Ayers
I know the Ayers issue is so three days ago, but for anyone still interested, NPR details the full extent of Obama’s relationship with Ayers over the years.
Of course, there are some who will always insist that this ought to be an issue, when there’s clearly no “there” there, but for anybody else, it’s worth checking out.
UPDATE: Vinny has more…
October 17th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
THE LINK IS TO NPR WHO WORSHIP THE CHOSEN ONE!
🙂
Anyhow, props to Uncle for tolerating you, tgirsch.
October 17th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Yep, when all else fails, attack the source. 🙂
And Uncle tolerates a lot worse than me. 😉
October 17th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I’ve always said that my bigger problem with Ayers is that Chicago society (and society in general) allowed Ayers to not only re-enter society without showing remorse, but in fact allowed him to attain a veneer of respectability that is not deserved.
That being said, the NPR piece does have a few problems. Yes, Republicans were involved in the Annenberg challenge. But I challenge you to find a Republican who:
A) was asked to serve on the Annenberg Chicago Challenge by Ayers.
B) served on the Woods Foundation with Ayers.
C) held a fundraiser in Ayers home.
In fact, show me the Republican who held a fundraiser in Ayers home. I’m just guessing I’ll disagree with that Republican’s positions as well.
NPR says that Obama held other fundraisers in his district (duh). That doesn’t excuse or explain the fundraiser in Ayers home. NPR says that some in attendance recall that State Senator Alice Palmer organized the fundraiser. They neglect to mention that others in attendance recall the fundraiser was set up by Ayers and Obama, with Palmer merely an invitee.
NPR also says Ayers isn’t “currently a terrorist”. Well that’s good to know. But this takes the cake:
“His level of repentance is open to interpretation, but he hasn’t engaged in such acts for at least 35 years, so if Ayers is still a terrorist, then by that definition, John McCain is currently an adulterer, and the Chicago Cubs are a championship baseball team, because they did win the World Series in 1908.”
So when is a murderer no longer a murderer? Is Benedict Arnold no longer a traitor because he’s dead and it was a long time ago? The court of public opinion has no firm statute of limitations. Chicago society exonerated Bill Ayers a long time ago. The United States of America is another story.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Cam:
Maybe it’s splitting hairs, but the event at Ayers’ home was not a fundraiser, and it was not where Obama “kicked off” his campaign.
Your point about the “currently a terrorist” verbiage is taken, however.
That said, the point still stands that the whole Ayers dustup seems to be a pretty egregious case of selective outrage. McCain hoped, as did Clinton before him, that it would stick, and it hasn’t. It was always thin to begin with.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Obama had an open house at numerous homes in Hyde Park, one of which was at Ayer’s house. If you’ve ever been to one, essentially someone puts out some finger food, perhaps some wine and/or coffee, and people mingle for about an hour to talk with the candidate. I’m sure there was a punch bowl there for people to put checks in, so in the loosest sense of the word, sure it was a fundraiser.
As for whether Ayers is still a “murderer,” there isn’t much evidence to connect him to any bombings that resulted in the taking of a life. There was a bomb in San Francisco that people have tried to tie to the Weather Underground, but Ayers was on the East Coast at that time (Bernadine Dorhn might’ve been involved though).
