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Go Home Well, That's One Way To Talk About Ayers

THE PLANK OCTOBER 8, 2008

Well, That's One Way To Talk About Ayers

BY JASON ZENGERLE

Jonathan Martin notes that the McCain campaign's position on Bill Ayers is not that McCain won't talk about him. Rather, McCain won't talk about Ayers, unless he's asked about Ayers. Which is presumably why McCain sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity this afternoon and, as Jonathan reports, "responded with gusto to an Ayers question." Tomorrow, McCain will start wearing a sandwich board that reads "Ask Me About Bill Ayers."

--Jason Zengerle 

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22 comments

What do you mean "tomorrow"? You didn't see the sandwich board leaning against his stool on the stage during the debate?!

- GSpinks

October 8, 2008 at 5:18pm

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In related news, McCain announced that he would only tell your child the truth about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy if your child asks him whether they're real.

But here's what I want to know: If by chance someone asks McCain about, you know, his own policy plans, will he talk about that for once? That would be nice, with or without gusto.

- rhubarbs

October 8, 2008 at 5:26pm

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Come on, Jason.  Talking to Hannity doesn't count.

www.thedailyshow.com/.../index.jhtml

- WayneJM

October 8, 2008 at 5:38pm

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t’s up to voters to decide how much weight they want to put on Senator Obama’s association with Bill Ayers. Some may believe it should matter a lot, some may believe it should matter a little, and some may believe it shouldn’t matter at all. But that association, like the associations with the Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko, are part of Obama’s history and deserve to be discussed in a temperate, reasonable, factual way. Mark Halperin attempted to do just that. Team Obama’s evasive and clumsy response simply raises additional doubts about its candidate and his past. If there’s a simple explanation to Obama’s past associations, it would be helpful to hear what it is.

www.commentarymagazine.com/.../36922

- jacobt1

October 8, 2008 at 6:22pm

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Are you people serious? A simple explanation is that the man was a radical over a generation ago. When Obama met him, he had already changed his life in its entirety. He is a man who shuns the spotlight and works hard for educational reform in a city very much in need of it. Goodness...when are folks going to let the sixties go.

- mcommod

October 8, 2008 at 7:03pm

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educational reform  we can believe in:

Meanwhile, others have started digging into Ayers’ recent actions and expressed beliefs. Sol Stern opined in an article for City Journal that ‘[c]alling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer… For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.”’

Ayers went on to say, Stein points out that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

‘Ayers and his education school comrades,’ Stein went on to write, ‘are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children with the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive. As a leader of this growing “reform” movement, Ayers was recently elected vice president for curriculum of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s largest organization of ed school professors and researchers.’

poligazette.com/.../obama-says-didnt-know-of-ayers-terrorist-past

- jacobt1

October 8, 2008 at 8:08pm

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That is shocking stuff. But I believe that all of this has occurred after he and Obama stopped associating. I think they haven't even been in the same room since 2001.

Further, there isn't a shred of evidence that Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright or Toney Rezko influenced Obama. You may think Obama is wrong on the issues...perfectly acceptable. But I don't think that anyone actually believes Barack Obama nestles a secret hatred of the country in his heart.

- mcommod

October 8, 2008 at 8:28pm

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mcommod,

Bill Ayers  was a terrorist. Than several years later he brought  Obama to work together to improve education. Then again Bill Ayers   became an education extremist  This doesn't compute.

- jacobt1

October 8, 2008 at 8:54pm

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"Further, there isn't a shred of evidence that Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright or Toney Rezko influenced Obama"

They were three most important people in his life not counting his family.

- jacobt1

October 8, 2008 at 8:58pm

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jacob is a racist, anti-semitic troll who said all black people are stupid and berated the Marty Perez's jewishness. He is tiresome scum.

- blackton

October 8, 2008 at 9:23pm

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In addition, Jacob on one posting lamented that Hitler did not finish the job against Jewish people. He is an anti-semite of the first order.

- blackton

October 8, 2008 at 9:36pm

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oh wait, Jacob never did say that about the holocaust, but perhaps he could understand how reprehensible are his lies if someone would say something similar. However he did claim blacks are stupid and did mock the jewishness of Marty Peretz

- blackton

October 8, 2008 at 9:38pm

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I just think no one can actually point to a statement, philosophy, program or action of Barack Obama that seems to be influenced by the three 'associates'. It is just tiresome to hear Obama being held to account for the actions, statements and philosophies of others.

And I am not offended by him thinking Blacks (which includes me) are stupid. Sticks and stones and all of that....

- mcommod

October 8, 2008 at 10:45pm

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mcommod said:

"It is just tiresome to hear Obama being held to account for the actions, statements and philosophies of others

He doesn't have the record of the actions.

