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Go Home Putting On Ayers

THE PLANK OCTOBER 4, 2008

Putting On Ayers

Richard Stern is a novelist and emeritus professor of English at the University of Chicago.

The political word today is that the Republicans will return to personal attacks on Obama and Biden to draw attention away from McCain's erratic performance during the days before the passage of the Great Rescue/Bailout/U.S.-as-Sweden bill. We are supposedly to hear again about the Reverend Wright, the unreverend Tony Lezko, and William Ayers, the unrepentent Weatherman.

Of these three Chicagoans, I know only the last. I've been to three or four small dinner parties with Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, once hailed as the Weathermen's Dolores Ibarruri ("La Passionaria"), a fiery, beautiful muse. (Incidentally, I never heard the word "Weatherwoman.") Dohrn is still attractive, while Ayers maintains an adolescent fizzle in his sexagenarian bones. Dohrn is more subdued than Ayers, uninterested in fame. She told me that her husband wanted to pursue movie interest in their story, but that she wasn't interested. "They only care about the sex and violence." Once, Ayers was about to tell the four other people at dinner how they'd gotten Eldridge Cleaver from a California prison to a Moroccan haven, but Dohrn skillfully buttoned his lip.

I did not know them back in the late sixties and early seventies. The excitement at the University of Chicago centered around the refusal to grant tenure to Marlene Dixon. Angry students occupied the Administration Building, formed improvisatory theater groups, passed out material about such professors as Daniel Boorstin and held rallies. I attended one of these and believe I learned more about revolution there than I'd learned from Carlyle or Barnaby Rudge. The radicals were led by Weatherman Howie Machtinger. He conducted the meeting masterfully, a young Lenin or, to take an example I'd witnessed in the French parliament, the Communist leader Jacques Duclos. My own contribution to the U. of Chicago uprising was a series of satiric poems published in the student newspaper--site of the warring opinions--which earned a denunciation in which Machtinger called me a motherfucker.

At dinner, thirty-eight years later, Ayers and Dohrn did not seem to hold the poems against me, and I didn't hold their fiery and criminally violent behavior against them. As in Chekhov's wonderful story "Old Age," time had planed down the sharp edges and brought one-time antagonists into each others' arms. As far as I know, Ayers and Dohrn are loyal to the selves which led both of them to jail (though not for long), but they were busy doing other things, useful things, Ayers as educator, Dohrn as a legal counselor. They'd raised the child of a weatherman who'd been jailed, they were taking care of Bernadine's ill mother, they were doing many things educated community activists were doing. Apparently one of these things brought at least Ayers into contact with another, much younger community activist, Barak Obama. (I had met him once, when he visited our block party the year he was running against--and losing to--our congressman, Bobby Rush. I didn't get his name, but delighted in the charm and intelligence of the young man who sat with a few of us for twenty or thirty minutes.) Hyde Park is a splendid, rather intimate community, and such contacts are no small part of what makes it splendid.

If Democrats want to deal in an ugly way with McCain, they can talk about the jail sentence served by Cindy McCain's uncle and the suspended sentence her father "served," in connection with illegal activities in their beer distribution business. They can revive the stories of his wildness, his adulterous relationship with Cindy when his first wife (mother of some of his children) was disfigured in an auto accident, his inappropriate senatorial activity on behalf of Charles Keating, and perhaps his not very glorious, pre-prison record in the naval air force. Let's hope that this doesn't happen,and let's hope we've heard the last of William Ayers, Tony Rezko, and Jeremiah Wright.

--Richard Stern

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74 comments

The country needs to know about   William Ayers, Tony Rezko, and  Jeremiah Wright as well as Cindy McCain's uncle ,  inappropriate senatorial activity on behalf of Charles Keating and pre-prison record in the naval air force.  Why not?

I'm curious who is bigger evil, O. J." Simpson  or William Ayers. Can you imagine that any politician would accept a fundraiser at O. J." Simpson' home. Why for leftists  having contacts with  O. J." Simpson'  is unacceptable but  having contacts with William Ayers is splendid?

I trust Stan entirely that Obama and Ayers were in fact close. But look: even if they weren't that close it would hardly mean Ayers is insignificant. Anyone who understands politics understands that who a president listens to is relevant. Who will the commander-in-chief let in the room? From what direction will he take advice? Who is on his "team" and who isn't? What's a reasonable argument and what isn't?

Even if Obama personally disliked Ayers and disagreed with his politics in meaningful ways, Obama still found Ayers to be someone worth listening to and working with. Ditto Jeremiah Wright. They were in his tent, not outside it. Ayers and Wright may be more extreme than Obama. Indeed, they surely are. But there is very little evidence in the record that Obama's ideological compass doesn't point in their direction. I don't think Americans should be single issue voters on the Ayers stuff. But I think it is absurd to argue — as the NY Times implicitly does — that this is all meaningless because Obama and Ayers were allegedly less than soulmates.

Again imagine a similar relationship between McCain and an abortion clinic bomber and the Times running a story a month before the election reassuring that it's no big deal because McCain and Mr. Planned Parenthood Bomber weren't "close."

corner.nationalreview.com/post

- jacobt1

October 4, 2008 at 9:50pm

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Jacob, why exactly does the country need to know about Cindy McCain's uncle?  How is that even remotely related to whether John McCain should or should not be the next President?

- AlanSP

October 4, 2008 at 10:23pm

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AlanSP said

Richard Stern wants to talk about Cindy McCain's uncle.  I don't mind.  I don't care but people have the rigt to know.

- jacobt1

October 4, 2008 at 10:38pm

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A right to know what?  What's not been flogged to death?  Ayers has been obsession du jour all over the right-wing blogs for months, There was a time when Channy never stopped talking about him in his posts right here on TNR, and the New York Times did a cover story today.

The NYT headline should have been "Storm Found in Teacup"

- ironyroad

October 4, 2008 at 10:51pm

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There you have it. Dr. Stern is in league with William Ayers and is no doubt palling around with him as we speak.

- rozenson

October 4, 2008 at 10:55pm

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What a delightful story.  Just a bunch of aging rads who used to annoy each other pretending to be bolsheviki and mensheviki.  Now they're just like the rest of us old farts; they don't like too much sex and violence in the movies.   Just a small difference between us; we didn't do any bombing, and they're sorry they didn't do more.  Keep these affectionate memoirs coming.  They're just what Obama needs.

- lsernoff

October 4, 2008 at 10:57pm

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Sadly, there is no chance at all that we have heard the last of Ayers, Wright and Rezko. Even today Palin is talking about how Obama is "palling around with terrorists". McCain has only one chance to pul back in this race, and that is a month of nonstop character assassination, so that is what we are going to see.

