Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Rush Limbaugh has once again accused Barack Obama of having gotten special help in college and not having earned his grades. On Fox and Friends, Limbaugh said:
I think this is the first time in his life that there's not a professor around to turn his C into an A, or to write the law review article for him he can't write. He is totally exposed. There is nobody to make it better. I think he's been covered for, all his life.
John Wilson contacted a couple of Harvard law profs and proved this to be a lie:
I asked some Harvard law professors about this charge. Laurence Tribe responded to me, "The allegation is absurd. Obama earned every one of his enormously high grades. 'Affirmative action' had nothing to do with his success there. He was the most impressive student and research assistant I have taught in my 40 years at Harvard."Charles Fried, a Harvard Law Professor who served as Solicitor General during the Reagan Administration, wrote to me, "It's paranoid nonsense. Grading is anonymous by a randomly generated exam number and it takes a vote of the faculty to change a grade."
This isn't the first time Limbaugh has made the false allegation that Obama gained from favorable grading. In 2008, Limbaugh declared that Obama "probably didn't get out of Harvard without affirmative action."
Fried, one might add, is one of the most prominent and legendary conservative legal scholars in the country.
Now here's the central hypocrisy, not only for Limbaugh but of most conservatives when it comes to affirmative action: One of their primary arguments against affirmative action is that it makes those who benefit from it automatically suspect. Give affirmative action to blacks, they say, and it will actually hurt them because it will cause people to automatically assume that, because they are black, they must have only succeeded through affirmative action and grade inflation.
And to prove that argument true, they then go out and engage in precisely that false claim -- but only when it involves their political opponents, of course.
Clarence Thomas, who really did get ahead with help from an affirmative action program, makes this argument all the time. And this also highlights liberal hypocrisy on the same issue - after denying that affirmative action will make all minority graduates suspect in this way, many liberals also make the same argument, but again, only against their political opponents, like Clarence Thomas.
This dynamic on both sides became clear during the Sotomayor confirmation last year, when many conservatives questioned her credentials -- which were stellar -- because she had gotten in to Princeton on an affirmative action program. Liberals were angry about those arguments -- but oblivious to the fact that so many liberals have made the same accusations about Thomas.
In reality, both Sotomayor and Thomas are shining examples of what is right about affirmative action. Both came from underprivileged backgrounds. Thomas was the son of a sharecropper, so poor that he never had running water and indoor plumbing until he was 7 years old. He was from such a backwater that he spoke gullah rather than English as a child.
Despite that terrible beginning, he graduated from high school with honors. Then he graduated from Holy Cross with honors. He got into Yale Law School through an affirmative action program, but like Sotomayor and Obama, that didn't help him earn good grades.
Once you're in the door, especially in an incredibly competitive environment like an Ivy League law school, you sink or swim on your own. And both Sotomayor and Thomas swam very well. They are examples of what can happen when you give an opportunity to a smart, motivated kid from an underprivileged background -- regardless of race. They should both be held up as examples of affirmative action working precisely as it was intended.
As for Limbaugh, he shows his true colors here. He attacks Sotomayor as an "affirmative action baby" but refuses to say the same of Thomas, who is on his side. And he makes the same attack on Obama, when Obama did not, as far as I know, get into Harvard through affirmative action (and if he had, like the other two, he would be a great example of the effectiveness of affirmative action).
Politics
Comments
Where did Limbaugh go to college and how were his grades?
The only thing I ever read about his past is that for a while he collected unemployment and his neighbors resorted to cutting his lawn because he wouldn't.
Is there an affirmative action program for big fat white lazy loudmouth slobs? Oh, yeah, it's called the Republican Party.
Posted by: Skip | February 10, 2010 9:30 AM
Gee, Rush Limbaugh is a lying fat tub of lard. In other news, water is wet.
Posted by: SLC | February 10, 2010 9:41 AM
Tribe: "Obama earned every one of his enormously high grades." I can imagine Obama getting A's or straight A's, but what's "enormously high"? A+++ or A+++++++++++++? Gold stars?! Or did he score 1,000,000 out of 100 on his exams?