For the most part, what they did wasn’t all to dissimilar to the anti-globalisation protesters who go through and smash store fronts and burn cars at WTO meetings. Most of what they did was for show, and they called in bomb threats to try and ensure nobody was hurt. Hell, its not all that dissimilar to OSU’s campus after a Michigan vs OSU game.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Not originally. There was no intent to ensure “nobody was hurt” during the Days of Rage events or the earlier bombing. They moved to a less murderous method after they started blowing up their own people, at which point they called in bomb threats before blowing people up, but there was no warning of that style when they tried to kill a judge and his family.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Sean:
Methinks you strain a little too hard to excuse their actions. At the same time, however, a lot of McCain (and Clinton supporters) strained even harder to try to imply that any of that somehow reflects on Obama.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Obama’s self admitted cocaine use combined with his radical pastor, his ties to Rezko and his more than fleeting ties to Ayers would eliminate him from being able to become a FBI agent, a TSA agent and perhaps even a postal worker… but somehow he is still eligible to be president… wow, just wow…
October 17th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Careful, a lot of the same stuff would have disqualified W from those jobs. If I could undo W, I’d gladly give up Obama…
October 17th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
How it ‘reflects’ on him is his choice of associates, and yes, having a function at someones house is more than just a little bit of an acquaintance. Ayers isn’t the only one. Just look at all the “spiritual advisors” he’s had to throw under the bus to maintain his teflon coating.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
W. isnt running!!!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
If Ayers “isn’t the only one,” then why all the focus on him? Not just within the McCain campaign, but in much of Right Blogistan. As I’ve written about before, the Ayers attacks just plain won’t stick with anyone other than people who were never going to vote for Obama under ANY circumstances, so it’s a colossal waste of time for McCain to pursue.
(And, of course, if “palling around with terrorists” is a bad thing, we ought to be looking at McCain’s much closer and much more recent association with Kissinger, who happily propped up terrorists when he thought it advanced US goals…)
October 17th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
W. isn’t running!!!”
When did I say he was?
October 17th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I have no control over the “Right Blogistan” nor am I much endeared to McCain as much as that strawman/red herring is regularly touted.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Because “Oh, hay guys that tried to kill our military for grins and giggles! Let’s go get me in office!” should be a big red flag. It’s hard to get much worse than associating with someone whose organization thought killing a judge and his family was a good fucking idea. I know this might be hard to cram through your ears, but it shouldn’t be nearly that hard.
I mean, if you want, we can bring out the whole parade of socialist and no-good-nicks. It’ll be a bit tough to drag out the socialist New Party, but I’m sure a certain pastor would love to expound on how America invented AIDs to kill black people.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
And I’m not much endeared to paper-thin guilt-by-association arguments…
October 17th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
So, you’d be OK with McCain collaborating with former Nazi concentration camp guards to come up with some prison reform schemes?
That wouldn’t be an issue for you, or NPR, or New York Times, CBS, MSNBC, etc.?
I mean, McCain was only eight years old when those guys were gassing Jews.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Here’s how Obama and the media “fact-check” one another on Bill Ayers.
1. Obama says he was just some guy in the neighborhood, with who he had “crossed paths”.
2. Media outlets write stories, based on what the Obama camp told them, repeating the talking points.
3. Obama links to these “news” items on his website’s “fact check” page to “prove” that he was telling the truth.
Anyone who can’t see this is ideologically blinded beyond repair.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Yep T, that’s right. Having functions out of a persons home is a ‘paper thin’ association. Being a member of a racist pastors church (which also hosted other racist and nutball speakers with more ties) for 20 years is a ‘paper thin’ association. Having another racist on his exploratory committee and being listed on the Obama’s campaign website as one of the senator’s ‘influential black supporters’is a ‘paper thin’ association.
You can be an apologist for him all you want but who he chooses as his advisers and associates does reflect on him, just as you use McCains associates as a reflection on him.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
And yet that “big red flag” is apparently troubling to absolutely nobody in the State of Illinois, including heaps and gobs of Illinois Republicans past and present. Sorry, but sure looks a whole lot like selective outrage to me.
Frankly, I see it as a sign of weakness among Obama’s detractors. If the worst they can come up with is a bunch of contrived guilt-by-association attacks that are wholly inconsistent with Obama’s actual record and wholly unconvincing to most Americans, he probably hasn’t got a whole lot to worry about.
I suppose when the other guy is currently associated with lobbyists who helped create the current financial mess, and with a guy who actually engaged in state sponsorship of terrorism, anything they can do to point the attention elsewhere is a pretty good thing.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
T, I’m not talking about ‘the other guy’. You keep needing to try and drag that across. I don’t like ‘the other guy’ and wish there was someone better.