- JEFF FREY

October 4, 2008 at 10:58pm

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Geez, who the president listens to?  This is absurd.  Ayers is hardly a confident of Obama, nor has he ever been.  Rev. Wright?  You can be sure that the vast majority of Trinity Church congregants voted for Obama in the US Senate election; therefore,  Obama's post-civil rights viewpoint WON OUT over the 1960s type black power credo, or 'narrow nationalism',  of liberation theology.  Why aren't these conservative 'critics' of Obama coming to praise him, not to bury him?

What about Bobby Rush?  He was a leader of the Black Panthers.  Now he is a US Congressman from Chicago..  Obama tried to unseat Rush and suffered a stunning defeat.  Why aren't these purveyors of 'guilt by associaton'  going after Rush? Or hailing Obama for running against a 'dreaded' former Black Panther

If Obama is 'guity by association' with Ayers, so is Mayor Daley, whose father famously directed the Chicago police to put down the protests Ayers and his gang launched at the DNC in 1968!  The trustees of the University of Illinois are also suspect, as they hired Ayers as a professor.  So are a lot of ordinary south-siders and educational professionals who know and/or work with Ayers.

The McCain 'guilt by association' campaign against Obama may whip up the conservative base, but it won't move independents. It's old, abstract, petty, and a diversion away from the real economiic issues facing hte electorate today.

It didn't work for  Hillary, it won't work for McCain.

- CAMtwo

October 4, 2008 at 11:16pm

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ironyroad if you flip around on the right you will find plenty of intellligent pieces attacking the NYT article as a white wash.

But it really doesn't matter, does it?

I have no doubt there was some connection between Obama and Ayers that is greater than Obama would now acknowledge. The argument, however, that that connection has anything to do with the way Obama sees the world and would (nay will) govern is ridiculous.

But what bugs me about Stern's post has nothing to do with the bogus inflation of any such connection as a significant mark against Obama; it has to do with the soft headed treatment of Ayers himself--an entirely separate issue, a trivial one, but not culturally uninteresting.

That Ayers is an unrpentant terrorist, that Ayers after 9/11  said  that he had not done enough as part of the weather underground mark him execrable and unredeemed by such good works as he has since done, which I do not know that much about. Stern's little  dinner party details about Ayers and Dohrn and his comment that "...and I didn't hold their fiery and criminally violent behavior against them..."  is a species of moral obtuseness  ranging to moral idiocy, and one of the dumbest things I have read Stern write in these cyber pages.

- basman

October 4, 2008 at 11:27pm

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There is nothing "sporadic" about Barack Obama delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of many years to fund Bill Ayers’ radical education projects, not to mention many millions more to benefit Ayers’ radical education allies. We are talking about a substantial and lengthy working relationship here, one that does not depend on the quality of personal friendship or number of hours spent in the same room together (although the article greatly underestimates that as well).

The trouble with this is that Ayers doesn’t view his terrorism as a mistake. How can he be forgiven when he’s not repentant? Nor does Ayers see his education work as a repudiation of his early radicalism. On the contrary, Ayers sees his education work as carrying on his radicalism in a new guise. The point of Ayers’ education theory is that the United States is a fundamentally racist and oppressive nation. Students, Ayers believes, ought to be encouraged to resist this oppression. Obama was funding Ayers’ "small schools" project, built around this philosophy. Ayers’ radicalism isn’t something in the past. It’s something to which Obama gave moral and financial support as an adult. So when Shane says that Obama has never expressed sympathy for Ayers’ radicalism, he’s flat wrong. Obama’s funded it.

Obama was perfectly aware of Ayers’ radical views, since he read and publically endorsed, without qualification, Ayers’ book on juvenile crime. That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa’s apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country. Shane mentions the book endorsement, yet says nothing about the book’s actual content. Nor does Shane mention the panel about Ayers’ book, on which Obama spoke as part of a joint Ayers-Obama effort to sink the 1998 Illinois juvenile crime bill. Again, we have unmistakable evidence of a substantial political working relationship.

corner.nationalreview.com/post

- jacobt1

October 4, 2008 at 11:43pm

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basman:  "ironyroad if you flip around on the right you will find plenty of intellligent pieces attacking the NYT article as a white wash."

So what?  I expect that.  It's one of the few "arguments" that McCain has still hanging around.

- ironyroad

October 4, 2008 at 11:56pm

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If Ayers is really a "terrorist," then why the hell has the Bush administration not locked the man up? The executive branch has ample authority, some of it actually legal, to detain terrorists, including U.S. citizens, on an indefinite, preventive basis.

Unless and until the DOJ or DHS detains Ayers, conservatives face a choice: They must either stop calling him a "terrorist," or they must attack the Bush administration for failing to protect the rest of us from the terrorists in our midst.

And if they're really going to go down this road, conservatives also need to denounce anyone who ever associated with anyone who gave support to the IRA during the Troubles. Which is to say, to remain morally consistent, conservatives need to denounce nearly every Irish Catholic family in America, because the hat was passed  for "Sin Fein orphans" far and wide and regularly at Irish gatherings in the 1970s and 1980s, and even those who didn't give rarely left the room.

Also, while we're at it, no president ever did more to appease, empower, embolden, support, and even surrender to actual terrorists than Ronald Reagan. Second to him is George W. Bush, who is personally responsible for handing Hamas the keys to the Palestinian quasi-state in Israel's midst. Conservatives who call any Democrat out on being friendly to terrorists would, if they had a morally or intellectually honorable bone in their bodies, weep at their own hypocrisy.

Anyway, the silence from the McCain ticket on the topic of what their policies would be in the next four years, and why they would be good for America, is deafening. Of course they'll attack Obama with innuendo and lies, and it might be enough to win, but if so it will be victory without honor and without a mandate based on having made an affirmative case for themselves. We've seen in the primaries just how dishonest and ugly McCain can be when he feels his back is to the wall, up to and including lying about his opponents' statements and calling his opponent a traitor to his country. That's how the Putins and Chavezes of the world operate, and it's also standard operating procedure for Republicans generally, and the great tragedy of this election is that John McCain has disappointed all of us who once believed he was more honorable than the rest of his party.

- rhubarbs

October 5, 2008 at 12:56am

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Forget Cindy McCain's family. Can we now bring up Charles Keating, a man with whom McCain really was undeniably close?  Or his chumminess with Follieri?

Going down this path would be really, really dangerous.  That's why Ayers and Keating will be left to 527s and blogs.  Neither campaign is going to openly pursue this stuff, since they both know the other side also has nuclear weapons.  

What's more, in about two weeks most Republicans are going to start giving up.  Some already have.

- timteeter

October 5, 2008 at 1:01am

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Rhubarbs said:

" Of course they'll attack Obama with innuendo and lies,"

while Obama continues to tell the truth about McCain's houses, shoes and keyboard typing skills as well as McCain's desire for a hundred tear war in Iraq.

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 1:27am

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McCain is doing this because when it comes to the economy or anything else real, he's got nothing. And he's getting Palin to do it for him because he thinks women can get away with being meaner, and because Palin isn't qualified to talk about anything real. Perfect fit.