Posted by: Zippy the Pinhead | February 10, 2010 9:47 AM
Oh yeah, I forgot law school exams were submitted and graded anonymously.
So how the hell does Rush Limbaugh know anything about Harvard Law School and its grading policies? Has he ever gone there? LOL.
As Ed correctly pointed out, even if race-based affirmative action helped Sotomayor and Obama get *into* law school, it didn't help them once they were matriculating there. It also didn't help them to pass the bar exam.
Posted by: Adrienne | February 10, 2010 9:54 AM
An A+ at Harvard Law School is very hard to get. It would be entirely fair to describe someone with several A+s as having enormously high grades.
Posted by: hirst | February 10, 2010 9:55 AM
"Despite that terrible beginning, he graduated from high school with honors."
Just a shout out to all those dedicated, underpaid, overworked teachers out there. Sorry but this is the only reward we can apparently afford*. - Dingo
--------
* funny how the military never has to hold a cake raffle to buy a bomber.
Posted by: DingoJack | February 10, 2010 9:59 AM
Isn'tr Limbaugh a recipient of affirmative action of a sort?
He got his first radio job at a station co-owned by his rich daddy...
Posted by: slpage | February 10, 2010 10:07 AM
It's hilarious that Limbaugh thinks affirmative action applies to grading. Affirmative action refers to specific formal policies that are solely limited to determining admission into an institution.
Grading is, in most cases, solely at the discretion of the instructor, and not controlled by formal institutional policies. For example, I've had students challenge my grading decisions on a few occasions, but each of the Deans who was in office at that time backed me up. There is, unfortunately, grade inflation at some schools by some professors, but that is a general phenomena, applied to every student in a class whose instructor inflates grades, and not based on a particular student's ethnic status.
And I'm sure there are some instructors who are reluctant to give poor grades to minorities (just as I'm sure there are still a few who are eager to give them poor grades), but, again, that's not an institutional policy, so it's not affirmative action. It's just a bad instructor who doesn't realize when s/he's not doing someone a favor.
I guarantee that if an institution had an affirmative action policy on grading, we'd hear about it. Not only would the white students be in an uproar, but the faculty would be outraged at the intrusion into their turf. And the school would become a public laughingstock.
Posted by: James Hanley | February 10, 2010 10:13 AM
Riddle me this: why do arch-conservatives bother to taut the virtues of hard work and education only to malign those who embody such qualities?
Make no mistake. Mediocrity has become a high virtue in America. Just ask Sarah Palin. She scrapes thru college, and her fans adore her. Yet Obama busts his ass at Harvard Law, and that makes him an elitist snob.
This country has gone insane.
Posted by: CHV | February 10, 2010 10:13 AM
I have no doubt that RL knows or at least has an inkling that affirmative action doesn't work the way he states or implies. He's a liar with enormous influence over a minority of loud obnoxious assholes that accuse everyone else, especially if they are black, of getting special breaks while ignoring all of the breaks that they themselves receive, deservedly or otherwise. He is a demigod to free-loading jerks everywhere.
Posted by: Chris Caprette | February 10, 2010 10:26 AM
I keep hearing how Scalia, Alito, Thomas and their spiritual godfather Bork are all so brilliant but they continually confuse simple concepts such as government vs. private speech (for example, "how can we ban forced prayer in school while allowing strippers the right to work". I heard Bork press that arguement on a National Press Club broadcast.). If there is a problem with affirmative action, it is that conservatives are often promoted for their ideology rather than their ability.
Posted by: justawriter | February 10, 2010 10:32 AM
Isn't this a false equivalency argument here? No doubt there were some liberal arguments using affirmative action arguments as a signal of lower quality, but I thought the majority of arguments were highlighting the hyprocisy of Thomas' thinking on affirmative action. The two shouldn't be conflated.
Posted by: gwangung | February 10, 2010 10:33 AM
Skip,
According to Wikipedia, Limbaugh dropped out of Southeast Missouri State University after two years. According to his mother, "he flunked everything", and "he just didn't seem interested in anything except radio".
