Althouse: "I love the law, intellectually. I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments."

October 20, 2014

"I love the law, intellectually. I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments."

"I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students. But I think being a Justice is a little bit too monastic for me. Particularly after having spent six years and what will be eight years in this bubble, I think I need to get outside a little bit more."

Barack Obama, quoted at the end of Jeffrey Toobin's mostly routine New Yorker piece about Obama's "judicial legacy."

ADDED: What's up with the verbal phrase "to nut out"? The (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary designates the relevant meaning — "to work out through careful thought; to puzzle out" — as "slang" that is "chiefly Austral. and N.Z." Example: " If you have trouble nutting this maths problem out, the Australian Mathematics Competition is not for you." There are no other meanings for "nut out," though "nut" without "out" is a verb that can mean: 1. "To look for or gather nuts" (rare), 2. "To curry favour with" (obsolete), 3. "To fix, fit, or fasten by means of nuts," 4. "To castrate" or "Of a man: to have sexual intercourse with (a woman)" (U.S. slang), 5. "To butt with the head" (British slang), 6. "To kill" (Irish English slang).

68 comments:

Gahrie said...: Oh Christ...not even the Democrats would put this fool on the Court..would they?; 10/20/14, 5:49 PM
rhhardin said...: Self-awareness is not his strong suit.

Richard Epstein says he's a fool with a one-ply mind. No complication ever enters his single talking point.

Epstein knew him on the faculty of U Chicago law school.; 10/20/14, 5:52 PM
Curious George said...: Is he playing indoor golf?; 10/20/14, 5:52 PM
pm317 said...: "being a Justice.."

Is he looking for his next job already, being justice?

"I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students."

He lies.; 10/20/14, 5:53 PM
Ann Althouse said...: He doesn't want to be a Supreme Court Justice. He wants to complete his presidency decently, then be free, to speak and write and move about something like a real person in the world.

He'll be paid a million dollars every time he shows up wherever he shows up to dispense some wisdom. It's going to be just great, just beautiful. He just needs to bring this presidency in for a landing and it's all sublime from here.; 10/20/14, 5:53 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Althouse has it figured out. It's about being President, then an ex-President.; 10/20/14, 5:56 PM
Rob said...: When the President says he needs to get outside more, he means on the links.; 10/20/14, 5:57 PM
Paul said...: "Oh Christ...not even the Democrats would put this fool on the Court..would they?"

Well that is an argument of keeping Congress in the Republican sphere, right?

My worry is they will put both Obama and Biden on the Supreme Court. Wouldn’t that be a riot (really, a real riot!); 10/20/14, 5:58 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Jeez Obama if it weren't for the fact that Slow Joe Biden would replace you, I wouldn't mind it if you got outside that bubble of yours by resigning tomorrow.; 10/20/14, 6:02 PM
rhhardin said...: This Epstein podcast on Obama's Inaugural address is ok on his failings, while I look for the one I'm remembering

Hoover Institution; 10/20/14, 6:03 PM
Skipper said...: Judging requires actually working at the job; never has been O's thing.; 10/20/14, 6:22 PM
Bobber Fleck said...: @ rdhardin

"Self-awareness is not his strong suit."

I respectfully disagree. Self-awareness is his only suit. It's all about Barack.; 10/20/14, 6:33 PM
traditionalguy said...: More BS. Factor in that this a man who has never moved his mouth without lying and we know less now than before Toobin wrote up his words.; 10/20/14, 6:37 PM
Swifty Quick said...: He's no William H Taft.; 10/20/14, 6:45 PM
MadisonMan said...: 'nutting'

Why this particular gerund with its sexual overtones?; 10/20/14, 6:45 PM
PB said...: He realizes his chance of being Emperor of Earth are rapidly approaching zero.; 10/20/14, 7:06 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: What evidence is there that Obama ever "nutted out" a legal argument?
Perhaps he would like to "nut out" whether or not an upper middle class man, the son of academics, half-Kenyan and half-white, raised by his white mother in Indonesia and his white grand parents in Hawaii, should receive the benefits of Affirmative action?; 10/20/14, 7:09 PM
Curious George said...: "Ann Althouse said...
He just needs to bring this presidency in for a landing and it's all sublime from here."

