While details from President Barack Obama’s college years are scant, with the exception of a few acquaintances’ recollections, in 2008 one of his Harvard Law classmates offered a few seldom-heard remembrances of the president’s time at Harvard.
Conservative commentator Carol Platt Liebau, author of “Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!),” guest hosted Hugh Hewitt’s February 22, 2008 radio show and described her relationship with Obama during her law school years. Despite his liberal slant, she said Obama was respectful of the conservative perspective when he was president of the Harvard Law Review.
“I knew him reasonably well — as well as most people knew him, if not better — because quite in contrast to this image that Barack tries to project, as someone who is warm and all-embracing and all that kind of stuff,” Liebau said.
“I mean, I will tell you I’ve written a piece that has praised Barack for certain things and I stand by that piece: He was color-blind in the way he chose, staffed the law review when he was president. He did give both sides a fair hearing. He always went with the far-left side, but he did give both sides a respectful hearing, which was fairly atypical at Harvard Law School at that time.”
The essay she referred to was published by Townhall.com in 2007. It described President Obama as a listener but “a liberal’s liberal.”
At the time of Liebau’s radio broadcast, Obama was being portrayed as a great unifier, which inspired bizarre reactions from the likes of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. But Liebau said that was hardly the way he was viewed at Harvard.
“Quite in contrast to this all-embracing kind of ‘earth father’ image — this sort of messianic blaze of glory with which he’s deemed to envelope our television screens — he was a pretty cold fish,” she said.
“He was not a warm person. He was not the type of person that gave you a warm and fuzzy [feeling]. And you got the sense that he even wasn’t even terribly fixated or focused on what he was doing.”
Liebau also describe Obama as a guy “whose eyes were always looking over your shoulder to see if anyone more important is in the room” and that he was always looking for “bigger and better things.”
Her longest one-on-one communication with Obama, she said, came when she was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.
“So I guess it caused a lot of rumbling that I didn’t know about, and so we were all impressed with a return visit by our retired president, the former president, Barack Obama, who took me out on the back steps of Gannett House, which is where the review was housed and wanted to have a little one-on-one with me,” she said.
Liebau said his advice started off sound, but ultimately came off as disappointing.
“He said, ‘Look, what do you care who does the work?’” Liebau recalled Obama saying in reference to her management of the law review. “’It is the same amount of work for you to hand out the work no matter who it goes to, so why fight it? Do what’s easiest for you. Give the work to the people who will do the work, and just don’t worry about the people who don’t want to pull their weight.’”
Liebau wasn’t impressed.
“I guess I was young and naïve: I was like, ‘Ah but that wouldn’t be fair,’” she said.
“And what surprised me is apparently that didn’t bother Barack at all. It was just kind of like — take the easy way out. Why bother yourself with all these silly notions about justice and fairness? Do what works. Revealing? I don’t know. Good advice? I didn’t particularly think so.”
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In 2008, Harvard Law classmate, law review colleague remembered Obama as 'a pretty cold fish'
Source: news.yahoo.com
Kent racehorse Stone of Folca becomes world’s fastest - Kent News
Stone of Folca
Chris Murphy
Monday, June 4, 2012
1:17 PM
Horse trained by Maidstone’s John Best romps to victory at Epsom Derby Day
A Kent racehorse has become the world’s fastest over five furlongs - with the Queen looking on as she kicked off her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
The incredible performance of Stone of Folca, from the original name of Folkestone, saw him take the world record over that distance in front of the Queen.
He is trained by John Best at Detling near Maidstone, who could not be happier, as the horse’s value has just soared.
Anyone with around £400,000 to spare and fancies owning an animal with more horse power than any other can get in touch.
Stone of Folca is owned by people holding 120 shares, which were originally bought for £555 each.
But then the horse won the Investec Specialist Bank Dash during the Epsom Derby Day meeting on Saturday in front of the monarch.
He was a 50-1 long shot, ridden by Luke Morris, but it left the rest of the 20-strong field in his wake win in a time of 53.69 seconds. That is 0.09 seconds faster than Indigenous did 52 years ago using a handheld stopwatch which was wildly inaccurate, especially when hundredths of seconds count.
The £46,000 prize money is now paid out to the shareholders at around £380 per share, almost paying the owners back in one race.
Mr Best said: “We do sell horses from here when they run well so we make a profit. I would say this horse is now worth something between £300,000 and £400,000. Many go to Hong Kong.”
The Epsom course is slightly downhill, so the record is unlikely to be broken at any other track, and Stone of Folca just happened to be on his best form that day.
Mr Best said: “He is four this year. He was a fine two-year-old, then had last year whichg wasn’t too great, and now this.
“And he did it from stall two. At Epsom no one wins from under stall nine out of the 20 or so. A high stall number is vital to win. So if Stone of Folca had one of the higher stalls, he would have shattered all the records.
“I’ve always known he was quick but sometimes he can be very hard to handle. This time though every thing went like a dream.
“I believe not only was it the first time the race has been won from a stall lower than nine, but also the fastest time recorded electronically for any five furlong race. We will almost certainly take our chances at Royal Ascot, in June although that will be a huge step up.”
Source: www.kentnews.co.uk
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