But sure, let's listen to his opinions on how Obama didn't deserve his grades in Harvard Law School.
Posted by: Ambitwistor | February 10, 2010 10:47 AM
As a Harvard Law School alumnus, I can confirm that grading is completely and totally blind AND that it's incredibly difficult to earn an A+. Roughly 40-50% of an HLS class graduates cum laude. The big dividing line is between cum laude and magna cum laude, which only about 10% or so of the class receives. Obama graduated magna, so you can be sure he's the real deal. Once every few years, there is an extraordinary soul that graduates summa cum laude from HLS.
Posted by: knutsondc | February 10, 2010 10:56 AM
This dynamic on both sides became clear during the Sotomayor confirmation last year, when many conservatives questioned her credentials -- which were stellar -- because she had gotten in to Princeton on an affirmative action program. Liberals were angry about those arguments -- but oblivious to the fact that so many liberals have made the same accusations about Thomas.
I'm with gwangung on this. If I remember correctly, in the case of Clarence Thomas, those opposed to him were remarking on his opposition to Affirmative Action when he was a beneficiary of an Affirmative Action program -- I don't recall very many loud voices claiming that the use of an Affirmative Action program was itself a sign that he was a mediocre candidate.
This is very different, in my opinion, from the usual conservative tactic using a person's use of an Affirmative Action program to directly imply that the candidate is so mediocre that she couldn't even succeed if it weren't for Affirmative Action.
Posted by: Chiroptera | February 10, 2010 11:27 AM
I have heard both arguments from the left in regard to Thomas. Some have (rightly) criticized his hypocrisy on affirmative action. But I've seen countless others call him stupid and nothing but a lapdog for Scalia (both accusations clearly false to anyone who actually pays attention) and just a guy who was passed along because of ideology rather than ability. I don't see how that is any different from conservatives saying the same things about Obama.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2010 11:46 AM
Limbaugh is criticizing the HLS grad's education?
It's sort of like the time he criticized the (13-year-old) Chelsea Clinton's looks, or called anyone else "a junkie."
Posted by: Molly, NYC | February 10, 2010 12:33 PM
Oh, that is just the most incredible phenomenon, isn't it? Two of the quintessential American success stories would have to be Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but these supposed proponents of meritocracy vilified them while adoring George W. Bush. *Shakes head*
Posted by: Scott Hanley | February 10, 2010 1:03 PM
"Where did Limbaugh go to college and how were his grades?"
The answer is, he went to Southeast Missouri State for a year and a summer, flunked everything, and dropped out.
That probably explains his stellar research skills.
Posted by: Steve Reuland | February 10, 2010 1:05 PM
Another irony that percolates on affirmative action is that white males are increasingly admitted into colleges and universities despite the fact that women outscore them significantly on entrance rubrics. Many schools are concerned that if the student body is over 60-40 women-to-men, then the imbalance will tend to drive away the best female applicants. If students were admitted only on a "blind" basis, the number of men accepted would decline.
Posted by: David Worthington | February 10, 2010 2:11 PM
Rush has no doubt earned a few honorary BS degrees. Heck, he should get a PhD in BS.
@Dingo
A bake sale to buy a B2 would end up having every American as large as Rush at his Hindenburg peak. That's why we go with cash.
Posted by: The Gregarious Misanthrope | February 10, 2010 2:55 PM
I think there's another perspective regarding J. Thomas besides the two Ed points out and it's one I've held for a number of years now. This position was humbly held until the publication of his autobiography and the interviews he gave supportive of the book tour; which I thought strongly validated my perspective to the point I hold it now with confidence.
I've come to believe that J. Thomas suffers cognitive dissonance by realizing his ascent to the Supreme Court is based solely on the color of his skin and affirmative action. I think he realizes he was not remotely qualified given his time at Yale, the reasons he was hired for previous positions, the lack of commiserate experience to be nominated to the courts, and the lack of accomplishments in previous positions.
