Post South Carolina Roundup

It's no secret that I am for Obama. I predicted he would be the nominee in February 2007. I still think he is going to win, but I fear the Clintons.

To be honest, I have this pit of ice in my stomach, because I have a feeling that no matter what happens, I am going to come out of this having lost all respect for Bill Clinton. At 33, I suppose I should be used to watching heroes crumble, but I still can't bear to watch Bubba soil his image by race-baiting Obama. Consider, for example, Bill's attempted diminution of the South Carolina primary by noting that Jesse Jackson won the state in 1992. What do Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama have in common? Not much, except for the fact that they are both black. It's troubling when Bill Clinton is attempting to diminish the impact of Obama's more than 2-1 victory over Hillary in SC to nothing more than his blackness. The implication is that Barack, like Jesse, is nothing more than a black presidential candidate, and while they may win in a state like South Carolina they have no hopes of winning the nomination nationally.

I admired Bill Clinton's tenacity to win national elections against the Republicans. However, when he turns that skill against another Democrat, and particularly one that carries the hopes of a new generation of Democrats, it is incredibly worrisome.

For those of you who may be on the fence about Obama, I offer you these pieces from the past week:

Bob Herbert on some of the more troubling aspects of the Clintons.

Caroline Kennedy's op-ed endorsement of Obama, and why Obama represents the same hope for this generation that John F. Kennedy once offered another generation. Ted Kennedy is expected to leave neutrality behind and endorse Obama on Monday.

I offer this post and comment string from the conservative legal blog Volokh Conspiracy as evidence of Obama's appeal to some conservatives, at least educated ones. I believe Obama has the best chances of winning in November.

http://www.barackobama.com/

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Presidential Candidates and the Juris Doctorate

Democratic presidential candidates with JD's:

Hillary Clinton - Yale
Barack Obama - Harvard
John Edwards - UNC
Joe Biden - Syracuse
Chris Dodd - Louisville
Tom Vilsack - Albany

Without:

Bill Richardson (But has M.A. from Tuft's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy)
Dennis Kucinich
Mike Gravel

Republican candidates with JD's:

Mitt Romney - Harvard
Rudy Giuliani - NYU
Fred Thompson - Vanderbilt
Sam Brownback - Kansas
Duncan Hunter - Thomas Jefferson
Tommy Thompson - Wisconsin

Without JD's:

John McCain
Mike Huckabee - but for what it's worth he has an honorary LL.D from Ouachita Baptist University.
Ron Paul
Tom Tancredo
Alan Keyes

My highly unscientific conclusion: there is a correlation between "presidential candidate without a JD" and "slightly nutty".

What Are They Teaching at NYU Law These Days?

From the NYT coverage of Heath Ledger's death:

Others in the crowd said their first reaction was disbelief. Nicole Vaughan, 24, a law student at New York University, was in a seminar about Jesus when someone sent her a message about Mr. Ledger.

Crikey. That makes me feel so much better about my own school's class Interpersonal Dynamics for Lawyers.

UPDATE: Dave Hoffman at Concurring Opinions picked up on the same quote, and tracked down the class at NYU, The Passion of the Christ: The Trial of Jesus. From the course description:

The Seminar will examine the historical context, the factual matrix and the legal issues concerning the trial(s) of Jesus by the Jewish and Roman authorities. Readings will include some of the principal primary sources and a selection from the vast seondary literature. For serious learners. Tons to read and plenty of hard work. Do not enroll just for curiosity.

That's right. "For serious learners. Tons to read and plenty of hard work. Do not enroll just for curiosity."

Transnational Law Blog

In order to focus my blogging a bit more, I have recently started posting at Transnational Law Blog, a forum created by a group of students from Hastings that focuses broadly on issues in international law, whether public or private.

I have mostly focused on posts regarding my law review comment, which is a comparison of third party dispute resolution mechanisms in international private contracts and in international treaties. The first in this series is on arbitration in international commercial contracts. The follow-up post is on Medellin v. Texas and the Supreme Court's apparent reluctance to allow third party dispute resolution mechanisms in international treaties. As I post further comments, I will make sure to note them here.

USF Beats Boalt!

I blogged earlier about USF's high California Bar passage rate for first-time takers on the July 2007 exam (85%). And I cautioned, of course, that we will have to look at how we did relative to other schools. But now the data for the other schools are out.

USF came in fourth, ahead of Davis, Hastings, and 3% points higher than The Law School Formerly Known As Boalt Hall!

Well done, USF Class of '07!

Update: Armen over at Nuts & Boalts has some good-natured sour grapes in regards to the news (or maybe not so good-natured?).