From the new Amazon webpage of Malcolm Gladwell's November 2008 guaranteed bestseller, "Outliers:
RSSMalcolm shold read Fooled by Randomness by Nicholas Taleb. He devotes a whole chapter on survivorship bias and why we really can’t take away lessons from the super-successful.
I don’t know where you get angry from the review Heckman did for reason. I thought it was measured and reasonable. it certainly did not exhibit the vitriolic histrionics that characterized so many other reviews. that being said – I think he was more critical of the methods and style than the results.
Obama, like many a Harvard Law Scool grad, probably envisioned himself as a Supreme Court Justice one day. The demonization of both Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas happened around the time he was in school. Having an extensive paper trail can be dangerous.