The dissonance comes from his having a personality that naturally gravitates towards conservatism while at the same time he's benefited enormously from an anti-conservative/pro-liberal policy where he perceives himself as "Exhibit A" of being unworthy of such elevation. The level of bitterness and self-hatred that emanates from this man distinguishes him from nearly anyone I've encountered whose engaged in the public square; I think because he attempts and consciously fails to rationalize his worthiness.
I think J. Thomas is a good example of the harm brought up by James Hanley's observation regarding the 'soft racism of low expectations'. I believe J. Thomas would have led a far more content life if the positions he secured were equal to his capabilities which were worthy of an upper-middle class professional career, but in no way at the level we should demand of those nominated to the Supreme Court. Certainly the country would have been far better off with a conservative on the court who is also an intellectual heavyweight.
J. Thomas is not the only example of someone completely ill-suited to be on the Supreme Court whose been nominated. In fact I've been continuously frustrated at how casually and cavalierly Presidents nominate candidates merely to plug a demographic. Currently I'm watching to see if J. Sotomayor fits that bill, though admitting she's far more qualified than J. Thomas.
Posted by: Michael Heath | February 10, 2010 3:08 PM
As far as I can tell, Obama's grades from Harvard Law have never been released. So speculation about Cs and As and A+ grades is just that: speculation.
In fact, all we know about his college and law school grades is by inference; I have been told the fact he didn't graduate with honors from Columbia indicates he had less than a B+ average there. Perhaps a Columbia graduate could confirm that?
I agree that it's highly implausible anyone adjusted his grades based on race or anything else. And I'm not sure that grades have a whole lot to do with anything once one has been out of school 20 years, as he has.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | February 10, 2010 3:45 PM
Michael-
I disagree that Thomas' ascent to the Supreme Court was based solely on his race and affirmative action. You're leaving out ideology. When Thurgood Marshall retired, they needed a black candidate to replace him. Thomas was the only person even remotely qualified at the time who also shared the conservative ideology that they wanted. Stephen Carter comes to mind as a moderate-to-conservative black legal scholar they might have looked at, but he just was not conservative enough. Remember that only one year earlier, Bush 41 had put David Souter on the Supreme Court and he was already showing liberal tendencies. They were not about to take a chance on getting another justice who would turn out to be liberal. Thomas was thus the only choice. It was the combination of race and ideology that got him on the court.
Having said that, many on the left take that entirely too far and believe that Thomas is stupid and unqualified for the court and that is simply not true. He is the clearest writer on the court and probably the clearest thinker as well (which does not mean he's the smartest or that his thinking is correct). He does not have Scalia's panache or his wit, but he is more intellectually consistent by a wide margin. There is a lot of distance between "intellectual heavyweight" -- which Thomas is not -- and "stupid" -- which he's also not.
And the other liberal myth, that he can't think for himself and is just Scalia's lapdog, is so obviously false as to be hopelessly idiotic. Thomas files more one person dissents than anyone else on the court, more than anyone probably since Oliver Wendell Homes. That he goes it alone on so many issues proves that he clearly does think for himself. And of course, we now know of multiple cases -- two in his first week on the court -- where Thomas has been the lone dissenter in a case and then been joined in dissent by Scalia after the initial drafts of the opinions have been circulated. If anything, Thomas has influenced Scalia far more than the opposite.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2010 4:06 PM
I think I found your mistake there, Ed.
"not even in the same solar system" is not the smae as "remote."
Posted by: Chilidog | February 10, 2010 4:31 PM
he must be hiding his talents under a bushel, I've read his few opinions and they never struck me as particularly deep or thoughtful.
Posted by: chilidog | February 10, 2010 4:34 PM
Scott Hanley "Two of the quintessential American success stories would have to be Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but these supposed proponents of meritocracy vilified them while adoring George W. Bush."
Hey! George W. Bush worked hard to be born in the right family!
Steve Reuland "That probably explains his stellar research skills."
"Research" is for people who like so-called "facts". You know...liberals. And Hitler!
Just try rallying the Conservative base with so-called "facts". An off-handedly inflammatory smear or smattering of disconnected, reality-averse rhetoric work much better.
