... Obama once knew not:
William Ayers, who was a founder of the 1960s and 1970s radical group the Weather Underground, told FOX News correspondent James Rosen in a candid 2004 interview that he still believed he was “on the side of justice” years after the group’s wave of attacks.
In the interview, conducted three years after the September 11 attacks, Ayers argued the U.S. government had carried out “many other acts of terror … even recently, that are comparable,” and claimed he and his bomb-planting comrades were “restrained” in their actions.
Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, served with Barack Obama on the board of the charitable Woods Fund of Chicago for three years and helped launch Obama’s political career in Illinois by hosting in his Hyde Park home an informal campaign event for the future state senator in 1995.
Ayers claimed the Weathermen were driven by “hope and love,” not despair, and said he did not think the group’s violent acts, targeting federal officials and local law enforcement officers, were “a big deal.”
Which, of course, fits in nicely with the not-a-big-deal meme being pushed now by Barack as he describes his relationship with this unrepentant domestic terrorist.
Is it a big deal?
Some think so:
Obama thinks not:
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has quietly begun airing a television commercial countering an outside group that is spending $2.8 million in an attempt to highlight his relationship with a former 1960s radical.
The 30-second TV spot is a response to an ad by the conservative American Issues Project, a nonprofit group that questions Obama’s ties to William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that took credit for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.
“With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers,” the Obama ad states. “McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers’ crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old.”
To which the McCain campaign responds (in the same article):
“The fact that Barack Obama chose to launch his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist raises more questions about Senator Obama’s judgment than any TV ad ever could,” said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.
Touché Mr. Rogers, touché.
The best summary on this whole thing put up by Shannon Love at ChicagoBoyz:
... the real troubling aspect of the Obama-Ayers relationship is that Obama comes from a political subculture in which Ayers is an accepted and unremarkable individual. Looking at Ayers, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts.
“Looking at Ayers, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts”
Hmmm….that’s a tough one. Unacceptable by Obama, unacceptable….
A top ten list seems to cry out on this one.
The top ten leftist extremist unacceptable to Barack Hussein Obama:
10. Michelle Moore
9. Rosey O’Donnell
8. 9/11 Truthers
7. The Reverend Wright that he didn’t know
6. The Reverend Phleger that he didn’t know
5. His typical white grandmother
4. Jessie Jackson when he’s near a knife
3. Ahh…ahhh…what I’ve always said…ahhh…
2. Ummm….extremism is hard to define in today’s world… ummmm…what, what, what I mean is…ummmm…there’s, there’s, there’s different meanings to the word leftist…ummm…
And the number one leftist extremist unacceptable to Obama is…(drum roll)…
That one woman who was rejected by Code Pink for being too radical
Posted by: tim aka The Godless Heathen | Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 03:42 PM
Got some updates for you:
Reflux: Obama's Attorneys attempt to censor political ad
American Issues Project Press Release ... Responds to Second DOJ Letter from Obama Campaign ...
This is going to get ugly ...
Posted by: Wayne | Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 07:46 PM