Like Mohamed Atta.; 10/20/14, 7:13 PM
RecChief said...: Ann Althouse said...
He doesn't want to be a Supreme Court Justice. He wants to complete his presidency decently, then be free, to speak and write and move about something like a real person in the world."

Like Jimmy Carter? I prefer my retired presidents to sit on their porches, keeping quiet about what the current president is doing. Maybe do some charitable work, but quietly, in the background, not dorking up the current president's agenda.; 10/20/14, 7:15 PM
phantommut said...: Like Jimmy Carter? I prefer my retired presidents to sit on their porches, keeping quiet about what the current president is doing.

Can you honestly imagine Obama having a graceful ex-presidency? Best-case scenario is he doesn't cause any more trouble than Slick Willy has. I'm not hopeful.; 10/20/14, 7:28 PM
pm317 said...: He wants to complete his presidency decently,..He just needs to bring this presidency in for a landing and it's all sublime from here.

oh boy, is he doing that ever! The do-nothing 'present vote' president spending the bulk of his time on the links and in front of sycophants.

ps. he brought up being a Justice -- the audacity of Obama thinks he can be a Justice.; 10/20/14, 7:30 PM
pm317 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/20/14, 7:34 PM
pm317 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/20/14, 7:34 PM
jr565 said...: Doesn't to nut one out mean to whack off and ejaculate?; 10/20/14, 7:42 PM
jr565 said...: Ah, I see definition 4 is close to what I remember nutting one out to mean. Well, that fits the Obama presidency. He certainly had sexual intercourse with the US. Like Lea Dunham after he did the deed we talked it over with our girlfriend and you know what? I think we were raped.; 10/20/14, 7:45 PM
bleh said...: Is it just me or is that whole discussion very presumptuous? I get it, he's been president for six years, but some modesty might be callled for, particularly when discussing a lifetime appointment to the highest position in a competing branch of government. He should be embarrassed by the prospect, not publicly pondering it.

Even of he isn't embarrassed, it'd be nice if he at least pretended that it is an indecent suggestion.

Obama picked the wrong word when he said monastic. The problem is dynastic, not monastic.; 10/20/14, 7:48 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Obama is a lazy fuck who loves to shoot the shit- it is what he does best. That is not considered work by ay means by most people.; 10/20/14, 7:50 PM
NCMoss said...: AA: He wants to complete his presidency decently. It's going to be just great, just beautiful.

Isn't a successful presidency about making it better for everyone else? By any metric, how is the country any better now?; 10/20/14, 8:19 PM
chillblaine said...: "The bulk of my nominees...even ten years ago, would have been considered very much centrists."

His insufferability is only matched by his relentlessnes. His demogoguery is on auto-pilot.; 10/20/14, 8:31 PM
pm317 said...: He wants to complete his presidency decently, ..
---------
Like this? "Should you be afraid? No, not yet. But the chaos and confusion exhibited by the CDC and the rest of the Obama Administration was genuine. Their main problem is that they treat every issue thru the narrow lens of partisan domestic politics. Rarely does Barack Obama insist on doing something because it is the right thing. Instead, he carefully weighs whether or not it is good for him."; 10/20/14, 8:34 PM
Douglas B. Levene said...: Has anyone ever seen a legal paper written by Obama? Do we have any reason to think that he would know how to write a judicial opinion? Or maybe he would be like Justice Marshall, who let his clerks write the whole damn thing, down to every comma and semi-colon. Well, don't expect any insight into this from Toobin, who is the very definition of a fanboi.; 10/20/14, 8:59 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: “The bulk of my nominees, twenty years ago or even ten years ago, would have been considered very much centrists, well within the mainstream of American jurisprudence, not particularly fire-breathing or ideologically driven,” Obama went on. “So the fact that now Democratic appointees and Republican appointees tend to vote differently on issues really has more to do with the shift in the Republican Party and in the nature of Republican-appointed jurists. . . . Democrats haven’t moved from where they were.”

