Debunking Obama's Ayers "Fact Sheet"

When George Stephanopoulos so rudely queried Sen. Barack Obama about his long-standing connections to unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers during a recent Democratic debate, many conservative newshounds cheered. At long last, Americans had been introduced to a name that only a handful of right-leaning news sources had previously explored. Obama challenged the question's relevancy, carefully avoided details, and pivoted to another topic of discussion. The damage was done, though, and his campaign was forced to issue a "fact" sheet to debunk any nasty implications the "distraction" of a question may have raised. Team Obama informed readers that a) Obama himself is far too young to have been a member of the Weather Underground, b) The mainstream media consensus is that Obama's ties to Ayers are irrelevant, c) All charges against Ayers were dropped, and d) Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, are actually pretty "mainstream" these days. Three of these four defenses ring hollow.

First, let's stipulate the obvious: Barack Obama was a young boy when Ayers and Dohrn were blowing up federal buildings, running from authorities, and warning Americans to "guard your children." Obama is not a terrorist, and he should not be held responsible for the Weather Underground's criminal acts.

Next, let's examine Obama's claim that his connection to Ayers and Dohrn is "tenuous" and "phony." Is it phony that Obama's political coming-out party in the mid-1990s was hosted by Ayers and Dohrn? What about the panel discussions in which Ayers and Obama both took part—that were organized by Michelle Obama? Tenuous? I suppose the goodbye party for prominent Israel basher and Arafat apologist Rashid Khalidi, attended by Obama, Ayers and Dohrn, is also unworthy of discussion. That Khalidi himself hosted a fundraiser for Obama's first Congressional campaign must be completely irrelevant, too.

Then there's the pesky fact that Obama and Ayers served together on the board of the Woods Fund for three years—and continued to do so even after Ayers was quoted in the New York Times fondly recalling his days as a bomber, and despairing that he hadn't "done more." (This quote, the Obama fact sheet reminds us, comes from an interview that just happened to be published on 9/11—Ayers had made the incendiary remarks earlier. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel a lot better). The funds Obama and Ayers helped control at the Woods Foundation funneled thousands of dollars into both Khalidi's organization and the now-infamous Trinity United Church of Christ. Irrelevant, phony distractions? So what if the Obama campaign's top strategist concedes that the Senator's relationship with the terrorist is "friendly"? I apologize for even devoting this much attention to such tenuous and unimportant information.

Obama's "fact" sheet then brings us the crucial bulletin that all charges against Ayers were dropped, and that he spent no time in jail. Absolutely true. Except a minor detail was omitted: Ayers openly admits he is "guilty as sin" but "free as a bird." Charges were dropped because federal authorities overstepped their legal bounds in pursuing the Weathermen, not because the charges were unfounded. Perhaps this distinction was too nuanced for a man who found it appropriate to compare his racist pastor to his own grandmother, and an unrepentant terrorist to a respected United States Senator. The Obama campaign also curiously chose not to "fact check" Bernadine Dohrn's criminal record, which includes a seven-month stint in jail for refusing to cooperate with a murder investigation.

Finally, and maybe most preposterously, the document pronounces Ayers and Dohrn to be "respectable" members of the "mainstream" community. After all, it has been seven years or so since Ayers said he didn't regret setting bombs. That's ancient history. Today, these folks are pillars of the level-headed, mainstream Chicago community. Enter the audio.

I happened upon this content as I conducted some basic research into Ayers and Dohrn for a special report my boss, Sandy Rios, was planning to run on her daily radio program in Chicago. The former terrorists both gave speeches at a reunion of aging radicals in November of 2007, and the audio is available on the web for anyone with a computer to hear. Considering that The Sandy Rios Show is a relatively small operation without a small army of researchers at our disposal, I initially assumed that the intrepid journalists that populate our mainstream media had beaten us to the punch on this story. They hadn't. The audio linked above clearly demonstrates that the terrorist tandem is neither respectable nor mainstream by any reasonable definition.

Dohrn refers to America as "the beast" and "the monster" while rambling on about the United States' obsession with empire and our white supremacist way of life. She says she believes the US government to be the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. Ayers, not to be outdone, cheers an ongoing "spirit of rebellion…and resistance." He favorably quotes Mao Zedong's premier, Zhou Enlai. He calls contemporary America a place of "great stress, and oppression, and authoritarianism," and bemoans "a kind of rising incipient American form of fascism." (Jonah Goldberg, call your office). Does Barack Obama expect Americans to believe these deranged rantings represent anything close to mainstream commentary?

As more and more facts about Obama's relationship with Ayers and Dohrn emerge, expect the Obamites to intensify their insistence that such matters are "distractions," "old politics," or—as Andrew Sullivan has already labeled this issue—part of the right wing "freakshow." With all due respect, I'm not sure "freakshow" is the most effective pejorative to hurl at those being critical of two unrepentant anti-American terrorists. As the Obama campaign continues in its efforts to kill this story, they'd be well served to avoid issuing any more "fact" sheets riddled with half-truths, lies of omission, and falsifiable claims.

Might I suggest a high-profile speech from Obama to open up a "national dialogue" on the roots of domestic terrorism?

