Posted on 09/24/2008 10:00:37 AM PDT by pissant
New evidence strongly suggests that Barack Obama has been less than forthcoming about the role that unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers may have played in choosing him to lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, I have obtained an e-mail message from former CAC executive director, Ken Rolling, to Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett, two of CACs three co-founders. Bill Ayers was the third founder. In Rollings message, sent the morning after I first requested access to CAC records housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he admits to avoiding a reporters inquiries about who picked Obama to head CAC. Rolling also appears to prime Chapman and Hallett to avoid telling the press the whole story of how Obama was chosen, and provides them with an apparently incomplete story to use instead. Although its too early to draw definitive conclusions from this evidence, it does raise serious questions about Barack Obamas own account of the process by which he was chosen as CAC board chair.
My FOIA request to UIC yielded several documents, most of which had already been provided to University of Chicago law student Jason Wilcox through an earlier FOIA request. The documents produced by the Wilcox request have been described and discussed in detail by Steve Diamond at his Global Labor and Politics blog.
Important new information has also been added by a story in the Chicago Tribune.
Based on all of this material, lets reconstruct what happened behind the scenes, beginning on August 11, 2008, the day I first contacted UIC requesting access to the CAC archives.
First Contact
In Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown? I tell the story of how UICs Richard J. Daley Library reversed its initial decision to allow me access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The Chicago Tribune has since revealed that I was barred from the collection following an August 11 call to UIC from former CAC executive director, Ken Rolling. In the Tribune story, Rolling appears to claim that contact with UIC came at his own initiative. Steve Diamond questioned Tribune reporters further on this issue, and was told that Rolling claimed to have unilaterally contacted UIC library on August 11, after seeing reports about CAC on the Internet at about that time.
Yet August 11 happens to be the day I first contacted UICs Daley Library requesting to see the CAC archive. How likely is it that Rolling called UIC requesting that the documents be restricted on the same day, purely by coincidence? It seems far more likely that some as-yet-unidentified person at UIC tipped Rolling off to my request, prompting his demand that the records be embargoed.
In any case, we know that on August 11, the same day I asked to see the CAC records, Rolling quietly called on the library to close them to the public. Thus, on August 13, I was told by Special Collections head, Ann Weller: The donor of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Records has alerted us to the fact that we do not have a signed deed of gift. We do not have the legal right to make the material available. The donor is working with us to resolve this issue and we hope to be able to provide access within the next few weeks. We know from several documents released by UIC that Rolling presented himself as the donor of the CAC records.
It therefore appears that as soon as I contacted UIC asking to see the CAC archive, Rolling moved to block my access, claiming donor status, and providing UIC with a legal reason to close the records. Steve Diamond makes a powerful case that none of Rollings arguments hold legal water. With CAC defunct since early 2002, CAC as an institution and Rolling as its former head had no standing to assert themselves. It appears from at least one of Rollings e-mail messages that he also tried to assert himself, individually, as the donor, a status that he never held. Moreover, no deed of gift is needed to transfer ownership of the records. Physical transfer suffices. If Diamond is right, then in supplying UIC Library with a bogus legal argument about the need for a signed deed of gift, Rolling was not only moving to bar me from the records, he was also laying the groundwork for removing the documents from the library and taking them into his own possession. This is confirmed by an August 19 radio interview in which a UIC spokesman said that if a signed agreement could not be obtained, well simply return the materials to the owner.
So on August 11, the same day I first contacted UIC, Rolling (perhaps after being tipped off by an as-yet-unknown UIC contact) offered the university a highly questionable set of legal claims, which not only served to block my access to the CAC records but also began to build a case for a complete withdrawal of the records from university control. And now, as a result of my recent FOIA request, we know that on August 12, Rolling made a second important move.
Avoiding a Question
At 9:07 A.M. on the day after I first contacted UIC library in search of the CAC records, Rolling e-mailed Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett, who, along with Bill Ayers, founded CAC. (Warren Chapman is now UIC vice chancellor for external affairs, and this UIC connection explains how my FOIA request was able to capture Rollings e-mail.) I present the text of Rollings message, headed, New York Times story: CAC, in its entirety here:
Anne and Warren:
I gave your contact info to Sam Dillon, Education Reporter for the NYTimes who is doing a story on McCain vs. Obamas education platform (McCain has a one-pager; Obama has a 17 page, 10-point platform). Dillon was sent to me from the Obama campaign to discuss Baracks role in the Annenberg Challenge. I have spent at least 4 hours in interviews with Sam Dillon who is trying to understand everything he can about the Challenge to see where Baracks experience with it influenced his education reform views or where Barack had influence on education policy and/or practice during those years. Sam is pretty thorough in his questions and one question or response leads to many other things he is interested in learning about the Challenge. The Challenge is just one phase of Baracks education interests that Dillon is exploring. Hes also trying to learn about Baracks community organizing days and how education reform was part of them.
Sam would like to talk with either or both of your to understand how the ad hoc group you two and Bill Ayers lead [sic], aarived [sic] at the structure of the founding board and the Collaborative. He is trying to understand how Barack got picked for the CAC board, by whom, why, etc. I have avoided that question head-on though I believe Barack was Debbie Leffs/Joyce nomination.
I think the article will be friendly and is truly looking to see the influences on or by Barack re: education/school reform in Chicago, ete. [sic]
Let me know if you talk to Dillon?
All the best.
Ken
While I am not offering definitive conclusions about this letter here, Ill present what I think is the most plausible reading. Readers can decide for themselves whether Im right.
Obama, the first “Affirmative Action Candidate.”
About time; I dont think anybody will care. Barak
has insulated himself pretty well with all his allegations
against mCCain
Dude, this was posted three hours ago. Didn’t you do a search?
Yeah, that’s what he really is, the first “Affirmative Action Candidate.” That’s what you get when you boil it down to one sentence. That is the true reason he beat Hillary.
If no one reports it, the truth becomes background noise.
Funny honey.
ping to me if my pings ever come back
There could have been no doubt in Ayers' mind that Obama was a committed Marxist anti-American just like himself. No one with Ayers' background would have let a moderate run the foundation. Obama had convinced him that he was as marxist and as anti-American as he was. His work as a Saul Alinsky street agitator would be pretty convincing.
Then, Obama's work on the Foundation showed that Ayers made the right choice. They gave the money out, not to schools, but to radical organizations that did nothing to make education better for Chicago's children. They wasted $100 million. I can't imagine what damage Obama would do to our economy, it would be staggering.
Ayers LOVED Obama. He was his protege.
I think that BO and Ayers were connected when he was at Columbia, it’s reported they actually lived 1/4 mile from each other and certainlt were fellow travelers in that Commie cesspool of NYC. This is another reason that the BO Camp works so hard to cover-up his Columbia years....
Hey! What about all the freepers who plopped my incompentant RINO butt into a senate seat because "we need a Hispanic Senator"!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.