https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2012/10/06/obama-lost-the-debate-because-hes-too-sensitive-and-thoughtful/feed/HotAir is the leading conservative blog for breaking news and commentary covering the Biden administration, politics, media, culture, and current elections.en-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 08:37:13 -0400<![CDATA[When Barack Obama was a student at Harvard Law School, he was never known as a particularly good debater. In class, if he thought that a fellow student had said something foolish, he showed no forensic bloodlust. He did not go out of his way to defeat someone in argument; instead he tried, always with a certain decorous courtesy, to try to persuade, to reframe his interlocutor’s view, to signal his understanding while disagreeing. Obama became president of the law review—the first African-American to do so—but he won as a voice of conciliation. He avoided the Ames Moot Court Competition, where near contemporaries like Cass Sunstein, Deval Patrick, and Kathleen Sullivan made their names&#8230;]]>Sat, 06 Oct 2012 11:45:00 -0400<![CDATA[Allahpundit]]>https://hotair.com/headlines/2012/10/06/obama-lost-the-debate-because-hes-too-sensitive-and-thoughtful-n96404