Obama's Ties to Left Come Under Scrutiny

New York Sun ^ | February 19, 2008 | RUSSELL BERMAN

[Tailgunner Joe]

Senator Obama's ties to a former leader of the violent left-wing activist group the Weather Underground are drawing new scrutiny as he battles Senator Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

As an Illinois state senator in 2001, Mr. Obama accepted a $200 contribution from William Ayers, a founding member of the group that bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon during the 1970s.

Mr. Ayers wrote a memoir, "Fugitive Days," published in 2001, and on the day of the September 11 terrorist attacks, he was quoted by the New York Times as saying: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

He and Mr. Obama served together on the nine-member board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit, for three years beginning in 1999, and they have also appeared jointly on two academic panels, one in 1997 and another in 2001. Mr. Ayers, who was never convicted in the Weather Underground bombings, is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Ayers link, reported on Friday by Bloomberg News, has surfaced in recent days as Mr. Obama tries to add to his lead in the Democratic primary fight. He faces Mrs. Clinton today in a primary in Wisconsin and caucuses in Hawaii, after which they will prepare for critical elections in delegate-rich Ohio and Texas on March 4.

Reached at his office in Chicago yesterday, Mr. Ayers declined to comment on his relationship with Mr. Obama.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Mr. Ayers in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as: ''Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at.'' - No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives

[onedoug]

Cannibals

[ClearCase_guy]

Well knock me over with a feather! Next thing you know, someone will say that Hillary Clinton had ties to the Black Panthers.

[robomatik]

aah! the '60's. so glad i missed that period.

[Army Air Corps]

Ayers was, and is, a scak of steaming excrement. The Weather Underground was nothing but a band of commie thugs and murderers.

[Army Air Corps]

scak = sack

[Deo volente]

Mr. Ayers, who was never convicted in the Weather Underground bombings, is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

That's the REAL scandal here.
Instead of rotting in a prison cell for the rest of his life, he's "educating" young, impressionable minds in a public university.

No doubt teaching them to be good and upstanding citizens and to love their country. /sarc

[samanella]

Call me naive, but I just simply do not get this hysteria over Obama. He is so out of touch with America with NOTHING on a resume to lead the most powerful country in America. Educated people I would assume could see through the veneer but apparently not. I am in fear for this country.

[I see my hands]

The possibility that Obama believes himself to be the 12^th Iman has never been disproved.

[Old Sarge]

Dear Merciful Ghod...

Never thought of that.

[Rush4U]

Well knock me over with a feather! Next thing you know, someone will say that Hillary Clinton had ties to the Black Panthers.

or we'll find out the White supremacists send Ron Paul money...

[SE Mom]

That’s the whole problem- the “educated people” to whom you refer have not been educated- they’ve been brainwashed.

The founders warned us over and over again that liberty depended on a sound education, grounded in civics and the reasons for the Declaration and Constitution.

You’re right to be fearful- and you’re not alone.

[WOBBLY BOB]

Sarah Jane Olson AKA Kathy Soliah was the darling of the political left in MN during her arrest and trial.Some local dimocrap pols here were even selling her cookbooks to raise funds for ‘our little terrorist’.

They fell off the radar really fast when it was realized she was going to prison.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think his wife, another major figure in the Weather Underground, is a professor at Northwestern University...a more prestigious university than UIC.

[ApplegateRanch]

Obamography?

[lakey]

Next thing you know, someone will say that Hillary Clinton had ties to the Black Panthers.

:) You beat me to it.

[wny]

Obama's ties to the left!? Obama is the left.

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1117/Ward_Churchill_s_Banality_of_Evil

Ayres defends Ward Churchill:

"....Ward Churchill is under a sustained, orchestrated, and determined attack because of his political beliefs and statements and activities, and nothing more. No one doubts his productivity or his accomplishments. But the attack on Churchill is neither isolated nor innocent— the high school history teacher on the west side of Chicago gets the message, and so does the English literature teacher in Detroit and the math teacher in an Oakland middle school: be careful what you say; stay close to the official story; stick to the authorized text.

If someone of Ward Churchill’s stature and standing for so many years at the University of Colorado can suffer this kind of campaign, what chance do I have?

Every committee, every investigation, every report plays out under a shadow of the star chamber; everyone must choose who to be and how to act in response. For this reason I support Ward Churchill unequivocally, unapologetically, whole-heartedly. I urge my colleagues and my students and everyone who values education as a grand enterprise geared toward enlightenment and liberation to speak out forcefully and fearlessly now on behalf of the liberty of teaching and learning, on behalf of the right to think at all.

Sincerely, William Ayers

Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar

University of Illinois at Chicago billayers.org