Gerard Harbison "As far as I can tell, Obama's grades from Harvard Law have never been released. So speculation about Cs and As and A+ grades is just that: speculation."
He keeps them with his Kenyan birth certificate in the Kenyan vault in a Kenyan Mosque. In Kenya!
Posted by: Modusoperandi | February 10, 2010 5:25 PM
chilidog wrote:
I didn't say anything about deep or thoughtful; I said they were clear. Clarity is an important thing in court rulings because they have to guide an enormous range of behavior. Compare his rulings to, say, former Justice O'Connor and it is quite obvious which one is more clear, coherent and consistent (perhaps that's an unfair comparison, since O'Connor was infamous for her muddled opinions that left everyone scratching their heads trying to figure out how to comply - almost anyone is clear compared to her).
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2010 6:14 PM
Ed stated @ 24:
Oh I fully agree; where I think my comment @ 22 was consistent with your latter statement and where I'm struggling to understand how your former is contra to your latter. Clarence Thomas was picked solely for those two reasons, in spite of the fact nothing in his past made him remotely qualified to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court, and then within months he's being nominated and approved to the Supreme Court. I wasn't insinuating his nomination was AA, my point on AA was that his getting into Yale and previous jobs correctly had the stink of AA on them and that he was being groomed strictly due to his being both black and a conservative - he was and I think still is a novelty and an outlier used by the Right to argue he's the norm in the party. The fact there was no deep bench of black conservatives and they had to reach down to the point of absurdity was the very point I was attempting to express in terms of my belief J. Thomas knows he didn't earn his ascendency to both the D.C. Court and then the Supreme Court.
Ed stated:
As I stated earlier, and I've studied him and his rulings intensely, he's certainly capable of a successful career as a legal professional, having finished in the middle of his class at Yale Law School, which would be impossible if he were stupid. However I agree with the liberals he was and continues to not be remotely qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. There are many hundreds, if not thousands of Americans far better suited.
The biggest example is that we can empirically argue he doesn't have the most important quality all judges require which was brought up by then nominee Judge John Roberts - the ability to dispassionately rule. Instead J. Thomas distinguishes himself in arriving at conservative outcomes regardless of what it takes. Yes there are exceptions (Raich), but Scott Douglas Gerber's quantitative analysis of all of J. Thomas' votes from his freshman year through 1995 thoroughly dispels any notions of dispassion (and I've seen little since then to dispel that notion). Mr. Gerber's review of his case decisions and the data he crunches in that book's Appendix destroys any notion of fairness or fealty to the Constitution.
For example, when it came to all 1st Amendment cases during that period J. Thomas voted for minority/individual rights 35.5% of the time in spite of his claim previous to the court where I quote my description of Gerber's quoting Thomas:
While Justice Thomas defended our rights a mere 36% of the time, only Byron White and Anotin Scalia approached such depths and only CJ Rehnquist joined them at below 50%. Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor were at 73% and 67% respectively.
Ed stated:
I strongly disagree with the latter. He gets my head spinning. In fact I find both his and increasingly so, J. Scalia's arguments, are consistent merely with conservative talking points, and not anything related to constitutional jurisprudence.
Ed stated:
I agree but there is something else in play that can be emprically argued that I find far more insidious. Conservative justices, just like conservative politicians, do not break ranks. Gerber looked at the '91 - '95 courts voting alignments, which was comprised of 11 justices and therefore 105 combinations of two judges (six combinations don't work since these eleven obviously didn't all serve together). Moderates Stephen Breyer and David Souter held the number one spot of voting the same 84% of the time, number two was Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas at 80% of the time. Certainly scrutinizing both relationships is a worthy endeavor.
