"Ruthless Pragmatism"

That's how a former student of Barack Obama describes a potential Obama presidency. The NY Times examines how Obama's teaching at the University of Chicago is a glimpse of what might be next January:

Tom Hynes, who took racism and the law in 1996, agrees that Obama’s openness and the seminar discussions he encouraged were highly unusual. “That class was a catalyst to examine biases you might have developed throughout your own life,” said Hynes, who now works in finance. “Obama had a way of getting you to think and talk about issues people generally don’t like to think and talk about.”