Carol Platt Liebau was first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review;
It reminds me a little bit of my experience with him when he was president of the Harvard Law Review. You know, I hesitated to say a lot about this during the campaign because I really thought maybe it wasn’t fair. That maybe, finally, when he got to be President, this would be a job big enough to engage and hold Barack Obama’s sustained interest, because really, is there a bigger job out here?
[…]
[W]hen he was at the HLR you did get a very distinct sense that he was the kind of guy who much more interested in being the president of the Review, than he was in doing anything as president of the Review.
A lot of the time he quote/unquote “worked from home”, which was sort of a shorthand – and people would say it sort of wryly – shorthand for not really doing much. He just wasn’t around. Most of the day to day work was carried out by the managing editor of the Review, my predecessor, a great guy called Tom Pirelli whose actually going to be one of the assistant attorney generals now.
He’s the one who did most of the day to day work. Barack Obama was nowhere to be seen. Occasionally he would drop in he would talk to people, and then he’d leave again as though his very arrival had been a benediction in and of itself, but not very much got done.
So, you know, you see that and you think, gosh, maybe that’s the way the guy operates, hut then you figure ok, obviously he always had his eye on bigger and better things.
But now he’s President…there really isn’t a bigger or better thing.
The full audio is here. (2011 update – link has expired)
