Roger Boesche: Obama's Favorite Professor

Despite his lofty claim to fame as Barack Obama's favorite professor, Roger Boesche doesn't let the compliment inflate his ego -- or define his teaching.

Boesche, a political science professor at Occidental College in California, which Obama attended from 1979 to 1981, told the Los Angeles Times that it's "pretty cool" that his famous student said he was a "wonderful, wonderful professor," in his YouTube interview session last week, but Machiavelli is still more likely to be a topic of discussion in his classes than Obama.

Obama took two classes with Boesche: an intro course on American political thought and another course on European political thought, which Boesche still teaches. According to his website, Boesche serves as a faculty advisor to the College Republicans and the College Democrats. He's also authored a book called "Theories of Tyranny: From Plato to Arendt."

After appearing in a 2007 Los Angeles Times article describing Obama as a "thoughtful" and "curious" student, Boesche became somewhat of a "minor media darling," the New York Observer reports. Boesche told the Observer that he's rarely able to provide journalists with the juice they desire on young Barry. When a New York Times reporter called him to ask about Obama's drug habits a few years back, Boesche's quotations didn't even make it into the article.

Boesche and Obama reunited in 2009 after not seeing each other for nearly 30 years. Boesche said that Obama was still bruised by a 'B' the professor gave him three decades earlier.