"I just think no one can actually point to a statement, philosophy, program or action of Barack Obama that seems to be influenced by the three 'associates'

The New Republic has reported that Obama joined Trinity around this time because he “was taken with Wright’s worldview.” The reporting of NR’s Stanley Kurtz has revealed that in the late 1980s, Wright’s worldview entailed a burning hatred of Western capitalism and a belief that black assimilation into the middle class was a form of self-enslavement to an irredeemably racist system.

corner.nationalreview.com/post

- jacobt1

October 9, 2008 at 12:48am

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Well, That's Anoter Way To Talk About Ayers:

So, did he know who Ayers was when he went to his home in 1995? "My understanding is that when he went there, he did not," Axelrod said. Reporters noticed that clause -- "my understanding is" -- and pressed further. Did Axelrod ask Obama if he knew Ayers' history when he first met with him? "Yes," Axelrod said. And he did not know? "Yes," Axelrod said. "That's what I've said -- I answered the question when I was asked the other day. But no one's suggesting that he never knew. I mean that's not -- we weren't offering that. I wasn't offering it -- I was asked a question that you just asked me and just answered it. I wasn't making an argument about it."

I'm not arguing either. I'm just curious.

blogs.suntimes.com/.../abcs_jake_tapper_tries_to_pin.html

- jacobt1

October 9, 2008 at 2:44am

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There is an interesting piece on John Mccain's connection to Gordon Liddy on "the Atlantic" website which basically point out how silly this guilt by association is...

If Palin was a democrat she might just have accused McCain of Masterminding watergate....

- joelandersson

October 9, 2008 at 3:27am

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Listen blackton, don't lie about jacobt1. You compel me to defend this sorry shmuck out of Yom Kippur. I don't like jacobt1's politics, as most of the time he's a propaganda hack. BUT: there's no need for you guys to further Obama's cause by defending Ayers or Peretz.

Ayers is a prime-time bastard. Now I agree that Obama does not bear the responsibility of the action of Ayers. But to call Ayers a good person is truly revolting. The man is not only an unrepentant terrorist, but a scum that loves totalitarianism whenever he sees it. That's precisely why he likes Chavez.

Second, calling jacobt1 an anti-Semite is a bald lie. Your reasoning is that jacobt1 berated Peretz's Jewishness. So what? I berated it too, and with good reason. Peretz regularly promotes an anti-Semitic journalist named Maureen Dowd. She is a columnist for New York Times and has explained many times how the Jooz control the US government. Moreover, Martin Peretz often makes a fuss about how much he loves Israel - yet when it comes to defending politicians that are very hostile to Israel, he often defends them. Martin Peretz is as much a genuine supporter of Israel as a three-dollar bill. Take that from an Israeli citizen.

I am as liberal as you can get. That doesn't mean I have to tolerate bastards like Ayers or anti-Semites like Maureen Dowd, or a slimy guy like Martin Peretz.

Obama would be a much better president than McCain, and in any case this country needs the Republican party as much as it needs a bullet in the head. But there's no need to spout nonsense to make that happen. Truth suffices.

- sleepyavl

October 9, 2008 at 4:03am

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Actually, what I heard is that Obama bought yellow cake uranium from Ayers and some aluminum tubes only good for atom bombs.  And I should mention that Obama has links to terrorist organizations because he had been in the vicintiy of Ayers on more than one occasion.  We need to search and seize at, and bring democracy to, the Obama residence or the smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud -- yes, I said a mushroom cloud.   And whatever we do about this, it should be done with little planning and foresight and premised on the assumption that the Obama family will be happy to have us living in their home.

- Nusholtz

October 9, 2008 at 4:48am

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On the extensive details of Obama's almost non-existent linkage with Ayers where the "Annenberg Challenge" is concerned, see my 1:12 AM and 2:22 AM entries on Kevin Drum's  www.washingtonmonthly.com/.../015094.php thread.  I have no room to reprint them here.

As for Obama playing dodge'em regarding his toleration of Ayers at all: that argument would be much more convincing if McCain hadn't been playing EXACTLY the same game for years, more enthusiastically, with G. Gordon Liddy.  See Steve Chapman's May piece in the Chicago Tribune (  www.chicagotribune.com/.../chi-oped0504chapmanmay04,0,6238795.column ), with the Wikipedia entry on the more interesting highlights of Liddy's career as a useful prelude.  In the Slimy Friends Competition, we have pretty much of a draw.  (Granted, Obama also has Pastor Wright; but then McCain sucked up uterly shamelessly to Jerry Falwell during the last two years of the latter's life, despite his statement two days after 9-11 that it ws God'sjust punishment of the US for backing gay rights.

- moomaw1

October 9, 2008 at 5:47am

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What the McCain campaign is doing is trying to impute Ayers's actions to Senator Obama.  We should be judging people by their own actions.  For example, we knew that President Bush once got drunk and recklessly ran his car off the road.  We elected him anyway and he recklessly ran the country off the road.  Now, Senator McCain, he recklessly crashed five jets.....

- Nusholtz

October 9, 2008 at 6:07am

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It's not a sandwich board. It's a sweatshirt with fuzzy iron-on letters. It's insane how things just snowball in the re-telling, like that game "telephone". Fact check, people!

- psantillana

October 9, 2008 at 6:34am

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Speaking of actions, thank you, finally, to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for this:

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../alaskan-independence-part_b_133261.html

- sportdoc62

October 9, 2008 at 3:29pm

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