- psantillana

October 5, 2008 at 1:52am

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Yup yup.  Haven't heard a single speech where Obama didn't get a line in about the Maverick's inability to google.

Right?  Right?

- Lyn39

October 5, 2008 at 2:01am

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The reason liberals don't get so worked up about someone like Ayers is that if you asked him, he could probably tell you what newspapers he reads and what supreme court cases he disagrees with. He's crazy and immoral, but he's not stupid, and he's the guy one has to work with to get something done for Chicago schools.  I'm not sure how you can criticize Obama for sucking it up and schmoozing with the guy. The next President is going to have to cut deals with a lot of people far sketchier than ex-terrorist Ayers (re: every middle eastern dictator ever, Karzai, Karzai's brother, Putin,  etc. etc.)  Oh no Oh no! Obama can get things done working with questionable people for a legitimate goal!  The sky is falling!  This all goes back to that bullshit 'if we talk to them we are legitimizing them' theorem that has been completely disproven the last 8 years. Americans are smarter than that.  That's why Obama won in the primaries despite the ayers, wright stuff as well as his comments about meeting with ahmedinjad, and it's why this attack strategy isn't going to work.

- Maxblum13

October 5, 2008 at 6:25am

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Oh, screw you apologists.  

Like O.J. Ayers & Dorhn got away with murder.  Unlike O.J., payaback time never arrived for them.  In fact, they were rewarded for being traitors.

Is America a great country, or what!

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 8:07am

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CAM2 writes, "...If Obama is 'guity by association' with Ayers, so is Mayor Daley, whose father famously directed the Chicago police to put down the protests Ayers and his gang launched at the DNC in 1968!  The trustees of the University of Illinois are also suspect, as they hired Ayers as a professor.  So are a lot of ordinary south-siders and educational professionals who know and/or work with Ayers."

Yes, you're right, CAM2, they are all guilty of supporting a man who should be pariah.  

But, I guess it proves one thing the Left says, if you've got enough money (as Ayers' family does) you can get away with anything in America.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 8:12am

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What's important about Cindy McCain's uncle and father, the Hensley's, is that the family fortune has direct links to organized crime (i.e., Kemper Marley, Gus Greenbaum, and so on). This isn't crackpot stuff, it's fact. Second, the businesses they created, a multi-million dollar distribution empire, does significant business with casinos. They did forty years ago, they do today.

Third, John McCain had no money in his first marriage to launch a political career. He left his wife and family (fact), moved to Arizona and married an heiress (fact), and the family forturne fueled his political ambitions (fact). Today, the Hensley family fortune is the engine behind McCain's ambitions, the family still does business with the gaming industry, and McCain...well, read the New York Times on McCain's gambling habits, and the relationships between his staff and the gaming industry.

The relevance of Keating? It couldn't be more relevant in light of the mess we're in. Keating was one of the architects of the S&L scandal. Another untold story is Keating's ties to the Republican Mafia in Cincinnati, to Lindner, Portman, and others.

Keating went to jail, along with Milken, Boesky, and others. It all began with the deregulation law Reagan signed, "Garn-St. Germain", that led to the looting.

When regulators started to take notice, McCain came to Keating's defense, telling them to back off. The result: the $200 billion dollar S&L scandal.

McCain's ties to organized crime, Keating, the S&L scandal, all merit study.

www.britanniaradio.co.uk

- fougasseu

October 5, 2008 at 9:22am

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You're conflating murder with property damage to score political points.  That's sickening.

- Simon Greenwood

October 5, 2008 at 9:26am

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Tim: "That's why Ayers and Keating will be left to 527s and blogs.  Neither campaign is going to openly pursue this stuff, since they both know the other side also has nuclear weapons."

The Palin already has already begun going down this road.

Channy: "if you've got enough money (as Ayers' family does) you can get away with anything in America."

Is it possible for you to be more dishonest?  The Repugs have spent the last thirty years fucking the middle class and the poor and borrowing from China to enrich the rich, and you have the gall to quote the "Left" about the rich being able to get away with anything?

And Rhubs is right: if Ayers is a terrorist and a threat, Bush should so something about it - surely he has no compunctions about raping the Constitution for the good of the country, so why stop at Ayers?  And if for the last eight years Ayers has been allowed to run around Chicago unmolested, what does that say about the zeal of the Repugnant Party in protecting America?  Honestly, who is more culpable - a man who attends a reception at a "terrorist's" house, or an administration armed with unlimited power that refuses to prosecute that "terrorist" - because his family has money?  

"Oh, screw you apologists."  Isn't it just like a Repug?  For more than a year you have been coolly distorting and taunting, and now that the end is nigh, you too are going batshit.  Which is it Channy, that get's your goat: is it the thought that a Democrat (any Democrat) is going to win, that someone with more intelligence than a mentally challenge ape going to be in the White House, or that an uppity n****r is going to beat the crap out of a "War Hero"?  

- icarusr

October 5, 2008 at 9:28am

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...If Ayers is really a "terrorist," then why the hell has the Bush administration not locked the man up? The executive branch has ample authority, some of it actually legal, to detain terrorists, including U.S. citizens, on an indefinite, preventive basis...

This line of reasoning is so breathtakingly flawed one  barely knows where to begin. It conflates is and was; it fails to be clear about the ontological status of past heinous criminality; is factually misbegotten; it conflates a failed criminal prosecution with innocence; and it allows a knee jerk hatred of Bush to invade the fragile precincts of fact and of logicnly  to explode them.

_______

...So what?  I expect that.  It's one of the few "arguments" that McCain has still hanging around....

Some of this pithy comment confuses me. What do you expect Ironyroad: a push back against the NYT? And so you expect it? Does that allow you to thereby simply to dismiss the substance of the push back as just so much right wing hackery that you cannot be bothered to read?

I think we both agree that the connection between Ayers, which the NYT probably understates some, forms no telling argument in substance aaginst Obama and hence the quotation marks around "arguments": they don't call him ironyroad for nothing!

_______________

The salient fact--but irrelevant, I'd argue to Obama's candidacy--is that Ayers, a rich, conscience- less prick, was a domestic terrorist who remains unrepentant about it and remains definable as one,  remains consitituted in significant part by what he did.

- basman

October 5, 2008 at 9:31am

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<<

But there is very little evidence in the record that Obama's ideological compass doesn't point in their direction.

>>

Actually there is **zero** evidence-- I have never heard Obama REMOTELY espouse the overthrow of capitalism, the military, the police and such institutions (a la Ayers) or call the Hiroshima bombs an intentional genocide and that God should damn America (a la Rev. Wright). Just because you SAY Obama is a radical consumed with hatred for the U.S. does not make it true. The worst they can come up with is Michelle's remark that she is proud of America for the first time in her life, which is about as similar to Weatherman philosophy as hardcore anal Triple XXX is to a Sweet Valley High teen romance.

