Friday, March 29, AD 2024 2:49am

Guilt by Participation

A new net ad from the McCain campaign on the ties between Senator Obama and William Ayers, unrepentant terrorist.  Stanley Kurtz has done yeoman service in revealing the deep connections between Obama and a man who once declared war on the United States.

Until the current election campaign William Ayers made no secret that he was proud of the activities of the Weather underground.  In 2006 he, his wife Bernardine Dorhn, and Jeff Jones, another leader of the Weathermen, published Sing a Battlesong which collected the various communiques, poetry and statements made by the Weather underground during their war against America.  I guess that perhaps one can assume that Senator Obama was unaware of all this, just as he was unaware of the sermons of the Reverend Wright, until after he decided to run for President.  Sure.

A good website to get more information on the ties between Obama and Ayers is here.

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Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 7:25am

Keep it up, Mr. McClarey.

It will be an Obama landslide.

Rick Lugari
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 7:41am

“What is that spirit we want to connect to? That spirit of rebellion. The spirit of resistance. The spirit of insurgency.”

Finally. This is what has been found wanting in all the Ayers talk. McCain, Palin and their supporters have failed to articulate this properly, and have finally done it using Ayers’ own words (contemporary words nonetheless). Much ado has been been made about the association with a terrorist, leaving the opposition to narrowly view this as a guilt by remote association thing. I have a lot of problems with both candidates, but much more so with Obama, and this being one of them. The problem for me isn’t so much that Obama served on boards with a guy who planted bombs 40 years ago, it’s that the guy is still a subversive trying to move the nation to despotism. The tactics have changed, one of which is to support fellow revolutionaries get in office and work from the inside out as well, this is the concern over Obama’s relationship with Ayers.

Now granted, some people, and apparently a few Catholics, might think an Ayers sort of revolution a good thing, but I think the common man, including some who might currently be supporting Obama, would balk at such a thing. The question is, is Obama part of the Ayers movement, a willful agent of sorts, or are the two just equally opportunist?

Christopher Blosser
Admin
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 8:27am
Ryan Harkins
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 8:39am

The problem with the Ayers connection is that his blatant terrorist activities are long in the past. Why else would the pundits on the left keep referring to the fact that Obama was only seven or eight when the bombings occurred? It is because they know that the American populace doesn’t have the attention span to care about something an individual did thirty or more years ago. The fact that he hasn’t bombed anyone else in that time (that we know of) must indicate some amount of reform, right? Who cares about his education policies. Everyone “knows” that the religious nuts on the right are trying to indoctrinate our youth, whereas Ayers is just giving them another viewpoint, as legitimate as any other that doesn’t mention the whole G – O – D word. This point is crucial. While independents may not see it this way, the left certainly sees Ayers as having done nothing wrong in all the time since the bombings.

In my opinion, Rick, the answer is that both are just opportunists. The association isn’t as deep as I think pundits on the right are trying to make it seem. I think they both thought they could use each other, and perhaps they have to the mutual benefit of each. I could be wrong, though.

While I do think the Ayers connection casts a stain on Obama’s record, it isn’t something worth pursuing in the campaign setting. McCain’s focus should be on how Obama’s plan will further destroy the economy, and how McCain himself intends to fix it. McCain needs to spell out loud and clear where the problems came from, and he must not spare even his Republican allies who share in the responsibility; he must spell out loud and clear how Obama’s health care plan is the equivalent to shooting ourselves in the foot; he must spell out how his economic plan is the best option. And he’d better be sure it is the best option.

Christopher
Admin
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 11:42am

The problem for me isn’t so much that Obama served on boards with a guy who planted bombs 40 years ago, it’s that the guy is still a subversive trying to move the nation to despotism. The tactics have changed, one of which is to support fellow revolutionaries get in office and work from the inside out as well, this is the concern over Obama’s relationship with Ayers.

Sol Stern has a series of articles in City Journal examining Ayer’s “education reform”:`

Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.) For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 11:51am

Donald,

I see you are an alumnus of U of Illinois. Have you attended alumni functions recently or received such newsletters? If so, you are indeed palling around with…

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 1:30pm

Nr. McClary,

It was a weak joke. 🙂 Sorry.

BTW, McCain looked today like the man I voted for in the 2000. Relatively impressive!

Hopefully, BOTH campaigns rise somewhere remotely close to the seriousness that our representative democracy deserves in these trying and important times.

Unfortunately, I see only glimmers of hope.

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, October 14, AD 2008 1:32pm

Sorrry about my butchering your name so badly–someone interrupted me while I was typing…

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