I parsed out the eleven justices as six conservatives (including O'Connor and Kennedy), two moderates (Souter and Breyer), and three liberals (Blackmun, Stevens, and Ginsburg). If one looked at voting alignments by ideology where two justices' votes were aligned more than 70% of the time, one got the following results:
Con/Con - 12 two-justice combinations
Con/Mod - 3 combinations
Mod/Mod - 1 (with only one opportunity)
Mod/Lib - 2
Lib/Lib - 1 (Stevens/Ginsburg)
Lib/Con - 1 (Ginsburg/Kennedy)
If I combine the moderates and liberals as a voting block relative to conservatives we might expect a ratio of six/five when predicting the ratio of common voting combinations by ideological block. Instead we get the following:
Con/Con - 12
Lib&Mod/Lib&Mod - 4
So instead of a 6:5 ratio we get a 3:1 ratio even when treating moderates like liberals. So while liberals might be wrongly paranoid about Thomas's submissiveness to Scalia, their position is both empirically arguable regarding the Thomas/Scalia fixation, and its not their paranoia that wrong, but instead what is the motivator, i.e. fealty to conservative political objectives rather than Thomas' submission to Scalia's thinking. I too dismiss that Thomas is submissive to Scalia's arguments, but I understand why there's such conjecture, especially since such analysis never makes it to mainstream media.
Ed stated:
Oh I agree. I think the biggest influence J. Thomas has had on J. Scalia is the lack of political damage to the conservative movement by J. Thomas' publishing his extremist opinions, which I also think are frequently extremely wrong in spite of sharing his originalist zeal. In fact I believe J. Thomas is an enormous influence on modern day conservatism, especially its willingness to revise history and play the persecution card. Consider a principled conservative like William Rehnquist and how very different his arguments were from both Justices Scalia's and Thomas's. While I often disagreed with CJ Rehnquist, I found his arguments principled, devoid of political ambition, and honestly asserted. In fact I leveraged his knowledge in terms of buying his book on the history of the Supreme Court and thoroughly enjoyed it, ranking it five stars at Amazon. I would in no way trust Justices Thomas or Scalia to publish an honest rendition of anyone's history and consider it myself, in fact I find their opinions rife with revisionism.
Ed - while your argument criticized the boilerplate liberal objection to J. Thomas rather than what I wrote except for where I failed to properly communicate my point; I didn't find it actually addressing my earlier argument regarding what I see are character failings that inform or even dominate Thomas' opinions, which I concede are extremely subjective to the point of being impossible to corroborate.
Posted by: Michael Heath | February 10, 2010 6:20 PM
Re Gerard Harbison
I have read that the president has an IQ of 142, for whatever that may be worth, which would probably place him near the top of the list of all who have served in that office. Of course, Herbert Hoover probably had an even higher IQ which didn't prevent him from being a failed president so, obviously, a high IQ is no guarantee of success in that office.
Posted by: SLC | February 10, 2010 6:23 PM
The thing that pisses me off about Thomas isn't that affirmative action got him the opportunity to succeed and the chance to rise to the level he has attained, it's that the son of a bitch wants to close that same door to others. The whole point of affirmative action is to give those qualified people who never would have had an opportunity to rise beyond their "station" the chance to actually compete on a more even footing, allowing them to succeed or fail based on their ability rather than their race, economic standing, gender, etc.
The other hypocrisy that pisses me off about conservatives who oppose affirmative action is that so many of them obtained admission to prestigious universities based on their legacy status. Mummy or daddy went to [insert ivy league school here] so despite the fact that they are an average student with average grades and average ability, they are a shoe-in to go to [insert ivy league school here].
Posted by: dogmeatib | February 10, 2010 6:32 PM
Michael Heath wrote:
I would not agree that he wasn't qualified to set on the DC circuit court. His resume for that court looked very much like any other resume. He graduated from an elite law school, he worked in government in various capacities and then was nominated for the bench. That is a very normal path to that job; if he was not qualified for it then neither are most judges. I do agree that his ascendancy to the Supreme Court was far too fast given his inexperience on the bench, but I would hesitate to argue that lack of time on the bench is a necessary prerequisite to being nominated or approved. There are other more important factors (none of which Thomas had, of course).