- mcorey.geo

October 5, 2008 at 9:38am

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p.s. Let us not let the ontological status be subsumed by technical legal status as either the legal hair splitters amongst us would want or as the unthoughful amongst us are heedless of.

- basman

October 5, 2008 at 9:50am

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Look, the Republicans aren't worried about losing the election, they're terrified of going to jail.

If the Democrats sweep, there will be so many investigations, indictments, and in-depth analysis of the mess we're in, that we'll need to build more jails.

Keating, Boesky, Milken and quite a few others paid a lot of money to a lot of politicians to stay out of jail. But they still went to jail. Move over, Abramoff, make room for some more members of the GOP.

- fougasseu

October 5, 2008 at 10:03am

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Channy and basman,

So I take it that Obama's sin here is insufficient shunning of a former terrorist?  I'm curious as to your thoughts on Menachem Begin.  Should he have been shunned in his later career? The bombing of the King David Hotel hardly has a clean ontological status.  Just to clarify, my point is not "Ayers = Begin."  I'm curious as to how far your reasoning extends.

- AlanSP

October 5, 2008 at 10:32am

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mcorey.geo said

"Actually there is **zero** evidence"

"Obama was perfectly aware of Ayers’ radical views, since he read and publically endorsed, without qualification, Ayers’ book on juvenile crime. That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa’s apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country" corner.nationalreview.com/post

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 10:56am

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...So I take it that Obama's sin here is insufficient shunning of a former terrorist?  I'm curious as to your thoughts on Menachem Begin...

...Just to clarify, my point is not "Ayers = Begin...

That's a kind of unhelpful double speak.

You wouldn't want to compare the contexts of a pre 1948 fight for national status against quasi colonial rule with bombing buildings and killing people in sixties and early seventies in America, would  you?

So then what are you saying exactly?

How far does my reasoning extend: sui generis I'd say!

And who said anything about "shunning": my concern is to call a pig a pig in the proper swine calling context. How people choose to calibrate their relations with him is for them to decide and  be judged accordingly thereby.

- basman

October 5, 2008 at 10:57am

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AlanSP said

"So I take it that Obama's sin here is insufficient shunning of a former terrorist?  "

Obama didn't shun him at all.  Obama was funding Ayers’ "small schools" project, built around his philosophy of comparing America to South Africa’s apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country.

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 11:02am

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My favorite phrase in this thread: jacobt1's "radical education projects." You'd think Ayers wanted to turn elementary schools into madrassas! What did the Chicago Annenberg Challenge--on whose board Obama served alongside Ayers but not at his behest--propose to do? Among other things, the organization (funded by that radical group the Annenberg Foundation) challenged Chicago teacher's unions, seeking to give more voice and more power to parents and local school boards and less power to a centralized bureaucracy. Its reforms might have seemed radical to a union loyalist, perhaps, since many of them resemble reforms advocated by the political right.

I have no interest at all in being an Ayers apologist. In his youth he no doubt fancied himself a John Brown for the Vietnam Era, but a bomb is a bomb, and even if Ayers himself never intended to kill innocents, his work abetted the death of a policeman. He has made statements that seem to condemn his former militancy, e.g., “My memoir is from start to finish a condemnation of terrorism, of the indiscriminate murder of human beings, whether driven by fanaticism or official policy." But his repentance should be vocal, and unambiguous. And it isn't.

But Obama ain't William Ayers, and there's no indication that Obama felt any sort of sympathy for the Weathermen. In fact, he has throughout his career shown a skepticism toward militancy of all sorts. Furthermore, the education reforms and organizations with which Ayers associated himself in later life have nothing to do with his Vietnam-era militancy. Those reforms and organizations should no more be incriminated by association than should the Obama campaign.

We have to disavow reforming teachers' unions because Ayers happened to share our opinion?

- Nippers

October 5, 2008 at 11:32am

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basman,

Sorry, I was trying to respond to  two people at once, when I probably should have done so separately (Chan was the one talking about shunning).  But it's not "double speak" to ask about Begin without  implying that his actions and Ayers's were morally equivalent (in either the bad aspects or the good ones; peace with Egypt is a bigger accomplishment than education reform in Chicago).  The whole point of the question is to get at what you think the important differences are.  The hotel bombing was a terrorist action regardless of whether you think the goal worthwhile.  

- AlanSP

October 5, 2008 at 11:40am

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Nippers said

"But Obama ain't William Ayers, and there's no indication that Obama felt any sort of sympathy for the Weathermen. In fact, he has throughout his career shown a skepticism toward militancy of all sorts. "

I wonder how would you excuse a fundraiser for Obama at O. J. Simpson' home.  

But Obama ain't O. J. Simpson  , and there's no indication that Obama felt any sort of sympathy for O. J.  Simpson  . In fact, he has throughout his career shown a skepticism toward murders of all sorts.

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 12:03pm

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As far as political associates go, do they really want to go there.  Aren't the Palins's as closely associated with the Alaskan Indepence Party as Obama ever was with Ayers.  Some quotes from Joseph Vogler , the party's founder are below, from his Wikipedia entry

I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions."[1] [2]

The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won't be buried under their damn flag. I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." [3]

- stanmvp48

October 5, 2008 at 12:27pm

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The William Ayers that Richard Stern knows is a long-neutered radical whose wealthy father managed to dig a little hole in a mud bank where his son and daughter-in-law could lived and pretend to do good.  In their Glory Days, I suspected they succeeded in little more than helping to harden support for the Vietnam War among exactly the sort of blue-collar voters whose sons were dying in it.  Oh, and helping to supply a gun that killed a cop in a bungled bank robbery. (They might have gone to jail for the latter, but the Nixon Justice Department had conducted so much illegal surveillance on them that it infected the evidence of their involvement in the robbery.)  So yes, Ayers and Dohrn are scum.  Scum from money who, instead of doing the decent thing that rich, useless kids did in those days (i.e., get hooked on heroin and take a fatal overdose) decided to become Political.

As for Obama, he wanted to get ahead and do good in Chicago, and from what friends in Chicago have said, you can't do either without running into either Ayres or Dohrn.  I doubt, in private, he has any more respect for them than our friend Jacob, but they are gatekeepers to a lot of charity money, so why not use them.  It's as close to beinhg decent, useful human beings as they will ever get . . .

- norval13

October 5, 2008 at 12:55pm

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stanmvp48 said,

American people have a right to  know about Joseph Vogler and  Ayers as well as  Democratic part founders views about slavery.

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 12:58pm

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"Oh, screw you apologists."

Fine.  I'm not apologizing for anything or anyone.  I take the view, however, that guilt by association is something one should utilize with a lot of care.  Even leaving aside the very succinct point made by Mayor Daley, that you've got to look at a whole life, not just one part of it, if someone has committed or enabled some kind of major crime -- whether convicted in court or not -- then obviously there is a question as to why/when/how you associate with them, if you are running, or plan to run, for public office.  So let's look at it.

