I do not think that Slate's precis accurately summarizes Sen. Obama's years immediately after leaving Harvard. You say, "After Harvard, Obama returns to Chicago to practice civil rights law at the firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland and teach at the University of Chicago law school." But that's not quite accurate. There's a very long gap from law school graduation until Obama begins to be associated with any law firm. It would be useful to know exactly how many years actually passed between law school graduation and passing the bar/joining a firm. As Sen. Obama has acknowledged, his priorities in these years seem to have been (1) landing a large advance to write his first book (therefore avoiding the need to work at any law firm), and (2) wooing his future wife, already practicing law in Chicago. Fine goals, both of them. But markedly at odds with the experience of virtually every other Harvard Law grad who would have secured his/her offer of future employment (at the very latest) in September-November of their third year of law school. Typically, the offer comes from the prestigious law national firm that the student interned for over the previous summer. In this case, Sidley & Austin. Yet here, either Sidley made no offer of permanent employment, or else he turned it down in order to capitalize on his Time-magazine fueled national celebrity to obtain the book advance that allowed him to follow a different path.

If Sidley made no offer, that would be remarkable, and the reasons for their reluctance would be genuinely relevant to his biography.

Of course, it is likely that Obama interviewed with other national law firms and received additional offers of employment. Or did he? Did he completely eschew the traditional route of success for Harvard Law grads in order to devote himself to creating his autobiography? If so, that is VERY germane to the story of the man himself.

At least one thing we can be sure of. The scenario that Obama surrogate Bob Beckel propounded earlier this week at realclearpolitics.com did not happen, though it would have burnished the Obama bio immensely if it had. Obama did not, as Beckel wrote, turn down numerous offers from prestigious law firms in order to return to Chicago and work as a lowly-paid community organizer. Instead, as we now know, Sen. Obama cashed a large advance check and began to write his autobiography and create the larger than life figure we now know.

These years in his history have to be properly understood if we are to understand the man.