Political Punch

I am a "lecturer" not a "professor" and I agree that there is a significant distinction between the two titles. Professors are scholars, and as part of the job, both teach and conduct academic research. Lecturers only teach. Professors are paid more, sometimes a lot more, than lecturers. Before being appointed as a professor, an individual goes through a significant vetting process, because the school knows the individual will be around for a long time. Lecturers, on the other hand, are hired as needed. If they work out, fine, if they do not they are not asked back. My students often refer to me as professor, out of courtesy, but that is clearly not my title.

As it was put earlier. The title of Professor implies that the individual has received a PHD and has reached the highest level of his or her field.

Obama missrepresented.

The important point is that Obama taught Constitutional Law at a major law school for ten years.

Team Bush has been dismantling our system of checks and balances, and we need someone who understands and respects that system.

We do NOT need someone who thinks the point is the proper use of academic terms.

Obama = forest
Clinton = trees

I think - as many others so as well - that Lynn Sweet has a personal problem with Sen. Obama

We have tried many times to post corrections to come of her columns on her blog and she does not allow most of the comments through - she edits what she wants to have shown - not a fair and balanced blog

We have asked Ms. Sweet through e-mails and comments to please let the public know why she has such a problem with Sen. Obama when she is supposed to be a reporter covering him for a newspaper - she is not an editorial columnist she is a reporter

Maybe you can find out Jake - Lynn Sweet doesn't seem to like being questioned by the public

I do not know the semantics of faculty titles of today.

Guess you can call yourself whatever you like. That rule certainly applies to Federal Regulations re affirmative action.

You are what you say you are unless you say you are Native American. Then you have to have proof of blood certificate.

Go figure. More stringent rules for Native Americans than any other minority.

Back to the topic. I never had, nor have I heard of a "tenured lecturer", but I guess they exist.

May God bless Professor Barak Obama, thank you for teaching constitutional law and our children have had the opportunity to learn from the right source. OBAMA08

Let's see -- the University of Chicago considers him a professor according to their own standards, and he was in fact offered a tenure-track position by them, so they thought he was fully qualified. . .

Do they think we will drop this so easily? As if we can't come up our own interpretations of what the word "professor" means. Hah!

It's another inflated claim by Obama.

"this is the stupidest thing i have ever hear. i went to law school. we had part time, adjuncts, lecturers and full time faculty. you know what? we called them all professor. Jeez louise this is stupid. "
-------------
This is true, I was called "professor" by students even when I was just a part-time instructor right after I finished graduate school and began some teaching.

The term can be used differently. Calling a (senior) lecturer or whoever on the teaching stage a “professor” means somehow the fact that he or she is doing a “teaching job” in university, this is the widest or very causal use of the term.

More often than that, the term refers to qualifications, experience and tenure – those on the tenure track with titles assistant processors, associate professors or (full) professors, they are usually tenure positions. Normally instructors, lecturer or senor lecturers are not. In this sense, senior lecturer is not the same as those on the tenure track.

In a more formal sense, the term only refers to those “full professors”, not including any assistant or associate professors.

Obama’s use of “law professor” is OK only in the first sense - informal use by students, but not accurate in the second or third sense.

What do I think? I think this is one of the most ridiculous non-stories ever pursued. What's the endgame? HRC's campaign wins a tedious semantic point? Bravo! Now she can retire with her head held high. Barring the presence of sniper fire, of course.

And what's with every news outlet (and I mean every - Google it) referring to Lynn Sweet as "the incomparable" Lynn Sweet? I'm from Chicago, I've seen Lynn Sweet on a number of occasions, and I question why she isn't simply referred to as "the curmudgeonly" Lynn Sweet? That's the between-the-lines messaging here, isn't it? Okay, how about "bristly"? That sounds a bit nicer. As Lynn would say, "Details count."

One can only hope that Obama, upon returning to Chicago, will pay her a visit, remove the pea from between her 13th and 14th mattresses, and make this "story", and her crusty temperament, magically disappear....

