David Plouffe can claim that Barack Obama didn't know Bill Ayers, but it's simply not true. Drew Griffin's CNN report makes it perfectly clear that Obama and Ayers -- the Sixties domestic terrorist whose only stated regret was that he didn't bomb more things to stop the Vietnam war -- go way back. Astonishingly, Griffin quotes the Illinois state senator who was Obama's mentor saying that it was Ayers, not she, who organized Obama's political coming out party in Hyde Park. Check out this report:
Now, I don't think this election should turn on Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, but Obama is quite plainly lying about his relationship with Bill Ayers. That he would work so closely with an unrepentant and violent political radical in Ayers, and be so spiritually close to a racialist radical in Wright, does raise serious concerns about his judgment. What kind of men and women would President Obama surround himself with? What kind of men and women would President Obama appoint to the federal bureaucracy? Those are fair questions.
"Keating Five! Keating Five!" you say. Yes, but John McCain has spent his entire subsequent career atoning for his role in that debacle, openly so. When will Obama so much as acknowledge Bill Ayers?
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cirdan,
The thread to which you refer concerned Rod's having received e-mail from one of the Reverend's supporters making threats against Sarah Palin and against her family, including -- if memory serves -- her infant child. Rod received this e-mail at a time when Palin was with regularity being compared to various ungulates -- Horses, Moose -- in "mainstream" and supposedly respectable publications, and when malicious rumors about her and her family -- almost all of them false -- were being spread by the Reverend's supporters in the same sorts of "mainstream" publications. On the thread itself, concerning these matters, certain of the Reverend's supporters were vitrolic to a frightening degree, which -- along with the aforementioned rumors and threats -- prompted me to suggest that the Reverend should call on his supporters to restrain themselves and that he should likewise deliver a "major" address on misogyny and on class-and-religion-based bigotry -- addresses on the model of his "great" address on race in Philadelphia. I still stand by all of that today and I see nothing the least bit "vile" about anything I wrote on that thread. If you find my posts "vile" nonetheless, then you are free to ignore them.
Chuck,
There's a teeny tiny distinction between Obama's association with Ayers and McCain's association with various congressional profligates.
Obama knew who Ayers was. The WHOLE WORLD knew who Ayers was. That's because Obama was only 8 years old when Ayers was up to his murderously-intended, still-unregretted mischief, so there was plenty of time for the information to get back to Obama by the time he was grown up.
The thing about Vitter, Foley, et al is that what they were doing was, at the time they were "working with" McCain, secret. Nobody knew about it except the people directly involved, and the direct result of people (McCain included) finding out about it was that they didn't get to work with McCain anymore.
For your equation of McCain's association with vile congressmen with Obama's working relationship with unrepentant felons to work, Vitter, Foley, et al would have to be major players in the political scene McCain was voluntarily engaged in (NOT merely people elected alongside him beyond his control) AFTER having been convicted of their crimes AND stating that they wished they'd done more of it.
Can you believe the Holy Father visited New York earlier this year? What would he think about how New York Catholics profess October as Respect Life Month:
Senator Infanticide is an invited guest speaker at the Al Smith Dinner on October 16
and
on October 29 Supreme Court Justice Breyer will Receive Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize
Then in November, we will go to the polls and vote ... and of course we will use our Catholic Voter Guides to help us decide how to vote.
By the time Obama made it to Chicago, Ayers was a respected member of the community. If Obama knew anything about his past, he might have been puzzled that this character was so well received among both liberals and conservatives. Still it was reasonable for him to assume that Ayers was rehabilitated. Remember that Ayers unrepentant stance did not become public until 2001.
By the time Obama made it to Chicago, Ayers was a respected member of the community. If Obama knew anything about his past, he might have been puzzled that this character was so well received among both liberals and conservatives. Still it was reasonable for him to assume that Ayers was rehabilitated. Remember that Ayers unrepentant stance did not become public until 2001.
The bigger issue here is why it is OK to associate Obama with terrorism, and for Sarah Palin to suggest that "we don't know him". This is blatant racism, and the best you can do is say you "don't think this election should turn on Bill Ayers"????
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