Obama’s other stances have also been well discussed here and on the other gun blogs so claiming that his habit of choosing ethically and morally challenged individuals as his ‘advisors’ and associates is “the worst they can come up with’ is disingenuous at best.
You also show your ignorance of Illinois politics by claiming that nobody in Illinois has issues w/ him. Perhaps talking to people south of I-80 would educate you. Perhaps not.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
the lack of outrage in IL might just be because most of the damn state is run by people that are just as left wing as Obama… i mean seriously, a nobody freshman senator from the most corrupt city in IL gets the nod for the presidency spot and you think that there is no corruption involved… ive got a few bridges to sell you.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
thirdpower:
That’s the thing, though: even the people “south of I-80” don’t seem to give much of a shit about Ayers; they seem to be able to find plenty of reasons not to like Obama that have nothing whatsoever to do with a passing association with a guy — oh by the way, a guy with whom many of their representatives also have a similar association. It’s a totally fabricated issue, and transparently so.
The bottom line on Ayers is this: apart from far-right partisans and a few libertarian types, nobody gives a shit. (I’ve written about precisely why that is here.) Now you can argue about whether people should give a shit, but the fact is that they don’t, and all the harping on this makes the people doing the harping sound shrill and desperate.
I bring up “the other guy” because there are plenty of questionable associations that he has that are getting even less coverage, because nobody gives a shit about those, either. And if I were constantly harping on those associations, I’d sound just as shrill.
Like it or not, the Ayers thing just isn’t sticking. Time to move on.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
P.S. My sister and brother-in-law live in Illinois, south of I-80. That said, I have no idea what their politics are.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Yeah, NPR is so reliable, thorough, truthful, and objective. Next you’ll be linking to Pacifica News and Radio Havana. That’s where smart people go to get the real story. You should look into it.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
“The bottom line on Ayers is this: apart from far-right partisans and a few libertarian types, nobody gives a shit. (I’ve written about precisely why that is here.) Now you can argue about whether people should give a shit, but the fact is that they don’t, and all the harping on this makes the people doing the harping sound shrill and desperate.”
– Uhhh, then why talk about it? Why make countless posts defending the Obama/Ayers position, while using the very weak AIP smokescreen on Palin? If ‘people’ (and yes, people that disagree with liberals are people too) did not care about this issue, then is it not treated the same way as the Iraq war is treated now. OH, where did that go? I guess the surrender in 15 months plan, victory or not, is out the window.
And anyway, Ayers is small fry compared to Obama’s attempts to gut the first two amendments in addition to his heinous support of murdering infant abortion survivors. McCain has done nothing as evil as the above. Why will not the Repub. campaign go after those atrocities?
October 17th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
“Guilt by association” is a red herring. Associating with X doesn’t make you an X yourself, but it does mean something. Calling Obama a terrorist because he pals around with terrorists would be a clear case of guilt by association. But questioning his judgment in palling around with terrorists, and then lying to cover it up (first by claiming the association was essentially nonexistent, then by spinning a yarn about having thought the guy was rehabilitated rather than merely retired), is not.
If McCain had had nearly as cozy a relationship with an abortion clinic bomber as Obama has had with Ayers over the years, McCain would have dropped out of the race and even his Senate seat would be in grave danger. This despite the fact that the desired ends of an abortion clinic bomber – ending abortion – is a far more mainstream position than the ends Ayers has ever desired, during or after his terrorist days.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Really, for it being such a “totally fabricated issue,”, T sure does like to talk about it.
October 17th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Hrmm.
The tgirsch doth protest too much, methinks.
October 17th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
if Ayers was such a washed up terrorist, why are there pictures of him as recently as 7 years ago stepping on the American flag?
October 17th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Gorram it. My lines are always stolen. Stolen, I tell you!