I'm not sure what this means. Dispassion, fairness and fealty to the constitution are entirely different things. I do think Thomas is entirely dispassionate, by which I mean he is totally oblivious to the real life consequences of his legal theories. He holds great fealty to what he thinks the constitution means, but he is usually (not always - see Raich and Kelo) wrong about what it means. But he is remarkably consistent in applying his interpretive theory regardless of the outcome and regardless of the interest of fairness or justice.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2010 6:52 PM
I think you may be misunderstanding how Rush's "logic" works. He has a particular rhetorical method which is incredibly effective in the context of his audience who believe his factual assertions without question, and which inevitably lead to them agreeing with his conclusions and reinforcing their (and his) fantasy that he's a genius.
The game works like this: he begins his reasoning by determining what the conclusion is, in line with what he believes to be true. Then he works backwards to determine what the facts must be in order for that conclusion to hold, and simply assert that those facts are true.
A classic but old example of this reasoning: If you remember the Michael J Fox commercial from 2008, Rush's pronouncement was that "he's either acting or he's off his meds". Leaving aside the factual inaccuracies and general offensiveness, why would somebody say that? Why "either"? If you're starting from the facts and working forwards to a conclusion, you wouldn't say "either"; you'd know which one was true (if either) if you in fact know that. Rush doesn't work that way; he knows only that one of them must be true, because that is what is required for him to arrive at the conclusion he started with, so he just asserts that it is so.
There's really no point in analyzing anything at all that Rush has to say beyond this point. He's just a witless bullshitter who has managed to delude himself and his equally witless audience into believing that he's saying something interesting.
Posted by: Brain Hertz | February 10, 2010 6:56 PM
Gerald,
Obama graduated magna cum laude, that means he had to be in the top 10% of his class or higher according to the Harvard handbook. Also, according to the handbook, failing any course at any time while enrolled in the program would make a student ineligible for any latin honors.
Posted by: dogmeatib | February 10, 2010 7:01 PM
SARCASM MODE ON
On February 10, 2010 4:06 PM, Ed Brayton wrote:
Stephen Carter comes to mind as a moderate-to-conservative black legal scholar they might have looked at, but he just was not conservative enough.
Oh, no!! Ed's joining the Tea Party!!!
SARCASM MODE OFF
It does seem like one of the defining characteristics of American conservatives (or at least people who call themselves conservatives these days) is that nobody ever seems to be conservative enough for them.
Except for people who have never held elected office (like Rush) or cannot hold onto it (like Palin).
Posted by: Blue Nine | February 10, 2010 7:16 PM
Interestingly, Harvard recently changed their latin honors system for the law school and the summa cum laude designation is going to be more common now. All graduates in the top 1% of their class, according to a formula, will be designated summa cum laude; all graduates in the next 10% will be designated magna cum laude. Prior to this, it was extremely rare for someone to achieve summa cum laude status. It happened two or three times a decade and any student who achieved it was a virtual superstar in the legal world and could write their own ticket.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2010 8:34 PM
That's a shame Ed. I hate to sound like a crusty old fart, but I guess it's inevitable. What the hell happened to valuing accomplishments instead of just handing out accolades for having a pulse?
I increasingly see kids in college level classes and college prep classes that can't spell common words and don't understand words that my daughter knew the meaning of when she was in 5th or 6th grade. Granted my daughter was exposed to people daily who had multiple advanced degrees owned (and actually read) hundreds of books, etc., but c'mon, she was a gifted middle school kid, not a genius. Here we're talking kids in 10th, 11th, 12th grade college prep classes who don't have comparable language skills.
*sigh*
Posted by: dogmeatib | February 10, 2010 8:51 PM
dogmeat,
Given the number of old people who tell me how great the 1950s were in America, I am guessing it's more selective recall at work than people actually getting dumber.
Posted by: History Punk | February 10, 2010 11:43 PM
History Punk,
I taught the same general subject matter at the same community college at the same level for thirty years. Every few years I had to discard some topic or section of a topic either because the students were no longer prepared enough to be able to handle the material or because it was so difficult for them that there wasn't time in the course for them to learn it.
After twenty-five years, I ended up with college courses in which I taught nothing that I myself had not learned in a very ordinary public school by the end of the eighth grade. With considerable tutoring and encouragement the students were managing to learn the material - until the major that furnished most of the students complained that my courses were too much harder than their other courses. My Department then required that I again cut back, and I did the last year I taught - to the material I myself had learned in seventh grade.
