Those opposed to Sen. Obama are digging pretty deep for dirt. They are trying to conjure up an issue about his status while at the University of Chicago. Follow this, if you can; (frankly, I’m having a hard time): the fact that you served as a law professor at the University of Chicago doesn’t mean you can say you were a law professor at the University of Chicago.
Lynn Sweet’s blog entry, linked above, makes much ado about “serving as law professor” and “holding the title” of law professor. If you have to split hairs that fine to try to raise doubts about a candidate, I’d say the candidate is in pretty good shape. Incidentally (or perhaps not so incidentally), Sweet doesn’t quote directly any of the supposedly “misleading” direct mailers, so it’s impossible to tell how or to what extent Obama’s direct mailer falls on the wrong side of the hair-split.
Most folks, including myself, don’t know or care about the finer points of academic titles. I know that many within academia care passionately about such things. Like Mr. Sayre said, “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.”
Anyone who survives more than one semester as the teacher of record for a class at the University of Chicago, let alone in the law school, may, IMHO, use any title they damn well please. Even for an academic environment, it’s a hard-driven rough place.