Until May of 2012 Obama opposed gay marriage.
The Defense of Marriage act (1996) summary:
"Defense of Marriage Act - Amends the Federal judicial code to provide that no State, territory, or possession of the United States or Indian tribe shall be required to give effect to any marriage between persons of the same sex under the laws of any other such jurisdiction or to any right or claim arising from such relationship.
Establishes a Federal definition of:
(1) "marriage" as only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife; and
(2) "spouse" as only a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.
"

32 Senate democrats voted for DOM.
118 House reps voted for DOM.
Obama is a sad, deluded person. Wherever he is, he thinks it is the center of the universe.; 10/20/14, 9:06 PM
Christy said...: I simply cannot imagine Obama sitting on the bench and listening with respect to the arguments of any other human.; 10/20/14, 9:07 PM
James Pawlak said...: More impressive if he would release all of his academic records. For myself, I would like to see if he ever received scholarship/admissions benefits as a "foreign student"; 10/20/14, 9:07 PM
Paul said...: Skeptical Voter said...

"Jeez Obama if it weren't for the fact that Slow Joe Biden would replace you, I wouldn't mind it if you got outside that bubble of yours by resigning tomorrow."

Voter,

I'm beginning to think Buffoon Biden would actually be a better president than Obama.; 10/20/14, 9:10 PM
RecChief said...: "but some modesty might be called for,"

Have you been witnessing the same president I have for the last 6 years? Your statement in conjunction with the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania avenue makes me wonder.; 10/20/14, 9:11 PM
Bob R said...: He doesn't want to be a Supreme Court Justice. He wants to complete his presidency decently, then be free, to speak and write and move about something like a real person in the world.

He'll be paid a million dollars every time he shows up wherever he shows up to dispense some wisdom. It's going to be just great, just beautiful. He just needs to bring this presidency in for a landing and it's all sublime from here.

Nailed it. He sees the Clinton dynasty raking in the cash in a way that would embarrass the robber barons for doing NOTHING. Chelsea Clinton made more in her two years at NBC than entire graduating class of some of the best math grad programs in the nation. Zombies feasting on corpses. He wants in on the action. Really finding it hard to wait.; 10/20/14, 9:17 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Obama admits that he personally benefited from Affirmative Action:
I must say, however, that as someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my academic career, and as someone who may have benefited from the Law Review’s affirmative action policy when I was selected to join the Review last year, I have not personally felt stigmatized either within the broader law school community or as a staff member of the Review.
http://hlrecord.org/?p=11263; 10/20/14, 9:30 PM
traditionalguy said...: If they make him the Ayatola, Obama will serve Islam openly. He is tired of doing it on the down low.; 10/20/14, 9:35 PM
Michael K said...: "More impressive if he would release all of his academic records. For myself, I would like to see if he ever received scholarship/admissions benefits as a "foreign student"

You've got to be kidding. That's top secret stuff. He hit the jackpot with an LSAT score. The only thing he's ever done that was real, if that.; 10/20/14, 9:44 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: What was Obama's LSAT score?
I'd also like to know how a "so-so" student at Occidental managed to transfer to a Harvard feeder school (Columbia).; 10/20/14, 9:58 PM
chickelit said...: POTUS has nutted out loads of problems his successor will have to clean up.; 10/20/14, 10:04 PM
Paul said...: No doubt Obama benefited from 'affirmative action'.

I'd love to see his grades in collage. I bet they affirm alot of what we have seen in him.; 10/20/14, 10:09 PM
Known Unknown said...: Thank God he said nutting out and not nutting on.; 10/20/14, 10:22 PM
SteveR said...: He'll be paid a million dollars every time he shows up wherever he shows up to dispense some wisdom

One can hope that every dime wasted to her him read BS off a teleprompter, is one less dime going to campaign donations to democrats.; 10/20/14, 11:05 PM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: Biden had Iraq right. It should have been divided up in three parts.; 10/21/14, 5:10 AM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: By nutting out, I think he means stretching and distorting the meanings until he arrives at his predetermined conclusion.

For him the Constitution must seem like one of those little mazes we did as children where the final destination was always known and the trick was only getting there.; 10/21/14, 6:35 AM
pm317 said...: Obama: “there’s still junk on my desk, including some unpaid bills—I think eventually they got paid—but they’re sort of stacked up.”