Were the young people getting dumber? No, but they certainly arrived far less educated, far less prepared.
Posted by: JuliaL | February 11, 2010 12:09 AM
JuliaL - "...my courses were too much harder..."
As opposed to 'were too hard' or 'were much harder'.
Perhaps the students were coming down to your level*. :D - Dingo
-----
* or perhaps simply a case of 'Internet Sausage-fingers Syndrome' (ISFS)
Posted by: DingoJack | February 11, 2010 12:25 AM
"Were the young people getting dumber? No, but they certainly arrived far less educated, far less prepared."
As opposed to not arriving at all. I bet twenty-five years ago, the people you bitch about wouldn't have attended a community college. Now, a lot more people, particularly people who you would have never seen twenty-five years prior are coming. The levels of education haven't changed, only what you see. After all, an increase in diagnosis does not increased incident rate.
This all presumes your accurate recall of your childhood success, and the usefulness of your subject matter. I knew all the state capitals, most of the national capitals (I was occasionally stumped on African countries), all the presidents, and knew almost all the country flags (again, not so good with Africa). In hindsight, this was a waste of study time and instructional time as all that trivia was fucking useless.
Posted by: History Punk | February 11, 2010 12:53 AM
History Punk,
The people I taught the last ten years were, according to the statistics kept by the college, slightly older, and considerably more likely to have taken college preparation classes in high school, than those who attended during the first twenty years that I taught. The school kept careful, detailed records, and did careful analysis so that we could stay aware of exactly who our students were.
The first twenty years or so, we got mostly students who were uninterested in four-year colleges and wanted just some quick training in welding or auto mechanics, etc., but the last ten years or so, we had become a major feeder source for the four-year colleges, where, on average, our transfers did better than the students who had started out as freshmen in the four-year schools.
The courses I taught were business preparation, with the content determined by interviews with, and committees of, local business people.
Thank you for assuming that I began teaching there as a mere child, and thus must still be young. Sadly, not so. I had taught for ten years at the university level before getting a position at the community college, which is where I had always wanted to teach.
That is a deeply offensive comment about my students. They were mostly very hard-working people who deserved the best education the public could give them. I said, "Were the young people getting dumber? No, but they certainly arrived far less educated, far less prepared." And that is precisely what happened. I'd appreciate it if you would read what I actually wrote before you accuse me of devaluing the students I have believed in and devoted much of my work life to, often with sixty hour work weeks at a far lower salary than I was making at teaching upper level courses.
I can excuse your false claim that I was blaming the students only on the grounds that you do not know what state I am from, or what the condition of public elementary, middle, and high school education is in this state. Suffice it to say that the latest test scores show that well over half the eighth graders a few miles from my home, could not meet the lowest standard for either English/Language arts (that means reading and writing) or for science. And that it is not because those children are "dumb." It is because they are poorly prepared, despite the many earnest and hard-working teachers in that system.
Posted by: JuliaL | February 11, 2010 12:21 PM
DingoJack,
You will certainly find many typing errors in my comments; I'm afraid that my eyesight is just not what it used to be, and it was never very good.
However, in just this one case, I did indeed mean exactly what I typed. The complaint was that, though the other courses were hard, and it was all right if mine was a tiny bit harder, my course was "too much harder" than the others to be acceptable, and thus I had to cut back on it.
Posted by: JuliaL | February 11, 2010 12:27 PM
Having said that, many on the left take that entirely too far and believe that Thomas is stupid and unqualified for the court and that is simply not true.
True or not, it is NOT in any way comparable to what Rush is now saying about Obama. I'm with gwangung here: this is a false equivalency, plain and simple.
During Thomas' confirmation hearings, the most often-heard criticisms of him I heard were that he was too far to the right and not qualified for the Supreme Court. And of course that thing with Anita Hill. Bitching about Thomas' use of affirmative action was a distant third, in my experience at least, and normally centered on his own hypocricy on the subject.
Posted by: Raging Bee | February 12, 2010 1:13 PM