October 18th, 2008 at 12:25 am
This despite the fact that the desired ends of an abortion clinic bomber – ending abortion – is a far more mainstream position than the ends Ayers has ever desired, during or after his terrorist days.
o.k., I’ll bite..are you really claiming that ending the Vietnam war (or the general feeling that Vietnam was a mistake), is not a mainstream position? And how the hell does it matter? Bombing abortion clinics is despicable (as is what Ayers did back in the day), no matter what your position on abortion and whether that position is “mainstream” or not.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Ayers isn’t currently a terrorist like Manson isn’t currently a mass murderer.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
What everyone seems to miss is that Ayers is a domestic terrorist no different in intent than Timothy Mcveigh.
The only separation between the two is in the level of ineptitude at causing large scale death and destruction of the Weathermen.
Imagine someone should McVeigh have walked someone not knowing what and who he was. Imagine the type of person that would associate with them.
Do you want those type of people represented in our government?
October 18th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
What’s the difference between Bill Ayers and Timothy McVeigh?
Ayers is still breathing.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
What’s the difference between Bill Ayers and Timothy McVeigh?
Ayers is still breathing.
Yes, how awful that Ambassador Annenberg would funnel $50 million to this guy. How further awful that the McCain campaign would accept $2300 from Annenberg’s wife and list her as one of 100 Ambassador’s who have endorsed his campaign. /snark
October 18th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Manish, snark is no substitute for substance. Conning the Annenbergs into giving him money to support an agenda they oppose doesn’t make Ayers a better person than McVeigh, just a better con man. And no, dumbass, that doesn’t mean that the person duped is guilty of “funneling” money anywhere. And no, Oliver-Willis-ass (sorry, but when you take it to this level, “dumbass” just won’t do), it certainly doesn’t taint other people who also accept money from the same people.
You’ve been exceedingly – nay, cartoonishly – knee-jerk in your liberalism of late. Are you for real, or are you a conservative moby? Because seriously, if I were trying to portray a caricature of all the silliest arguments I’ve heard from the left, I’m not sure I could do any better.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Conning the Annenbergs into giving him money to support an agenda they oppose
link? How do you know that the Annenberg’s didn’t know about Ayers past or what the foundation did with the money (other than pulling it from your ass)? There were several conservatives on the CAC board, surely they would have some say in where the money went don’t you think?
October 18th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
and frankly, why isn’t the “liberal” media asking Leonore Annenberg about funding the CAC and Ayers?
October 19th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Maybe because the liberal media can’t take their mouths off Obama’s privates long enough to do so? Or maybe because they don’t want to ask anything that might point out how long Obama and Ayers knew/worked/conned together? Or maybe both?
October 19th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I don’t know if the Annenbergs did due diligence on Ayers’s past or not. If they didn’t, they goofed, but having goofed is a pretty lame reason for treating them as though they were Ayers themselves and there was anything wrong with McCain accepting money from them.
As to the con job, one need only compare the generalized promises to improve education (which Ayers et al. promised in the grant app) with the radical agenda to which the money was actually put. If the Annenbergs actually bought into that agenda, they wouldn’t be contributing to McCain now.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I don’t know if the Annenbergs did due diligence on Ayers’s past or not. If they didn’t, they goofed, but having goofed is a pretty lame reason for treating them as though they were Ayers themselves
yet, its somehow o.k. to treat Obama in that manner.
As to the con job, one need only compare the generalized promises to improve education (which Ayers et al. promised in the grant app) with the radical agenda to which the money was actually put. If the Annenbergs actually bought into that agenda, they wouldn’t be contributing to McCain now.
What radical agenda is that? Improving education? Does it occur to you that perhaps the Annenberg’s had common cause with Obama and Ayers to improve education (in the same way that McCain had common cause with Feingold to f***-up campaign finance or countless other bipartisan undertakings), but that doesn’t mean that their general political leanings have to be the same?
The only thing that you seem to know is that the CAC gave money to ACORN and you have equated this to being proof of a radical agenda. Had you ever heard of ACORN before the last couple of months? I doubt it, though its certainly possible. ACORN is a group that advocates for poor people and *gasp* uses community organizers (do you even know what a community organizer does other something “radical”). You may not agree with ACORN’s agenda, but that doesn’t make it somehow “radical”.
