respect for their elders. Their world was the South Side and almost entirely African-American. To come to Princeton, Bressler said, was for kids like Craig and Mich.e.l.le profoundly disorienting: "You show up as a freshman. There already exist, with respect to race, competing organizations that want you. And they are asking, 'Is your fundamental ident.i.ty as a woman? Or is it as an African-American?' Hovering over this is an intense discomfort that you think of initially as prejudice. There is no discrimination in the old sense, but you come from Chicago and now there are these Gothic towers and all those smooth Groton types looking so confident and secure."

Mich.e.l.le continued to worry that the longer she stayed inside white-dominated inst.i.tutions the more tenuous her connection to black life might become. Robin Givhan, an African-American woman from Detroit, was a year behind Mich.e.l.le at Princeton and now covers her for the Was.h.i.+ngton Post Post. "When you're in college, everything revolves around you and your drama--my paranoia, neuroses, insecurities," Givhan recalled. She described the radically different ways that her black friends at Princeton worked out their various dramas. There was Crystal, from New Jersey, "who left for a trip to Africa with her hair in a bun and came back with cornrows and deeply conscious of her race--that became the defining aspect of her personality." There was Beverly, from Michigan, who was friendly with Brooke s.h.i.+elds, avoided the Third World Center, and "took on this 'I'm-not-really-that-black' temper." The way Mich.e.l.le Robinson approached Princeton, Givhan said, reflected a genuine, and understandable, urge to hold on to a sense of community, and an anxiety about being a.s.similated too completely into "the white mainstream." White kids, taken up with their own dramas, had a way of looking straight past students like Mich.e.l.le.

Years later, Givhan, reading white columnists' praise of Mich.e.l.le Obama's self-possession, found the descriptions ignorant and patronizing: "There was a part of me that thought, How low were your expectations? She went to Princeton and Harvard. She was an executive. Why the sense of awe? There was a part of me that found it irritating. I could line up a dozen of my friends who are Mich.e.l.les and then some. What she did was just normal. In many ways, she is exceptional and it was disheartening that she had to ratchet her exceptionalism down to normal."

By the time Mich.e.l.le Robinson got to Harvard Law School, she was far less anxious about the complications of negotiating such an inst.i.tution. Charles Ogletree, who was her faculty mentor at Harvard, recalled, "The question for her was whether I retain my ident.i.ty given to me by my African-American parents, or whether the education from an elite university has transformed me into something different than what they made me. By the time she got to Harvard, she had answered the question. She could be both brilliant and black."

Mich.e.l.le Robinson took a different path at the law school than Obama did. She was far closer to Ogletree than to any white professor. She was more active in the black student a.s.sociation, joined one of the African-American-oriented publications, and worked for the Legal Aid organization, helping indigent clients in landlord and tenant cases. She thought hard about working for Legal Aid after law school, but Ogletree a.s.sured her that she could "do good and do well" if she practiced at a firm like Sidley Austin, where she had been a summer intern, as long as she obtained a promise that she could spend part of her time on pro-bono cases.

Despite their differences of background and emphasis, it was clear that Mich.e.l.le and Barack were not going to spend their careers at a place like Sidley Austin. When they were first When they were first getting to know each other, Obama told Craig Robinson, "I think I'd like to teach at some point in time, and maybe even run for public office." Robinson asked if that meant running for alderman. "He said no, at some point he'd like to run for the U.S. Senate," Robinson said. "And then he said, 'Possibly even run for President at some point.' And I was, like, 'O.K., but don't say that to my aunt Gracie.'" getting to know each other, Obama told Craig Robinson, "I think I'd like to teach at some point in time, and maybe even run for public office." Robinson asked if that meant running for alderman. "He said no, at some point he'd like to run for the U.S. Senate," Robinson said. "And then he said, 'Possibly even run for President at some point.' And I was, like, 'O.K., but don't say that to my aunt Gracie.'" Obama, for his part Obama, for his part, doesn't remember the remark, but added, "If the conversation did come up, and I said I was interested in electoral politics ... my aspirations would have been higher than being alderman."

The ultimate prize at the at the Law Review Law Review is its presidency. A comical proportion of each year's law-review cadre (as many as half) ordinarily run for the presidency. At first, Obama was reluctant to run. The compet.i.tion would take place in February of his second year. He was gaining a reputation among his African-American peers and among many faculty members. Christopher Edley, Jr., whose father had been a protege of Thurgood Marshall's, had been elected to the is its presidency. A comical proportion of each year's law-review cadre (as many as half) ordinarily run for the presidency. At first, Obama was reluctant to run. The compet.i.tion would take place in February of his second year. He was gaining a reputation among his African-American peers and among many faculty members. Christopher Edley, Jr., whose father had been a protege of Thurgood Marshall's, had been elected to the Review Review in 1975, the first black editor in many years. As a professor, he saw great promise in Obama. in 1975, the first black editor in many years. As a professor, he saw great promise in Obama.