1.  Why?  Obama associated with Ayers in the context of a perfectly legal and perfectly unobjectionable foundation aimed at improving educational opportunity in the city of Chicago.

2.  When?  Obama associated with Ayers in the late 1990s/early 2000s; Ayer's real or presumed offenses took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Obama was a young kid of seven or eight.

3.  How?  Obama associated with Ayers in a way that did not and does not imply agreement with Ayer's Weathermen ideology or activities (as a couple of people have noted, Obama doesn't appear to have any time for rich-kid political militancy).

I'd suggest that such questions, legitimately posed, have been answered many many times.  And their only function now is as a smear opportunity for an increasingly desperate McCain campaign.  In fact, one wonders why the NYT chose now to dive back into the story after it's been long since dealt with -- I hope we're not looking at the new version of the obsessional Whitewater persecution of the Clintons during the 1990s?

- ironyroad

October 5, 2008 at 1:43pm

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Look, I'm sorry to be harsh about this but the last time I checked the only deaths directly attributable to  the Weather Underground were - well, the members of the Weather Underground who blew themselves up in my old neighborhood ... And good riddance, Ayers and his friends were clowns, they couldn't matter less.

- arsonplus

October 5, 2008 at 1:47pm

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Last year if you asked most Americans about the Weathermen they would have thought it was a rock group. I had no idea last year who William Ayers was, and to have expected a political nobody that Obama was to have vetted every constituent before he went into their homes is insane.When Obama found out in 2001 he distanced himself and condemned Ayers. These arguments about toothless radical old hippies and the 60's culture war is ancient history for most people under 50. McCain is trapped in that time period, viewing Iraq as the opportunity to get Vietnam right.

And anything that Palin says is irrelevant, she is a nitwit, in 4 years she will be stunned to find herself quickly defeated in the Republican party primaries.

- blackton

October 5, 2008 at 2:34pm

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allansp:

It is *arguable* that at the time the King David was not a hotel but rather British Military headquarters and hence a legitimate target. I have read that before the bombing two phone calls were made warning about the bombing: one to the French Embassy, (which admitted it later), and one directly to the British. But the British could not believe that the Irgun could penetrate their command center and did not evacuate it. On the theory that terrorism is action against civilians, a case can be made the King david bombing does not qualify as terrorism. It is argued that Irgun did not make it policy to randomly kill civilians as a general proposition. The issue is framed as to whether Irgun was a terrorist organization or an organization of freedom fighters, did their best to avoid killing British policemen and internally disciplined—sometimes by death—those that violated this stricture. Irgun did go after those in the British constabulary and military who were involved in tortuting or killing its members. In one case, after British soldiers blew an apartment building in Jerusalem killing nearly 200 Israeli civilians, Irgun retaliated as a warning, blowing a British military train killing some British soldiers. That, it is argued,  achieved its purpose stopped British attacks on Israeli civilians, even as the British police and military continued to supply the Arabs with weapons and ammunition to use against Israeli civilians. When the Irgun underground decided to blow up the King David Hotel, a British headquarters, they warned the British half an hour earlier, with two phone calls, one to the French Embassy, (which admitted it later), but the British could not believe that the Irgun could penetrate their command center and did not evacuate it. The arrogance of the British police caused the death of many people, including civilians.

How different are this context and these circumstances—however much open to debate—from Ayers’s and others’  infantilist but homicidal adventurism—which Ayers does not himself repent, but, rather, criticizes himself shortly after 9/11 for not having done more?

- basman

October 5, 2008 at 2:37pm

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basman asks:  "Does that allow you to thereby simply to dismiss the substance of the push back as just so much right wing hackery that you cannot be bothered to read?"

Er . . . yes.  The only reason the story has any existence at all is that Obama is running for president.  There's no "objective" relevance that I can see (e.g. if Ayers were running for office himself), so why would I go searching for "substance" among right-wing blogs whose main function is to help out the campaign by smearing Obama?

- ironyroad

October 5, 2008 at 2:41pm

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basman: By your reasoning Ayers wasn't a terrorist because he never took action against civilians.  He took action against a statue and some empty buildings.  He has expressed regret for using bombing, and the only thing he said he wished he did more was oppose the Vietnam War.  You're using talking points straight from Limbaugh without checking the facts.

- Simon Greenwood

October 5, 2008 at 2:57pm

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Icarsusr writes, "Is it possible for you to be more dishonest?  The Repugs have spent the last thirty years fucking the middle class and the poor and borrowing from China to enrich the rich, and you have the gall to quote the "Left" about the rich being able to get away with anything?"

Ick, from Lyndon Johnson through Barney Frank & Chris Dodd, it has been the Democratic Party that has been "fucking the middle class".

Fannie & Freddie along with local banks were blackmailed by the Democrats to make ridiculous mortgage loans to poor people who could not afford pay them.  This to buy the votes of the poor for the Democrats.

I will agree that Wall Street was complicit.  Once they saw money was going to be made by packaging, securitizing, and reselling those loans around the world, they and everybody in a position to make a killing on the insanity forced on us all by the Democrats were glad to play the game.

Now the middle class will pay for the excesses of the Democrats, the poor, and the Wall Street class.

but the fucking of the middle class originated and was most powerfully pushed along by the Democratic Party.  They used the power of the federal government as a gun at the head of the banks to do loans they never otherwise would have done.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 3:12pm

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icarusur & rhubarbs:  "And Rhubs is right: if Ayers is a terrorist and a threat, Bush should so something about it - surely he has no compunctions about raping the Constitution for the good of the country,"

Oh, what a specious line of crap.  Ayers & Dohrn are ex-terrorists, unrepentant terrorists and unpunished terrorists.  

They were never prosecuted because good evidence against them was tainted by mis-handling of the evidence by the police.

In other words, they got off on a technicality.

If the Bush admin were the gestapo state the Left tries to claim, they would have re-submitted the evidence, tainted or not, and used it as an opportunity to throw Ayers & Dohrn into Gitmo.  Or, at least try them domestically.

But this admin is not a gestapo and did not do that.  Not to mention that the focus is on Jihadhists these days, not aging Weathermen.

But, declawed or not, Ayers remains a radical, an unrepentant, and in power to influence to the far Left the entire educational system.  That's more dangerous to our future than any bomb he planted at the Pentagon.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 3:18pm

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icarusr writes, "Which is it Channy, that get's your goat: is it the thought that a Democrat (any Democrat) is going to win, that someone with more intelligence than a mentally challenge ape going to be in the White House, or that an uppity n****r is going to beat the crap out of a 'War Hero'?"

Well, ick, since Obama is half white and half black, I guess he's just as much an uppity white guy as an uppity black one.  So screw your phony racist crap.

I am no more batshit against Obama now than I was six months ago.  Like many millions of Americans, I believe he is heavily tainted buy Leftist thought of that infected the mainstream Democratic Party starting in 1968.  He is potentially very dangerous to the future of the country and if he wins, it will be the beginning of a new and epic struggle for the soul of America.  