Questions about character are only appropriate if they are directed at GOPers

By Jack Kelly

When John McCain first ran for Congress in 1982, a fund raiser was held for him at the home of a prominent Phoenix businessman. As a young man, the businessman took part in the bombing of several abortion clinics. One of the bombings caused several deaths. Despite this, the businessman has never expressed remorse for the criminal acts of his youth. Sen. McCain and the businessman have remained friendly. Until a few years ago, they served together on the board of a local charity.

You haven't heard about this relationship before because I just made it up. But if it were true, I suspect most journalists would find it newsworthy. Very newsworthy.

But not when the shoe is on the other foot. The two most unpopular people in journalism this week are Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC, the moderators of last week's debate between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Theirs was "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years," said Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher magazine. "Shoddy and despicable," said Washington Post media critic Tom Shales.

It was "something akin to a federal crime," said Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker. "I am still angry at what I just witnessed, so angry that it's hard even to type accurately because my hands are shaking," said Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News.

Mr. Bunch and the others are furious with their ABC colleagues because they asked Sen. Obama about the remarks he'd made at a San Francisco fund-raiser demeaning rural Pennsylvanians, and about his associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayres.

The questions were a distraction from the "real issues," the journalists said. "At a time of foreign wars, economic collapse and environmental peril, the cringe-worthy first half of the debate focused on such crucial matters as Sen. Obama's comments about rural bitterness, his former pastor, an obscure sixties radical with whom he was allegedly friendly, and the burning constitutional question of why he doesn't wear an American flag pin on his lapel," said Michael Grunwald of Time magazine.

The odds are you hadn't heard about Bill Ayres until George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. Obama about him. Now a professor of education at the University of Illinois—Chicago, Mr. Ayres joined the Weatherman domestic terror group in 1969, and took part in bombings of several police stations and the Pentagon. He became a fugitive after a bomb he and his associates were planning to place in the Fort Dix officers' club exploded prematurely, killing three. While on the run, Mr. Ayres married fellow terrorist Bernadine Dohrn. They turned themselves in 1981, but charges against them were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct.

In an interview with the New York Times published, ironically, on Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Ayers said: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Mr. Ayres lives in the same Hyde Park neighborhood as does Sen. Obama. They met in Mr. Ayres' home in 1995, when Barack was first running for the state senate. They were introduced by State Sen. Alice Palmer, who was vacating the seat to run for Congress.

"When I first me Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the living room of those two legends in their own minds, Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn," wrote Maria Warren on her blog in 2005. "They were launching him — introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread." Sen. Obama and Mr. Ayres have remained friendly. They served together on the board of the Woods Foundation. Both spoke at a testimonial dinner for Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO spokesman who is now a professor at Columbia University. (Mr. Khalidi is another of Sen. Obama's circle that journalists covering his campaign don't think you need to know about.)

Sen. Obama said his relationship with Mr. Ayers is inconsequential because he was only eight years old when Mr. Ayers was planting his bombs. Most journalists agree. Questions about character are only appropriate if they are directed at Republicans.

But Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman disagrees: "His comfortable association with an unrepentant former terrorist should induce queasiness in anyone who shares the humane values that Obama extols," he wrote Sunday.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0408/jkelly042408.php3?printer_friendly

That Chicago thug, Obama, is going to have to answer in detail for sitting under the teaching of a “hate Whitey” so called preacher and for his “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” relationship with Tony Rezko (this he fears), and for his TIES to Wm. Ayers, the terrorist responsible for the deaths of innocent people in bombings. WHO IS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA?

Can someone get photographs of the numerous government financed housing “developments” in Barack Hussein Obama’s district that are now boarded up and abandoned which Tony Rezko got government loans for, with help from Obama (and didn’t pay back)? Obama just kept on propping Rezko up, and was handsomely rewarded for doing it.

This man is scary as all get out. I doubt McCain is afraid of the Keating thing, but Barack is awfully afraid of details about his mutual admiration society relationship with Tony Rezko coming out in detail - and that’s why it needs to.

Are you aware that while Obama was completing his degree at Columbia in 1982-83, Bill Ayers was attending Bank Street College from which he graduated with a Masters in Early Childhood Education in 1984?

Bank Street College is 371 yards from Columbia, and they collaborate on courses.

We know, from his own writings, that Obama “was drawn to foreign students, Marxist professors, and punk poets”. One such professor was Edward Said, who was also an associate of Bill Ayers.

It is inconceivable, given their concentric politics, and Ayers’ penchant for recruiting black radicals, that they did not meet in the two years they were studying within a quarter mile of each other. Bill Ayers was no doubt something of a celebrity in the radical community having been a terrorist that had beaten the rap. Obama would surely want to meet such a famous radical.

Is this why Obama won’t release his transcript from Columbia? Does it reveal a tie to Ayers? Were they classmates? Did they perhaps even live together or close to each other?

Bank Street College has no student housing so Ayers could not live on campus. Columbia encourages students to live on campus but no-one can remember Obama ever being there - Fox News asked 400 of his fellow alumni and no-one knew him, so presumably he lived off campus too.

Wayne Root (Libertarian VP Choice) was in Obama’s pre-law class 1983 -he says he never met him and no-one at class reunions ever new him....??

Was he hanging out down the street with his buddy Ayers?

If this theory is correct then an awful lot of other dots connect and answers fall into place.

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