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Elemental Obama

While political pundits debate whether a former Law School lecturer is too University of Chicago to be president of the United States, the U of C focuses on—what else?—what it means to be U of C.

This past spring, New York Times columnist David Brooks, AB’83, recited one of his favorite stories about Barack Obama for a packed audience of Alumni Weekend–goers. Late one evening in April 2007, in the midst of a phone interview with the candidate—who, tired and cranky, was still on the Senate floor—Brooks found himself getting nowhere with questions about foreign-aid programs in Africa.

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September 10, 2008