I expect, should Obama win, that 2009 will be the beginning of an era akin to 1933-1980.  A half century or longer civil war.  With the likelihood of large and existentially threatening foreign wars.  Iran being the most likely locus of same.  China owns so much of our debt that she may be more partner than adversary.  But, we'll see about that, too.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 3:25pm

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AlanSP writes, "...I'm curious as to your thoughts on Menachem Begin.  Should he have been shunned in his later career? The bombing of the King David Hotel hardly has a clean ontological status."

As a matter of fact, I have often thought of Begin in the context of Ayers/Dohrn.  the circumstances obviously are somewhat analogous.  And Begin killed a lot more people with his bomb.

But there are so many differences, that although it would make a very interesting discussion, it takes us off on a tangent too far from the focus of this discussion.

Let's just say that the British were driven out of Palestine in part by Israeli guerillas seeking a Jewish state.  The Jews won.  

But for reasons of larger geopolitical questions to do with the Cold War and oil politics and solidarity with a democratic state surrounded by tyrannies, the British soon forgave the rebellion and supported Israel.  

Slightly analogous to the relationship between Britain and the United States after the War of 1812.  Essentially a fairly close one except when Britain considered supporting the Confederacy because their textile industry needed the cotton.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 3:35pm

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channy, still living in the 60's fighting hippie wars? No evidence has been submitted that Obama knew who Ayers was, knew what he did, nor endorse any of his radical agenda. When he did find out he condemned him. Do you know the personal history of everyone of your neighbors, know all of their secrets?

And you are wrong about one other thing, it wasn't giving mortgages to people who couldn't afford them that caused this mess, the problem is the slump in both the housing market and wages for the poor and middle class. If housing prices had continued to rise, poor people could have sold the house and gone back to renting. That has been going on for generations, people lose jobs etc. The equity they built saved them, now there is no equity available. And if the wages had risen, well they could have possibly afforded it, but rich scumbags were more interested in feathering their nests instead of paying decent wages.

The Republican betrayal of the middle class is at the root of all of our problems, blaming poor people for not wanting to be rent slaves is pretty horrendous. Damn poor people should live in tents, right? The American dream, only for the rich and powerful, ordinary people need not apply.

- blackton

October 5, 2008 at 3:57pm

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Chan, you do seem to reside in an alternate reality. The only "existentially threatening" foreign wars we are likely to face in the future would involve a resurgent Russia or China, or a financial battle against our creditors. Iran can be existentially threatening to us only if we try to attack them, and they shut down oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz in response. Or is that the threat you are referring to there?

Can you enlighten us, without referring to smears, how Obama will be so dangerous to the country? I hope you are not simply referring to the paranoid fantasies of an endless stream of terrorists who will suddenly infiltrate our country because they are emboldened by Obama's election. Or are you just afraid that something approximating universal health care, or the prospect of the investor class paying 1990s tax rates, will be the ruination of the country?

- JEFF FREY

October 5, 2008 at 4:32pm

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blackton is right, particlarly his broad view of this, at 7:34 pm.

There is nothing to add.

- psantillana

October 5, 2008 at 4:58pm

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basman,

There were more civilian casualties  from the hotel bombing than from the sum total of the Weathermen's activities.  And neither group was aiming to kill civilians.  Irgun did send warning messages, but that doesn't change the fact that they killed civilians and policemen.  And it would be less than accurate to say that they were repentant about it. (they were repentant about accidentally killing Jews, but not so much the others there).  Plus, the attack was celebrated on its 60th anniversary.

None of which changes what Begin did later in his life.  It's possible to acknowledge and condemn Begin for the attacks (as Ben Gurion did), while also acknowledging and praising Begin for his role in what is probably the most important  peace agreement in Israeli history.

- AlanSP

October 5, 2008 at 5:02pm

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...Er . . . yes....

Er, uhm, ah, and so many other throat clearings, why don'y you pay attention to what I wrote in answer to you. I conceded that the Obama Ayers connection is irrelevant to the campaign in substance. But an issue is whether Obama/his campaign is understatting his connection with Ayers. To the extent that that is an issue--and it is a political issue, though not an issue of substance--the there is the NYT version of that connection and opposing views of it coming from the right. It in insensible on the one hand to claim, as you do, that the NYT is dispositive and then admit that you dismiss without reading opposing views that criticise the NYT, on the basis that the issue is irrelevant. Sorry Irony that does not compute.

- basman

October 5, 2008 at 5:12pm

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ironyroad writes, "...In fact, one wonders why the NYT chose now to dive back into the story after it's been long since dealt with..."

I suspect, irony, that they dove into it at this particular juncture in order to try to defuse the issue soon before the election.  They are leveraging their legitimacy, residual though it may be, in Obama's cause.

Which is what the MSM has been doing for the man for at least since January.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 5:40pm

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arsonplus writes, "...the only deaths directly attributable to  the Weather Underground were - well, the members of the Weather Underground who blew themselves up in my old neighborhood ... And good riddance, Ayers and his friends were clowns, they couldn't matter less."

While I agree with your concluding sentiment, arsonplus, Weathermen have been convicted in the death of a policeman in a bungled robbery.  A couple of close friends of Ayers/Dohrnan are serving life sentences.  The Ayers' are raising the son of one of them.

Meanwhile, it was not for lack of trying.  They set several bombs in their salad days.  If you burn down a house and nobody dies, it's still arson.  Bombing and arson, deaths or not, are still very major crimes.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 5:46pm

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JEFF FREY said:

"Can you enlighten us, without referring to smears, how Obama will be so dangerous to the country? "

Facts are not smear.

" I hope you are not simply referring to the paranoid fantasies of an endless stream of terrorists who will suddenly infiltrate our country because they are emboldened by Obama's election"

Would you have a problem with President  Ayers? Do you think he would allow  " endless stream of terrorists"

blackton said

"blaming poor people for not wanting to be rent slaves is pretty horrendous. "

Declaration of Independence says pursuit of happiness . It doesn't say that everybody has a right to get a No Down Payment Mortgage

"And if the wages had risen, well they could have possibly afforded it, but rich scumbags were more interested in feathering their nests instead of paying decent wages."

How old are you? Do you have any savings,  401K, or pension  fund.

If so, are you a rich scumbag more interested in feathering your  nest instead of paying decent wages. I'm a not very rich scumbag more interested in feathering my nest instead of paying decent wages. When I shop I more interested in cheap prices instead of paying decent wages.

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 5:53pm

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A lot of reminiscent of many of the Left's double standards.  Ex-communists are OK.  Ex-nazis are shunned.  A Pentagon and Capitol bomber is ok.  An abortion clinic bomber is anathema.

Of course, the latter is presumed a bible thumping redneck.  the former is presume a member of the intellectual "anti-establishment" class.  