If ACORN were such a group of “radicals”, why would John McCain appear at an ACORN rally for immigration reform? Why would the relatively conservative board of the CAC approve grants to this organization? One would think that the Annenbergs would keep tabs on the CAC given their financial commitment (and for the record it was $10 million a year for 5 years..they could have easily closed the spigot).
October 19th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
No, it’s not. No one is accusing Obama of being Ayers. The allegation is that working so closely with Ayers was a poor exercise of judgment, even if the work itself had otherwise been productive. One could say that giving Ayers money was an equally poor exercise of judgment on the Annenbergs’ part. The difference is that none of the Annenbergs are running for President.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Xrlq:
The allegation is that working so closely with Ayers was a poor exercise of judgment, even if the work itself had otherwise been productive.
Except that there really isn’t all that much evidence that Obama worked all that closely with Ayers. There’s just zero evidence that they were at all close, and while there were ties, they really aren’t all that substantial, despite many efforts by Clinton’s and McCain’s campaigns to insinuate otherwise.
At the time Obama had his passing association with Ayers — and I’m sorry, but it was a passing association — Ayers simply wasn’t that controversial a figure. You can argue that he ought to have been controversial, but that didn’t make it so. He was certainly uncontroversial enough that lots of people in both parties had no problem whatsoever serving on panels with the guy.
The controversial stuff about Ayers was stuff that he did when Obama was 8 years old, and stuff he said after Obama was no longer associated with him. If there’s a knock on Obama, it’s that he on occasion was obliquely involved with a politically-well-connected guy that pretty much everybody fucking else in Illinois politics was also involved with.
Now you might think that’s an earth-shattering scandal, but as I said, nobody really gives a shit. And I suspect you probably don’t give much of a shit, either, except that it makes for convenient blog fodder to whip up the wingnut furies.
Was it poor judgment? If Obama knew of the (seemingly nonexistent) controversy surrounding Ayers at the time, maybe so. But not as poor of judgment as, say, selecting an obviously unqualified demagogue as a running mate, or cheerleading to go to war against a country that hadn’t attacked us in over a decade.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
TGirsch, when discussing Chicago policies, what the hell are “both parties?” There is only one, and it’s the far left wing of the Democratic Party. That Ayers is as uncontroversial in Chicago as the Mob once was in Chicago is hardly representative of what the rest of the country either does or should think of him.
That said, if you think we should stop talking about Ayers and start talking about The Issues (TM), I’m cool with that. Let’s start by talking about Obama’s contempt not only for the Second Amendment (“both” parties in Chicago share that, too) but also for the First Amendment rights of anyone who dares to tell you about it. Or let’s talk about the Democrats’ favorite issue, The Economy, as long as we give due consideration to which party supported increased oversight of the runaway GSEs, which party opposed it, and which party’s nominee voted present.
Yes.
… in Chicago, which would be fine if his political aspirations ended there.
Yeah, that’s one hell of a controversy. Planting bombs, good or bad? Trying to kill scores of soldiers, but being so fucking incompetent you end up killing three of your own instead. Proudly stomping on the U.S. flag decades later and saying your only regret was not doing enough: Good, bad or indifferent? Who knows?
Yeah, “maybe” so. And “maybe” it would have been a bad idea for John McCain to have palled around with abortion clinic bombers. After all, they employed the same means toward their desired end as Ayers did toward his, the only difference being that their desired ends were far less extreme than Ayers’s was (and is to this day). Maybe that wuold have been a bad idea. Or maybe not! Who knows?
You have got to be shitting me. Sarah Palin’s credentials are thin by presidential standards, but at least she has some executive experience, which is more than can be said for Barack Obama. The main difference between the two is that one is running at the top of the ticket and the other at the bottom. To support Obama while bashing Palin as unqualified makes about as much sense as saying “We can’t afford to have an unqualified political neophyte one heartbeat away from the Oval Office, we need an unqualified political neophyte in the Oval Office!”
