Gravel vs. Paul? Bring it on!

Mike Gravel, the former Democratic presidential candidate who once made a creepy YouTube ad in which he stared at the camera for like two minutes, will run for the Libertarian nomination for president.

So far, Ron Paul -- who was the Libertarian presidential nominee in 1988 -- says he's not running in 2008. But man, wouldn't that be awesome? Mike Gravel vs. Ron Paul? The Democrats' fringe also-ran vs. the Republicans' fringe also-ran, duking it out for the Libertarian nomination? It'd be the political equivalent of the NIT championship game!

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Dean of NDLS to resign. Details to come.

Text of email from Dean O'Hara:

Dear Members of the Law School Community:

In June of next year, I will complete my tenth
year as dean. When I was a relatively new dean,
a wonderful alumnus and generous supporter
offered me what I have come to appreciate as the
best analogy for the responsibilities of a dean
in leading an academic institution – this is, the
role of a fiduciary. A dean truly is a fiduciary
- he or she is entrusted with a legacy carefully
built by those who came before; charged with
making that legacy come alive for the students,
faculty, staff, and alumni who experience the
institution in the present; and responsible for
preserving and building upon that legacy for the
generations of students, faculty, staff, and alumni who are yet to come.

As the oldest Catholic law school in the United
States, our particular legacy at Notre Dame is a
unique one. I can assure you that there has not
been a day since I became dean that I have not
thought about what needed to be done from the
viewpoint of preserving and enhancing that
legacy, not only for the students and faculty of
the present time and for the current staff and
alumni, but also for the future generations of
students, faculty, staff, and alumni we cannot
know, but to whom we owe as great an obligation
as that we owe to those who came before us. As
my friend rightly reminded me, this is precisely
what a fiduciary's duty is. In the case of Notre
Dame Law School, it is a very special privilege
and responsibility with which to be entrusted.

It is also the duty of a fiduciary to know when
the responsibilities of leadership should be
handed off to others. I have always thought that
ten years is the optimal length of time to serve
as dean. It is long enough to get good work
done; it is not so long as to threaten the
possibility of either a lack of freshness and
optimism, or to compromise the sense of joy that
must be experienced for good work to
flourish. Every circumstance is different, and
perhaps there are circumstances in which a longer
tenure might benefit an institution. That is not
the case today, however, with the Law School of
this great University. We stand as strong as we
have ever stood, with a faculty and student body
second to none, with an excellent staff, with
loyal and deeply-committed alumni, with a
magnificent new facility rising next to the old
law school building, and with a national appreciation for our unique role.

Let me make clear that it is not my work that has
brought us to this place. I hope that I have
played a useful and constructive part in it, but
I know, as you do, that it is mainly the work of
an extraordinary faculty and staff, of
extraordinary students, and of wonderful alumni
and devoted friends of the Law School – all of
whom believe passionately in what it is that
makes our Law School unique, and who have brought
us to where we are today as we near the end of
the first decade of the new millennium. It is
the hard work, commitment and joy in our common
enterprise of all these stakeholders that will
carry us further – much further – still.

It is with a great sense of pride in what our Law
School has achieved over many, many years that I
today share my plans to complete my tenure as
dean in June 2009. Announcing my intentions now
will allow the provost to constitute the search
committee for a new dean this spring. Following
a sabbatical, I expect to return to the faculty
and to the classroom, where I will further pursue
these themes of fiduciary duties in my corporate
law classes with some of the most outstanding law
students in America. I look forward to working
shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the finest law
faculty in the country, and I also look forward
to working with what I know will be outstanding
new leadership. I cannot imagine a more
meaningful or fulfilling mission than continuing
to be a part of the unique community we call Notre Dame.

To be sure, our law school is a complex
institution with a singular role. We do not
simply aspire to be the acknowledged leader among
Catholic law schools, with the faith and
intellectual commitments that role necessarily
entails . We seek to lead the way among all
American law schools, and to have an impact on
the meaning and distribution of justice, on
development of the law, on the conversations of
humanity, on the legal profession, and on the
public interest. I have worked hard during my
tenure as dean to keep all these responsibilities
in mind – preserving our distinctiveness as the
nation's oldest Catholic law school, while moving
forward as an institution of leadership within
the academy and the profession, mindful of the
special and compelling insights and voices that
we have to offer on the most pressing and
important issues of our times, which are critical
to the well-being of ourselves, our profession, and our society.

Next academic year will see the completion of the
new addition to the Law School. That has been
the work of many hands and the product of
extraordinary generosity on the part of our
benefactors. It should be a great source of
pride for all of us. In a very literal sense, we
will have laid the foundation on which new
leadership can build to advance the Law School to
the next level of excellence in achieving our
singular and distinctive goal of being a premier
law school, faithful to the pursuit of truth and
faithful to the Catholic intellectual tradition.

Like the other opportunities with which I have
been blessed during my almost 30 years at Notre
Dame, my experience as dean leaves me feeling
that I have received more than I have given, and
that I have learned more than I taught. I thank
you all for the privilege of serving. I look
forward to next year, as we complete the new
construction phase of our renovation, as we work
hard to fund the remaining priorities in our
campaign, as we continue to play our distinctive
role within the legal academy, and, most
important, as we continue to live, and encourage
others to live, lives defined by faith, a thirst
for justice, and a desire for truth.

Dean O'Hara

[Condor]

Gravel may have a rocky road in front of him.

[Brendan Loy]

...possibly to Dublin.

Whack fol-lol-dee ra!

[Sean]

But Gravel doesn't agree with us...

So confused...