So as in everything else with the Left, there is always a big class component at work.

Oh, and I almost forgot, Fidel and Che and Mao, always heroes to the Left as well.  What have you guys got against Nazis?  Except that they had these racial obsessions, they were no worse than your idols.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 5:57pm

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blackton writes, "...There's no "objective" relevance that I can see (e.g. if Ayers were running for office himself)..."

The "objective relevance," blackie, is that it is of paramount concern what a president actually believes as opposed to what he claims to believe in a speech, or is smart enough to stay silent about.

Given the pattern of associates-- Ayers, Wright, the crazy Catholic priest, Revko-- there is plenty to worry about in Obama's friend's and associates, close advisors, and monetarily helpful friends.

Would I worry hard about all this if I were invited by Obama to a pickup game or to join him at the local bar?  No.  But he is asking us to put the ultimate trust in his hands.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 6:02pm

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simon greenwood writes, "...By your reasoning Ayers wasn't a terrorist because he never took action against civilians."

Uh, Simon, the Capitol building is occupied almost entirely by civilians.  The cop that was killed was a civilian.  

Ayers viewed himself as a revolutionary and his goal, though delusional, was the overthrow of the legitimate elected government.

Begin, whether justified or not, was looking to overthrow an outside power that stood between his movement and its goals of an independent Jewish state.  

I always disliked Begin for killing Brits, for a variety of reasons.  But, he wasn't a traitor.  And most particularly, he was not, like Ayers, a traitor to our country.  

Hapless and stupid though Ayers may be, that is what he is.  But, "traitor to our country" is not a label that has carried much weight with the Left because they don't much like our country.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 6:08pm

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Jeff Frey writes, "...Iran can be existentially threatening to us only if we try to attack them, and they shut down oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz in response. "

Absolutely wrong.  And you sound like Obama.  Iran, should she acquire nukes and provide them to Jihadhists absolutely could threaten our existence.  

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 6:10pm

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blackton writes, "...it wasn't giving mortgages to people who couldn't afford them that caused this mess, the problem is the slump in both the housing market and wages for the poor and middle class. If housing prices had continued to rise, poor people could have sold the house and gone back to renting."

blackie, fueled by irresponsible lending practices, the value of homes were rising at up to 16% a year.  The historical average is around 2-3%.  

There was no way these increases were sustainable.  It was obvious to anybody who wished to look that this was an immense bubble headed for a crash.  A bubble driven by Democratic politicians buying the votes of the poor, and Wall Street types securitizing the ridiculous loans.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 6:18pm

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"Sorry Irony that does not compute."

Apologies if I wasn't clear, basman.  If you care to, read my longer post above at 6:43 PM.  I don't know how more simply I can put it.  The how/when/why on the Ayers issue has been -- legitimately -- posed, along with many other questions, and subsequently answered.  That bit's important:  and answered.  Therefore I regard the matter as now nothing more than a McCain smear with the buzz word "terrorism" and therefore, equally, I have no desire to read hatefilled screeds on rightwing nutter websites -- maybe because life is short and filling it with paranoia and resentment seems so, I don't know, counterproductive, perhaps?

Channy -- that wasn't blackton, it was me with the "no 'objective' relevance."  My position is simply that if Ayers was running for office, his past would inevitably be independently an issue -- indeed, if he were a senior adviser to Obama, it would be there also.  As neither of those things is the case, I don't understand how Obama serving on an organization's management board with Ayers is (a) relevant or (b) in some way proves that Obama believes the same things as Ayers beyond the limited frame of that organization's purpose.  In the normal world at least, people can come together for limited purposes who have very different backgrounds and political ideas.

- ironyroad

October 5, 2008 at 6:23pm

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ironyroad said

"I don't understand how Obama serving on an organization's management board with Ayers is (a) relevant "

If you really want to understand, read corner.nationalreview.com/post

Otherwise, be honest and admit that you don't want to understand and you don't care.

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 7:01pm

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Chan says "Iran, should she acquire nukes and provide them to Jihadhists absolutely could threaten our existence. "

My answer to that is that Pakistan has nukes already, and its security services have long had a cozy relationship with jihadists. Not to mention having a chronically-unstable government and a history of nuclear proliferation via A.Q. Khan. Yet nobody claims that Pakistan poses an existential threat to the US. Yes, I know the Iranian government is crazier than any Pakistanis in power, and even more millenial than Sarah Palin's old church,  but the cleric who really run the show there are not completely nuts. They know that a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists implies the involvement of a state, and that any state involved in that risks nuclear annihilation.

All of which is somewhat beside the point, because you have assumed without any supporting argument that Obama in the Presidency will make it more likely for the Iranians to get nuclear weapons. I do not find that convincing at all.

McCain may talk a nice game about a League of Democracies applying sanctions without having the Chinese and Russians veto them, but that is pure fantasy because McCain is not going to convince the world's democracies to follow him in forming a shadow UN under the direction of the USA. Certainly he is not going to do that by being more militant than Bush. You might be unaware how thoroughly in the toilet our reputation is today among the citizens of the world's democracies -- they are not going to follow us in any direction that is not a complete break with Bush, and I do not see McCain being capable of offering that. But Obama would.

- JEFF FREY

October 5, 2008 at 8:21pm

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I try to avoid replying to cut-and-paste trolls, but Jacobt1, Bill Ayers is not running for President. Just in case you hadn't figured that out. And your most recent post with the link to NRO, simply shows that Jonah Goldberg is full of sh*t on this topic, which is no surprise since he is on most topics. Have you ever served on a non-profit or corporate board? I've served on two non-profit boards and a quasi-board before that, individual board members don't get to decide who else to allow on the board. Governance rules vary, but in no well-run organization does the board dictate its own membership. You deal with the people who are on the board, and try to do the business the board needs to get done. You act like a professional. If you don't like someone on the board or disagree with them, you still have to do that job you agreed to do.

This whole "issue" is simply a smear by proximity. Period.

- JEFF FREY

October 5, 2008 at 8:28pm

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Jeff Frey writes, "...My answer to that [existential threat of a nuclear Iran] is that Pakistan has nukes already, and its security services have long had a cozy relationship with jihadists."

Jeff Frey writes, "...you have assumed without any supporting argument that Obama in the Presidency will make it more likely for the Iranians to get nuclear weapons. I do not find that convincing at all."

My first premise is predicated on an eventual technology advance.  Nukes alone don't pose the danger without delivery systems.  Iran is developing ICBMs, but I worry less about that.  They wouldn't dare hit us with a missile because we could immediately know the source and would retaliate.

The future danger is when Iran both has nukes and develops miniature suitcase sized nukes, which will take more time.  There would be the same danger if Pakistan or N.Korea had that technology, too.  

Because then a nation with such tech could provide it to suicide bombers who could do existential damage to the U.S. or Western Europe if they hit the right strategic targets at the right time.