Obama inflating his own resume reminds me that he also inflated his father's too back in 1990 when he was interviewed by the N.Y. Times following his election as President of the Harvard Law Review. The article indicates that Obama Sr. was a "Finance Minister" in Kenya. He wasn't. He was a bureaucrat - maybe IN the Finance Ministry. But He wasn't the FINANCE MINISTER! - That's a pretty visible job. Had he been the Finance Minister, I'm sure that that would be prominently mentioned in his campaign literature. Just another example of INFLATING his background and record (and back then it wouldn't have even mattered, so why did he do it?

One comment about Clinton's mis-remembering events when she landed in Bosnia. Most people would agree that traveling to a war zone is outside their comfort zone. I'm sure that many of Clinton's travels have also been outside the comfort zone of most people. Let me ask - WHEN HAS OBAMA EVER BEEN OUTSIDE HIS COMFORT ZONE??????
All part of that important testing, experience that he just doesn't have folks!

Resume padding to go with his biography padding!

this is the stupidest thing i have ever hear. i went to law school. we had part time, adjuncts, lecturers and full time faculty. you know what? we called them all professor. Jeez louise this is stupid.

IF IM LECTURING A CLASS AT A TOP AMERICAN COLLEGE AND WAS WRITING OUT MY RESUME I WOULD PUT "POLITICAL PROFESSOR" ON IT. BUT IF I VISITED CALIFORNIA AND I SEE SOMEONE GET PULLED OVER IM NOT GOING TO SAY I SAW A POLICE CHASE. THEY ALL LIE, QUESTION IS WHO LIES ARE MORE RELEVENT TO MY IMEDIATE LIFE FOREIGN AFFAIRS BYE SAYING ANOTHER COUNTRY HAD SNIPERS SHOOTING AT ME OR SAYING I WAS A PROFESSOR? HELLO!!!!! WHAT ARE PROFESSORS DOING? "LECTURING"YOU PEOPLE REALLY HAVE TO HAVE SOME BETTER LOGIC. I GUESS YOU THINK THE WAR IS GOING GREAT AND BUSH ISGOD...LOL

LOL....OMG! WE ARE NOT PLAYING WORD GAMES ARE WE HILLARY. I MEAN BECAUSE I STILL DONT KNOW WHAT "IS" MEANS...FOR EVERY ONE NEGATIVE THING PEOPLE SAY ABOUT OBAMA THERE ARE FIVE NEGATIVE HILLARY STORIES. AND WE ALL KNOW SOME ARE TRUE AND SOME ARE EXAGGERATED. POINT IS HILLARY WILL LOSE BUT I STILL THINK SHE WILL BE THE NEXT PRES.....GET IT!!!!!!!!!!! STOP THIEF..

HOLY COW!!!

Are Hillary Fans giving a LECTURES on the definition of words now? What has the world come to?

OK. I play. How many different definitions are there for the word "IS"?

I think it would be terrific to have a President who is an authority on Constitutional Law. Ron Paul will have a reason to be happy with Obama as well. Closing Guantanamo Bay will no doubt be one the first of President Obama's actions.

The meaning of the difference between a university professor or Professor for this presidential election strikes me as utterly non-existent. Who cares? - except again for the desperate hillbillies collecting pebbles to throw at the rising tide.

At the University BO had a great reputation, among students and staff alike, and that tells us something.

This is a ligitimate issue. A Full Professor is the highest status a law school teacher can have. Next status is Associate Professor and then Assistant Professor in that order. These are tenured and tenured-track teachers. Obama is neither.

The most significant difference between being a lecturer and a professor is that a lecturer does not have to publish scholarly articles. Obama has never published a legal research article as a law school instructor or even as Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review. As such, his legal theories have never been legally critiqued by his peers. The fact that he published no article as Editor in Chief of HLR is truly remarkable and probably unprecedented!!

To be sure, with no published articles to his credit, he would not even be in contention for a professorship at any decent law school, let along Chicago.

Note, if elected president, Obama will be very influential on supreme court and overall federal court appointments. University of Chicago is very well aware of that. Further, Obama's election would also bode well for federal clerkships for its law students, positions that are highly coveted, and extremely competitive.

Univ. of Chicago has a vested interest in Obama as Presiedent.

