Twenty months after Obama first started his campaign for president, the New York Times has finally decided to do some reporting on his relationship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers. I guess digging through dumpsters in Alaska hasn't turned up any new dirt on Sarah Palin, so the paper of record has finally run out of excuses for not reporting on Obama and Ayers. The article is, unsurprisingly, very vague about the relationship.
At a tumultuous meeting of anti-Vietnam War militants at the Chicago Coliseum in 1969, Bill Ayers helped found the radical Weathermen, launching a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol.
Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama’s first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors.
Yes, I'm sure it's common for a young and inexperienced lawyer to be picked to head a multi-million-dollar foundation after "crossing paths" with somebody like Ayers. And maybe we do things differently in Texas, but I hardly think one launches one's political campaign from the house of a guy one "casually encounters" in the neighborhood.
This "they casually knew each other" meme is designed to minimize the influence Ayers could have had on Obama's philosophies, particularly regarding the role of government in things such as education. As I said in a post here, Ayers believes elementary school age children should be taught "social justice," a theory which indoctrinates youngsters to the idea that America is evil and racist and that students should be ashamed of their country. When liberals sneer that it's "guilt by association" to bring up Ayers, we need to remind them why Ayers's ideas are dangerous and destructive. It's bad enough that Ayers is proud of bombing American targets 40 years ago, but it's far worse what he wants to do to American children.
That's why posts like this one, which completely misstates the arguments regarding Obama and Ayers, are so dangerous.
Besides the fact that the central allegation of Obama somehow secretly supporting Vietnam-era terrorism he couldn’t have understood at the time is patently ridiculous, it’s largely a case of guilt by osmosis. Obama was in the same place as Ayers at a few points in time, which ergo makes him Ayers’ BFF.
The intellectual dishonesty of the left with regards to Ayers is astounding. If John McCain had the same level of contacts with members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Left would be howling about McCain's racism. Hell, they tried to spin Todd Palin's membership in the Alaska Independence Party into Sarah Palin wanting to secede from the Union.
The fact is that Obama didn't casually run into William Ayers at the local Starbucks once or twice a year. Obama was close enough to Ayers that he headed the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization dedicated to education reform and created by William Ayers. Ayers and terrorist wife Bernadine Dohrn hosted the kickoff party for Obama's Senate campaign, and have given plenty of money to Obama over the years. I don't know if they hung out barbecuing veggie burgers every weekend, but Ayers obviously liked and approved of Obama. You don't go to the lengths to help someone that Ayers did with Obama unless you do.
So, knowing Ayers's views and his support of Barack Obama, it's not difficult to surmise that Obama's views would be out of the mainstream. And Sarah Palin is now pointing out this relationship as she stumps across the country.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday accused Democrat Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because of his association with a former 1960s radical, stepping up the campaign's effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters.
Palin's reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, during the tumultuous Vietnam War era four decades ago.
Orrin Judd notes that the election seems to be coming down to who scares the voters less. That would explain the wild swings in support both for and against McCain. People do not trust Barack Obama; he's a man of no accomplishment who has been selected by the Democrats largely based on his race (and his ability to read). Many Americans are looking for a reason not to vote for him and John McCain must point out to those voters that Obama is still a northern liberal who doesn't share their values and whose own are dangerous and disasterous.
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