"There are a couple of things about legal education that can be enormously valuable," Edley said. "One, of course, is studying how inst.i.tutions of governance and property operate: how courts, legislatures, regulatory agencies operate. Second, it instills habits of mind that I think are enormously powerful even when you are not dealing with something that one would narrowly consider to be 'law.' For law students it's very important to understand the other side of the argument. If you are a litigator, a critical skill is trying to antic.i.p.ate and dissect the best argument your opponent is going to make, so you drill down and understand his argument as well as your own. That gives you a certain humility, because it forces you to face the weaknesses in your own position and to appreciate that any difficult problem has, by definition, good arguments on both sides. That's where Barack was so strong. Now, why did he seem to hate debates in the Presidential race, and wasn't particularly good at them at first? Because the difference between someone who is a great lawyer and merely a great debater is that the lawyer appreciates nuance and only subsequently focuses on how to communicate. His talent, that habit of mind, was also evident in his openness in engaging people with whom he disagrees. It's ant.i.thetical for a good lawyer to have a self-righteous conviction that he has a monopoly on truth. You are trained to have an appreciation for complexity. It's not relativistic, but principled and humble at the same time. You come to the problem with your own compa.s.s, your opinions and principles, but you have to be open. That was Barack."

After talking with close friends like Ca.s.sandra b.u.t.ts, Obama decided to run for president of the Law Review Law Review. "Most of my peers at the "Most of my peers at the Law Review Law Review were a couple of years younger than I was," Obama said. "I thought I could apply some common sense and management skills to the job. I was already investing a lot of time in the were a couple of years younger than I was," Obama said. "I thought I could apply some common sense and management skills to the job. I was already investing a lot of time in the Law Review Law Review, and my att.i.tude was Why not try to run the Law Review?" Law Review?"

Maturity, not ideology, seemed to be Obama's appeal. "One thing that is hard to remember, but was true, was that there was at times some eye-rolling at the Law Review Law Review about Barack because it was almost as if he was part of the faculty, bigger than a law student," David Goldberg, who was a liberal rival for the presidency, said. "A lot of professors were usually indifferent to students. But they were almost sycophantic to him. It was clearly both because he was brilliant and because he was African-American. He was also incredibly mature and thoughtful and still had his heart in the right place." about Barack because it was almost as if he was part of the faculty, bigger than a law student," David Goldberg, who was a liberal rival for the presidency, said. "A lot of professors were usually indifferent to students. But they were almost sycophantic to him. It was clearly both because he was brilliant and because he was African-American. He was also incredibly mature and thoughtful and still had his heart in the right place."

In Obama's year, nineteen of the thirty-five second-year members of the Law Review Law Review editorial board decided to run for president. The outgoing students joined the second-year students who were not in the hunt in a large meeting room in Pound Hall, where they would caucus and vote. The presidential prospects were left to sit and wait in an adjacent kitchen; they were supposed to cook meals for the selectors during deliberations. The selectors studied thick "pool files" on the candidates, containing their writing samples and work for the editorial board decided to run for president. The outgoing students joined the second-year students who were not in the hunt in a large meeting room in Pound Hall, where they would caucus and vote. The presidential prospects were left to sit and wait in an adjacent kitchen; they were supposed to cook meals for the selectors during deliberations. The selectors studied thick "pool files" on the candidates, containing their writing samples and work for the Law Review Law Review. The process--detailed, argumentative, self-important--went on all day and late into the night.

"At various points," Goldberg recalled, "someone would poke his head into the kitchen and say X, Y, and Z come back into the room. These were the people who were now out of the running and they joined the selectors. And in the kitchen there would be a sigh of relief."

The only conservative who stayed in the race past the early elimination rounds was Amy Kett, a skilled but relative long-shot candidate. Her hardy but outnumbered faction of conservatives knew that she had no chance, but, together, they figured they might have some influence on the outcome. Brad Berenson and the other conservatives were looking for someone who dealt with them open-mindedly "and didn't personalize political differences."

"At places like Harvard and Yale, young people often demonize folks who have differing political views," Berenson said, "and there were plenty of those at Harvard in 1990, when things were so political. Barack wasn't one of them. He earned the affection and trust of almost everyone. The only criticism from conservatives was that he was somewhat two-faced and made everyone think he was all things to all people, that he was concealing his true feelings. But I never subscribed to that criticism."