Silly me, I consider being shot at an “attack,” and that happened almost every other day. And why stop with “over a decade?” They didn’t attack us in 1990, either. They just tried to gobble up another Arab country. It was none of our business!
October 20th, 2008 at 12:13 am
They didn’t attack us in 1990, either. They just tried to gobble up another Arab country. It was none of our business!
Wow..something we agree on. It was about the oil.*
*According to John McCain.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Xrlq:
Chicago != Illinois. For the entire time Obama held statewide and national office representing the State of Illinois, absolutely nobody thought there was any such thing as an “Ayers issue.” Are you really trying to say that the Illinois Republicans (and Alan Keyes) who opposed Obama at various times throughout his career are all “Chicago politicians,” and therefore don’t count? Or that they simply didn’t know about Ayers until Hillary Clinton was kind enough to point it out to them? I’m sorry, but that defies credulity.
Or let’s talk about the Democrats’ favorite issue, The Economy, as long as we give due consideration to which party supported increased oversight of the runaway GSEs, which party opposed it, and which party’s nominee voted present.
As I recall, we have talked about that one, at length. And it seems clear to me that you’ve approached that issue from the perspective of “find the thing that makes Democrats look bad at the moment, and pretend that’s the primary cause of the problem. When in fact the reason neither party wants to go into much detail about how we got here is because neither party has anything approaching clean hands in the mess.
Or let’s talk about the Democrats’ favorite issue, The Economy, as long as we give due consideration to which party supported increased oversight of the runaway GSEs, which party opposed it, and which party’s nominee voted present.
And “maybe” that would be a compelling point if Obama could ever be fairly described as having “palled around with” Ayers.
You have got to be shitting me. Sarah Palin’s credentials are thin by presidential standards, but at least she has some executive experience, which is more than can be said for Barack Obama. The main difference between the two is that one is running at the top of the ticket and the other at the bottom.
Err, since when did you become a Union guy? I didn’t realize that “experience” = “qualified,” period. Whether or not you agree with his specific policy positions, Obama has unquestionably demonstrated depth of knowledge on major domestic and foreign policy issues. Palin has not, and has embarrassed herself, her running mate, and her party when given the opportunity to do so. And I have no doubt that if some Democrat ever gave a Palinesque interview, you would have written several long, snarky posts about how absurd the whole thing is. But because she’s got an (R) after her name, you give her a free pass.
Silly me, I consider being shot at an “attack,” and that happened almost every other day.
Yeah, and those shots were totally unprovoked. I mean, it’s not like we were flying over their air space or anything…
They didn’t attack us in 1990, either. They just tried to gobble up another Arab country. It was none of our business!
In 1990, we weren’t already (supposed to be) fighting a completely unrelated entity that actually had attacked us on our own soil. But I’m glad you recognize the courage and judgment it takes to “muddle through” against the people who actually did attack us (but don’t have oil) so that we could turn our attention to settling a decade-old score against a country that didn’t attack us on our own soil, but does have oil…
October 20th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
“The entire time Obama held statewide and national office representing the State of Illinois” is a strange way of saying “one whole election cycle,” and “the Illinois Republicans (and Alan Keyes)” is an even stranger way of saying “Alan Keyes.”. There were no other statewide elections for Obama. Everything else was local Chicago politics. That’s how you win elections representing … um … Chicago.
As to Palin’s crappy interviews, let’s just say that compared with the stuff Obama was churning out as recently as last spring, I find them decidedly non-crappy. I reserve the right to change that view if she delivers any similarly crappy interviews if/when she resurfaces in ’12, as I suspect she will. Last and least, if union rules don’t apply here, why on earth did Obama even *consider,* much less nominate, Joe the Non-Plumber Biden?
October 20th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Several attendees have reported that the purpose of the meeting at the Ayers home was for Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer to announce that she would be stepping down to run for the U.S. Congress and that Obama was invited because Palmer was endorsing him for the seat that she was vacating. This would suggest a Palmer-Ayers connection rather than an Obama-Ayers connection.