Not knowing for sure who the source of these attacks were, we would either be constricted in our ability to retaliate.  Or, we would have to instate a NEOMADD policy under which we would assume any such suitcase nuke attack came from Iran, or maybe Iran, N. Korea, and ?

Then we would have to retaliate against all of them indiscriminately and massively destroying two or three nations.

Not a very palatable prospect.  Do we have the stomach for something so draconian even if we suffered a devastating nuclear attack.

There is no way to know what we would do until it happens.  I assume that think tanks in and out of the Pentagon are pondering what we would do.  It is also likely that a Bush/Cheney admin would have a different take on this than an Obama/Biden one or even a McCain/Palin.  

This whole dilemma has never been publicly discussed by any elected leader.

As to my assumptions, I don't necessarily see Obama as being more likely to cause us to be engaged in a large war.  I think any future administration, especially if we suffer the kind of global dislocation created by the Great Depression, will have an even more heightened prospect of a large war, for the same reasons the last Depression helped set the state for WW2

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 9:04pm

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JEFF FREY said:

"I've served on two non-profit boards and a quasi-board before that, individual board members don't get to decide who else to allow on the board."

Ayers did  dictate the membership

"Another exchange of letters between Gregorian and Adele Simmons, then President of the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation and an advisor to Ayers, confirms the active personal role of Ayers in selecting board members."

globallabor.blogspot.com/.../obamaayers-update-letters-show-bill.html

- jacobt1

October 5, 2008 at 9:10pm

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Jeff Frey, I've served on non-profit boards as well, and don't disagree with your premise.

But,

a) before he served on a board with Ayers, he sought the man out for political support and allowed Ayers to stage fundraisers for him in Ayers' home.

b) since the whole point of the board they were jointly serving on was educational "reform" and being as this board was much under the influence of Ayers, the fact that Obama was complicit in reform lead by a radical and a terrorist would in saner times have raised eyebrows so high that Obama would long ago have been disqualified from getting anywhere near the Oval Office.

We don't live in sane times.  And people have lost all sense of who is worthy or right to be president of this country.  It is a great devolution of standards and represents the ascent of a great corruption over the land.   A corruption that the financial crisis proves has been in the ascendance for awhile.

- ChanRobt

October 5, 2008 at 9:14pm

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Jeff, it's not going to work -- jacob in his various iterations (presumably more than one person works under that handle) is a cut'n'paste artist who has no capacity to discuss issues or consider problems in a thoughtful way.  His own fragmentary sentences are borderline illiterate, his only readable posts are those that contain what he lifts from other sites (sometimes not even admitting where it comes from).

His function as I see it is to try to fill up liberal-leaning discussion boards with whatever is the anti-Obama smear du jour.

- ironyroad

October 5, 2008 at 9:24pm

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"We don't live in sane times.  And people have lost all sense of who is worthy or right to be president of this country.  It is a great devolution of standards and represents the ascent of a great corruption over the land.   A corruption that the financial crisis proves has been in the ascendance for awhile."

Channy: you're making sense, for once.  W was the greatest insult to the US people and to the rest of the Free World - thanks to five judges of the Supreme Court, his brother in Florida and that Harris woman, the US because a joke around the world, losing all moral authority to lecture other countries about their democratic processes.  Then came "you are either with us or with the terrorists"; ultra right wing friends of mine here in Canada lost all respect and turned away from him.  I won't mention the rape of the US Constitution, the travesty that was teh 2004 elections, the "Fourth Branch of Government", the Gonzales fiasco ... and now POWPOW and the Palin, a tragicomedy duo who would not get elected in a properly run school election.

You're right, we don't live in sane times, because if we did, the charlatan McCain would be in a senior's home and the Pitbull would still be the major of a city of 9000 - yeah, the Great Executive Experience that you love so much.

- icarusr

October 6, 2008 at 12:25am

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Jacon: "Otherwise, be honest and admit that you don't want to understand and you don't care."

Otherwise, be honest and admit that you don't understand and you're too stupid to care.

- icarusr

October 6, 2008 at 12:27am

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Chan, thanks for a thoughtful response.

(Iran) There is a long road between enriching uranium and suitcase nukes. Given the imperative and huge defense budgets of the Cold War it took the US and the Soviet Union about 3 decades to go from the first bomb to the suitcase nuke. No doubt the knowledge that it can be done can shorten the development cycle, but by your reasoning the existential threat is at least a couple of decades away. By then we are well beyond the next administration in any case. My own suspicion is that 20 years from now the issues and threats facing us may be completely different than today. Three obvious possibilities would be astronomical oil prices if oil production can't keep pace with economic growth, unexpectedly severe impacts of climate change, or the (perhaps more obvious) financial crisis once we actually have to pay the debts we have incurred (mostly under Republican presidents, I must add).

(Ayers) But of course Ayers did not achieve his present status by trading on his past as a terrorist. Like it or not, he was on that board due to his education work. I'm not particularly interested in defending Ayers himself, but you have to admit that he has been doing things that were NOT terrorism for 35+ years now. The Weather Underground is better known today as a weather forecast website than as a 1960s student radical group. Obama has condemned Ayers' radical past. What more can you really expect? I understand that this is chance to apply a smear, but I really don't see this as anything but taking an opportunity to smear.

- JEFF FREY

October 6, 2008 at 12:39am

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Of course -- McCain and Palin have almost nothing left.  Now, it has to be "Obama's a terrorist, he's not really a patriot, he's against the troops, and blah blah blah."

I suspect that swift-boating isn't going to work so well in 2008.  We'll see.

- ironyroad

October 6, 2008 at 12:53am

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"McCain and Palin have almost nothing left."

Well, if Rich Lowry is to be believed, Palin can still pull it off if she offers a blow job or a lap dance to every male in America.  Won't put it past her, frankly - a trollop who winks like that would do anything for the Naval Observatory, or a pair of silk stockings.

- icarusr

October 6, 2008 at 1:05am

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Jeff Frey writes, "...Given the imperative and huge defense budgets of the Cold War it took the US and the Soviet Union about 3 decades to go from the first bomb to the suitcase nuke."

Jeff, I believe the suitcase nukes existed by the early 70s.  That's just 25 years after Alamogordo.

Meanwhile, the technology for suitcase nukes already exists.  Iran wouldn't have to invent one from scratch.  And they're right next door to the old Soviet Union within which borders there are people who might be got to who know how to make them.  

- ChanRobt

October 7, 2008 at 1:51am

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icarusr writes, "Well, if Rich Lowry is to be believed, Palin can still pull it off if she offers a blow job or a lap dance to every male in America.  Won't put it past her, frankly - a trollop who winks like that would do anything for the Naval Observatory..."

I don't recall you being as puerile as this, ick.  I'll have to re-read some of your posts and see if this descent was foreshadowed.

I thought you Lefties abhorred "sexism".

- ChanRobt

October 7, 2008 at 1:53am

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