When members of the Law Review Law Review recall the election process today almost all think of it in terms of reality television, a prolonged and brainy episode of "Survivor." A representative for the electors came into the kitchen and made the announcement. Amy Kett was out--off the island. (Not that her career suffered; Kett went on to clerk at the Supreme Court for Sandra Day O'Connor.) recall the election process today almost all think of it in terms of reality television, a prolonged and brainy episode of "Survivor." A representative for the electors came into the kitchen and made the announcement. Amy Kett was out--off the island. (Not that her career suffered; Kett went on to clerk at the Supreme Court for Sandra Day O'Connor.) "At that point, the choice was among the liberals, and I recall that en ma.s.se en ma.s.se the conservative vote swung over to Barack," Berenson said. "There was a general sense that he didn't think we were evil people, only misguided people, and he would credit us for good faith and intelligence." the conservative vote swung over to Barack," Berenson said. "There was a general sense that he didn't think we were evil people, only misguided people, and he would credit us for good faith and intelligence."

By twelve-thirty, the only candidates left were David Goldberg, a white liberal who was headed toward a career in civil-liberties law, and Barack Obama.

Finally, someone came to get the two of them and give them the news. Obama was president. "Before I could say a word, another black student" "Before I could say a word, another black student"--Ken Mack--"just came up and grabbed me and hugged me real hard," Obama recalled. "It was then that I knew it was more than just about me. It was about us. And I am walking through a lot of doors that had already been opened by others."

The news of Obama's historic election--he was the first African-American president of the Law Review Law Review--was picked up by news media all over the world. Interviewed for the New York Interviewed for the New York Times Times by Fox b.u.t.terfield, Obama reacted with unerring diplomacy, acknowledging both the expectations that his fellow African-American students had for him and his broader responsibilities. "The fact that I've been elected shows a lot of progress," he said. "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.... I personally am interested in pus.h.i.+ng a strong minority perspective. I'm fairly opinionated about this. But, as president of the by Fox b.u.t.terfield, Obama reacted with unerring diplomacy, acknowledging both the expectations that his fellow African-American students had for him and his broader responsibilities. "The fact that I've been elected shows a lot of progress," he said. "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.... I personally am interested in pus.h.i.+ng a strong minority perspective. I'm fairly opinionated about this. But, as president of the Law Review Law Review, I have a limited role as only first among equals."

Obama's friend Earl Martin Phalen was one of the many African-American students on campus who were overcome by the election. They had formed bonds in cla.s.s listening to the outrages that had been committed against their forebears--crimes of slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, myriad forms of discrimination and humiliation--and so, for this generation, this victory, Obama was their Charles Hamilton Houston. "It was an affirmation of intellectual prowess and belonging for people of color," Phalen, who is now an education activist, said. "Barack was also very proud of the fact and aware of the historical significance, but it wasn't like reparations for him." Phalen is black; he was adopted by and reared in a large white family outside of Boston. "You appreciate race," Phalen said, "and you understand its significance, but at the end of the day we were similarly brought up and we knew the main thing was that it's about content of character. Barack knew that."

Obama gave many interviews after his election and only slipped once when he airily informed a reporter for the a.s.sociated Press, "The suburbs bore me." after his election and only slipped once when he airily informed a reporter for the a.s.sociated Press, "The suburbs bore me." Nearly all the articles Nearly all the articles contained what the writer Ryan Lizza has called the "essential elements of Obama-mania": "the fascination with his early life, the adulatory quotes from friends who thought that he would be President one day, and Obama's frank, though sometimes ostentatious, capacity for self-reflection." contained what the writer Ryan Lizza has called the "essential elements of Obama-mania": "the fascination with his early life, the adulatory quotes from friends who thought that he would be President one day, and Obama's frank, though sometimes ostentatious, capacity for self-reflection." Obama told the Boston Obama told the Boston Globe Globe something that he has repeated throughout his political career: "To some extent, I'm a symbolic stand-in for a lot of the changes that have been made." something that he has repeated throughout his political career: "To some extent, I'm a symbolic stand-in for a lot of the changes that have been made."

The next step for the new president of the for the new president of the Law Review Law Review was to a.s.semble an editorial team, a process made complicated by ego, politics, and race. Obama could have loaded the masthead with liberals and African-Americans. Instead, he followed the traditional system of selection and the result was that three of the four executive editors were conservatives: Amy Kett, Adam Charnes, who later worked in the Bush Justice Department, and Jim Chen, who became an academic after clerking for Clarence Thomas. Brad Berenson, Kenneth Mack, Julius Genachowski, and Tom Perrelli also got masthead jobs--a mixed ideological cast. was to a.s.semble an editorial team, a process made complicated by ego, politics, and race. Obama could have loaded the masthead with liberals and African-Americans. Instead, he followed the traditional system of selection and the result was that three of the four executive editors were conservatives: Amy Kett, Adam Charnes, who later worked in the Bush Justice Department, and Jim Chen, who became an academic after clerking for Clarence Thomas. Brad Berenson, Kenneth Mack, Julius Genachowski, and Tom Perrelli also got masthead jobs--a mixed ideological cast.