-------------

He is running the country that way too. But he knows to say things like the one quoted as the post headline to impress people.; 10/21/14, 7:11 AM
Jim in St Louis said...: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2253880/posts

Not sure if the link will post, but the Exam Obama gave while he was teaching law would give a few clues as to what he would do on the court.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/files/conlaw3.obama.1996.fall.pdf; 10/21/14, 7:14 AM
Larry J said...: If he loves the law so much, why doesn't he start by obeying it?; 10/21/14, 7:17 AM
MayBee said...: I bet this is how he and Valerie talk to each other all the time.; 10/21/14, 7:22 AM
Circle said...: I suspect he was not a very good law teacher. Much too dogmatic. Richard Epstein says he was not able to engage intellectually with other Chicago law teachers. He would be an absolute disaster as a Supreme. Worse than Sotomayor.; 10/21/14, 7:34 AM
pm317 said...: Richard Epstein says he was not able to engage intellectually with other Chicago law teachers.

Hey, he can engage Goop Paltrow to cough up her money.; 10/21/14, 7:38 AM
Circle said...: Jeffrey Toobin is a very dull knife. These days, I acn't tell the New Yorker from Salon and The Daily Beast. Do all their articles come from the same kitchen?; 10/21/14, 7:47 AM
MayBee said...: Pm317- iPaltrow and Obama have similar personalities, in that they both project that they do normal things better than other people do them.; 10/21/14, 8:13 AM
chickelit said...: Hey, he can engage Goop Paltrow to cough up her money.

Their attraction is more visceral than cerebral.; 10/21/14, 8:31 AM
wendybar said...: If he keeps on lying like he does, who the heck is going to pay to listen to him lie??? As it is now, his own "people" are walking out on his speeches. And they are free speeches for now...(although you need a photo ID to get in to hear it); 10/21/14, 8:33 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: "I think I need to get outside a little bit more."

Where some crazy white man can shoot me,...; 10/21/14, 9:02 AM
MayBee said...: I'm sure Obama imagines all those fundraising speeches fundraising for him and his family rather than the party. Just a few more years!; 10/21/14, 9:04 AM
MathMom said...: Jim in St Louis, I read that final exam. No way Barry wrote that. Have you ever read those few articles he has had published? His introduction to the paperback version of Bill Ayers' book, clashes dramatically in style with Ayers' writing in Dreams. Dude would write stultifying prose on a Christmas card.

I wonder what special interest group provided it to him?; 10/21/14, 9:37 AM
MathMom said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/21/14, 9:37 AM
MathMom said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/21/14, 9:37 AM
gerry said...: He wants to complete his presidency decently

That ceased being possible with...I'd say Benghazi...but there are so many other things that reveal Obama to be an incompetent administrator and perhaps a fabulist. He can have no decent ending because he is indecent.; 10/21/14, 10:41 AM
Fred Drinkwater said...: Larry J: "why doesn't he start by obeying it?"
O said "I love the law, intellectually."
It's an intellectual abstraction to him. It's a tool, but not in the sense that a skilled carpenter uses tools - more in the sense of the guy who bought a toolkit on sale from Target with "125 tools for all uses", and uses a chisel to pry open paint can lids. I know quite a few like him, technically educated but basically unprincipled (unless "What's in it for me?" is a principled stance). Those of us who were paying attention early on saw this clearly in his history as an Illinois activist and politician.; 10/21/14, 11:08 AM
richard mcenroe said...: Oddly, the students who had him after he moved on from the pre-packaged Con Law class he read to them to teaching on his own said he sucked as a professor.; 10/21/14, 12:30 PM
richard mcenroe said...: The closest Obama will come to a dignified ex-Presidency is when Kanye West punches him out for stealing his act...; 10/21/14, 12:33 PM
RecChief said...: With respect to American Law, I think Obama meant this definition:

"6. "To kill" (Irish English slang)."; 10/21/14, 2:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Obviously the President never taught Federal Income Tax, Commercial Transactions or Agency, Partnerships and Corporations. It shows, doesn't it?

"Don't know much about historeeeee..."; 10/21/14, 3:26 PM