Before you walk out in the street, before you talk to anyone about McCain or Obama, you need to arm yourself with the facts that are lined up in the Politifact article. Here are some highlights.
About Ayers:
Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city’s civic life.
About the “radical” foundation Obama led:
The McCain campaign said the “radical education foundation” to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001.
The Annenberg challenge was looking for schools “that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn.” Radical?
The campaign appears to have confused two different definitions of the word “radical.” Clearly the invitation referred to “a considerable departure from the usual or traditional,” rather than “advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs.”
Looking at the Annenberg folks who could be painted as palling around with terrorists by Sarah Palin, it’s a frightening list.
Let’s look at a few, starting with the funder. Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain. (Stanley) Kurtz (whose Sept. 23, 2008, Wall Street Journal was cited by McCain’s campagin as evidence of the foundation’s radicalism) might just as plausibly have accused Obama and the foundation of “translating Annenberg’s conservatism into practice.”
Among the other board members who served with Obama were: Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Journalism, and a host of other mainstream folks.
“The whole idea of it being radical when it was this tie of blue-chip, white-collar, CEOs and civic leaders is just ridiculous,” said the foundation’s former development director, Marianne Philbin.
Note to Leonore Annenberg. Sarah Palin thinks you are funding radical terrorists. Isn’t it time to publicly repudiate your prior endorsement of McCain?
This is more from the secret Muslim rather than Ayers angle. The New York Times ran a story yesterday about one Andy Martin, who is apparently quite a character. His hobbies appear to be running longshot campaigns for public office and filing frivilous lawsuits.
From WVEC-TV, describing today’s McCain rally in Virginia Beach:
If memory serves me—Ayers funded some of Obama’s projects through the Annenberg Foundation. Obama’s projects were decidedly left of mainstream. There was in fact something that they both collaborated on that was suspect, but I will refrain from passing judgement until I dcan go back and look through my “stuff.”
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p>All of aforementioned does not negate the fact that Wiliam Ayers is an unrepetentent domestic terrorist—just like Tim McVeigh, Chris King, Howard Machtinger, Jeff Jones, Steve Tappis, Mark Rudd et al. BTW— all of aforementioned are Obama supporters. Barack likely doesn’t converse with them regularly, but they are nonetheless, ardent Obama supporters. I wonder what that means?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
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p>Are you really asking a candidate to be responsible for the views of all millions of his supporters, or even a handful of supporters we can name? As to your list of alleged terrorists I’ve never even heard of (hence my use of “alleged”) any but Tim McVeigh. It seems to me that Mr. Ayers now a well-respected award-winning professor and Chicago citizen. As to the list being of Obama supporters, how do you know? Besides, Tim McVeigh was executed before Barack Obama was on anyone’s radar. Next time go through your stuff first before posting stuff like this that has been factchecked to death.
Let’s see, Timothy McVeigh you know. Arrested in mid-’95 for the Oklahoma City bombing, spent six years in prison and executed in June ’01. Obama was first elected to state office in ’96 and national not until ’04, so we’re supposed to believe McVeigh gave a crap about a junior state senator in another state? Doubt it.
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p>Chris King – no idea who that is. He could be referring to the basketball player or the musician/actor or the PA state representative. Without further details, who knows? MCRD surely has some dirt on them in the “intelligence briefings” he receives, but until he shares it with us, we’ll just have to pass on this one.
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p>Machtinger, Jones, Tappis and Rudd are alleged former members of the Weather Underground, who have allegedly endorsed Obama. Which means nothing – just think of all the people you’ve never heard of who may have done bad things and endorsed McCain. Who cares?
A telling comment about Bill Ayers is this:
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p>What’s the difference between Timothy McVeigh and Bill Ayers? Ayers failed.
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p>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f…
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p>I’d try and let this guy go. Ayers is about as innocent of charges as OJ was (charges dropped due to illegal wiretapping). Might want to note the “ouch” date that the NY Times article ran.
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p>To be honest, if my life goal was to run for president, I’d think twice about any connection with someone like Bill Ayers. Know the fix is in on this election, but I guess that the press will get around to finally giving an unvarnished look at Ayers sometime after Thanksgiving.
Period.
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p>McVeigh blew up a building full of people. Even those Weathermen who did blow up buildings made sure those buildings were empty when the bombs went off.
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p>More false equivalency.
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p>http://www.city-journal.org/20…
Why should we note the date? You do know that the paper was already printed and on the news stands by the time anything happened, right? So what’s the relevance of the date?
retroactively.
You’d run a background check on everyone you might “associate with,” in case that award-winning professor you’ve just met might have a radical past, or be a reformed criminal of some kind? Better not run for office, then, because at least one person on this board has a criminal record, and by posting here, you’re “associating” with them.
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p>Once again – in our system of justice, the presumption of innocence means a person isn’t a felon until a court says they’re guilty of a felony. John Mitchell and friends prevented that from happening to Ayers.