It was almost inevitable, considering the atmosphere of resentments and the long decades of racial denial at the Law Review Law Review, that Obama would fail to satisfy everyone, including other African-Americans. His friend Christine Spurell had never really understood Obama's penchant for listening so intently to the conservatives and synthesizing their views; in those days, she was much more impatient than her friend. But she had worked upwards of sixty hours a week during her first year on the Review Review and worked well together with Obama editing an article about Martin Luther King. "My heart was bursting with pride," she said, when Obama became president. She also counted on his awarding her a masthead position. When he did not, she felt betrayed. and worked well together with Obama editing an article about Martin Luther King. "My heart was bursting with pride," she said, when Obama became president. She also counted on his awarding her a masthead position. When he did not, she felt betrayed.

"A few weeks later he called me into his office and he said, 'We have to fix this problem between us,'" she recalled. "I was so angry with him. He said something to the effect of, 'I don't know what our problem is. Maybe it's that we're both half-white? I don't know.' I think he was saying that maybe that makes us so familiar to each other that we irritate each other or are suspicious of each other. I remember I was crying during that conversation, mostly out of anger and frustration, which shows how significantly I felt let down. I remember saying something to the effect of 'I don't care what our problem is, we're not likely to resolve it, nor am I interested in resolving it.'"

After their talk, the two came to a "detente," Spurell said, and nearly two decades later, she said that she came to see that Obama sidelined her because she was too confrontational, too abrasive--qualities that he could not bear. "I had no patience for the idiots on the other side and Barack did, which annoyed me, even angered me sometimes, but it made him the better person, certainly a better one to be the president of the Law Review," Law Review," she said. she said.

The highlight of Obama's year-long stint as president may well have occurred at the annual banquet, at the Harvard Club, in Boston, which celebrates the journal's changing of the guard. A formal occasion, the banquet brings together the staff of the Review Review, along with alumni and their spouses. Nearly all the banquet guests were white; the waiters, dressed in starched white uniforms, were largely African-American. Obama spoke about how a skinny black kid with "a funny name" being elected to the presidency of the Law Review Law Review was important not for him, mainly, but as a breakthrough for everyone. As he expressed his grat.i.tude to the people who had "paved the way," some of Obama's cla.s.smates noticed the black waiters standing at the back of the room listening intently. At the end of the speech, as everyone stood and applauded, one of the older waiters hurried up the aisle to shake Obama's hand. was important not for him, mainly, but as a breakthrough for everyone. As he expressed his grat.i.tude to the people who had "paved the way," some of Obama's cla.s.smates noticed the black waiters standing at the back of the room listening intently. At the end of the speech, as everyone stood and applauded, one of the older waiters hurried up the aisle to shake Obama's hand.

The Harvard Law Review Harvard Law Review publishes monthly during the academic year--more than two thousand pages in all--and Obama spent forty to sixty hours a week at Gannett House reading, meeting with editors, and editing articles. He did not, however, take the journal too seriously. He was well aware of the absurdity of law students' selecting and editing the work of experienced jurists and scholars, and he had no illusions of the publishes monthly during the academic year--more than two thousand pages in all--and Obama spent forty to sixty hours a week at Gannett House reading, meeting with editors, and editing articles. He did not, however, take the journal too seriously. He was well aware of the absurdity of law students' selecting and editing the work of experienced jurists and scholars, and he had no illusions of the Law Review's Law Review's effect in the larger world of academia and jurisprudence. The effect in the larger world of academia and jurisprudence. The Review Review has a circulation of four thousand and is the most frequently cited journal of its kind, but, very often, when arguments got out of hand, Obama would say, "Remember, folks, n.o.body reads it." David Ellen, who succeeded Obama as president of the has a circulation of four thousand and is the most frequently cited journal of its kind, but, very often, when arguments got out of hand, Obama would say, "Remember, folks, n.o.body reads it." David Ellen, who succeeded Obama as president of the Law Review Law Review, said, "We spent the most time together talking when we were making the transition from him to me, and his whole message was about keeping the Review Review in perspective. He knew that this was not a very big deal out in the real world, and he knew because he had already been out there." in perspective. He knew that this was not a very big deal out in the real world, and he knew because he had already been out there."

"Barack could motivate people to do things that were against their self-interest, and he got people without much in common to stay responsible to the greater project--and he had a very light touch," David Goldberg said. "Politically, I thought he was, clearly, on the issues, a liberal. I never thought of him