There are 3 types of professors all of who have to have a PhD: Associate Prof, Assistant Prof and Full Prof.

Obama doesnt have a PhD so he IS NOT a Professor.

I want to see how UIC explains to all the other Senior Lecturers that they are not Professors and only Obama is a "Professor"

I can see that nothing that is dug-up on Obama is going to stick while he is running for the nomination, the MSM will not hear of it. I predict this will change when and if he gets the nomination. Clinton's miss-speaks or half-truths or whatever you want to call them are blown-up all out of proportion. While Obama's half-truths or whatever you want to call them are nicely ignored or smooth-out by MSM. This will change.

This is kind of old news ABC. CNN reported on this last week, and as I said on their bog...if the university confirmed he was a professor...then he WAS a professor.

Obama wasn't the one claiming his spouse's experience, he didn't claim to negotiate peace treaties in Ireland, nor did he claim to be under enemy fire in Bosnia. Hillary's SS will have to do better than this to drag him down.

Now what about her tax returns and all those pork barrell initiatives she not only received but requested. While we are at it, now where are the lists of contributors to Bill Clinton's Library?

Hillary should expended more energy in getting her own house in order and release the documents she promised to America and less energy in trying to take down Obama with her sniper fire. The truth usually does win out. Not always in a timely enough manner which is really all the Clintons are hoping for.

OMG! Barack Obama is such a liar. See, this is just more proof that he says one thing and does another. Hillary Clinton would never lie about something like this. Thank you Jake for exposing the truth about this rookie. Seat FL and MI voters!

hahahahaha... I just had to see what it was like to be a Clinton supporter. Its not very fun, its very bitter and demands intolerance.

jake look at the current politico story on obama and the 1996 survey he filled out on his liberal positions and his campaign denial about it even though the form is in obama's own handwriting...

You know what I think? I think Senior Lecturer Obama knows the Consititutin better than Clinton and McCain. Without a doubt.

This is my favorite posting so far in the election

Cindy -
"Jake why don't you report on something worth reporting on; like the poem Maya Angelou posted on Hillary's website...It's beautiful, Maya Angelou is beautiful!!!"

Forget the war...forget race...forget ethics, healthcare the economy...report on something really important...
Maya Angelou's poem.

I think that is like the moment where the last crew member on the SS Clinton is slipping into the cold sea..."Report on "I know why the caged bird sings because the caged bird is losing the ELECTION!"

If he were a Professor, that would be his title. Of course the University is going to promote itself via their staff.

I have to say I had not seen Sen obama ever say Professor on the stump ever...always referring to when he "taught constitutional law" but I have seen people from the University and others refer to him being a Professor...which from the sounds of it...is what he was... it sounds like the difference between an associate professor and adjunct professor...

all I know is he taught Contitutional Law at a University...that is the issue and this constant attempt to bring them down to their level of a flawed candidate because they have lost credibility after years of issues with it...just makes the Clinton campaign look ...well, I don't have to say ...it is apparent.

Nice try.

This is seriously, one of the most irrelevant issues I've ever seen raised in my life. So, when are we voting again? Because this stuff is just nonsense.

Impersonation of a doctor, professor, lawyer, police officer, etc... IS A FELONY!!!

Jake why don't you report on something worth reporting on; like the poem Maya Angelou posted on Hillary's website...It's beautiful, Maya Angelou is beautiful!!!

jake look at the current politico story on obama and the 1996 survey he filled out on his liberal positions and his campaign denial about it even though the form is in obama's own handwriting...

I think it doesn't matter. This one is trivia that distract from the more important misstatements he has made regarding his associations and tactics. It speaks to his lack of character but is a small straw on a haystack.

The press will give it time to fatigue the ears of the electorate so they will vote for whomever the press tells them is winning. Then the press will tear the winner down for the next four years. Qui bono? The media.

I think that I just wasted five minutes of my life that I will never get back.

jake look at the current politico story on obama and the 1996 survey he filled out on his liberal positions and his campaign denial about it even though the form is in obama's own handwriting...

I think that if you were taller, you'd have an easier time grasping at the straws.