Bob Owens notes that it’s not just Bill Ayers. And he also points out the absurdity of thinking that one could be a member of the Weatherman at all, let alone a founder, and not have murderous intent:
BarackObama.com, the campaign’s official website, offers up a “fact check” that Obama was just eight years old when the Weathermen were active in 1969. The Obama campaign has tried to use the founding date of the Weathermen as a touchstone, claiming that the acts of the group were something that happened “40 years ago” when Obama was a child. Far closer to the truth is the December 6, 1990, sentencing date of Weathermen Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, when the last of the Weathermen were sentenced for their role in a string of bombings in the mid-1980s, including bombs that detonated at the National War College, the Washington Navy Yard Computing Center, the Washington Navy Yard Officers’ Club, New York City’s Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the Israeli Aircraft Industries Building, New York City’s South African Consulate, and the United States Capitol Building.
Barack Obama’s ties to the Weathermen aren’t ties that were 40 years removed from a child’s experiences, but the conscious decision of a young radical to establish a relationship to an infamous terrorist because of shared ideology and interests.
Barack Obama never set any bombs. But he’s never had problems with associating with those who did.
This talking point that Obama was “only eight years old” is stupid, as is anyone who buys it.
[Afternoon update]
Abe Greenwald has more:
Okay, let’s go with that judgment thing, shall we. Barack Obama served on the board of an educational organization headed by a terrorist bomber. He launched his political career in said bomber’s home. He then went on to serve two years alongside said bomber on the board of a “charitable” organization. Not quite done, Obama gave the bomber the gift of an enthusiastic blurb for the bomber’s book jacket. Even if Obama’s preposterous new claim about not knowing who Bill Ayers was was true in 1995, was it true in 1997 when Obama, then state senator, endorsed Ayers’s book? Had he not yet found out the identity of his buddy by 2000, when he took the position serving with Ayers on the board of the Woods Fund? Did no one slip him a note over the next two years reading, “Don’t indicate that you’re reading this note, but the guy next to you is a terrorist”? Frankly, if Obama didn’t find out that Bill Ayers is a terrorist until it came up during the primary, then there’s more to worry about than the candidate’s political leanings.
No kidding.
[Early evening update]
Here’s a flash from the past. A 2001 piece by David Horowitz about the terrorist couple:
This is the banal excuse of common criminals – the devil made me do it. “I don’t think you can understand a single thing we did,” explains the pampered Weatherman bomber Bill Ayers “without understanding the violence of the Vietnam War.”
I interviewed Ayers ten years ago, in a kindergarten classroom in uptown Manhattan where he was employed to shape the minds of inner city children. Dressed in bib overalls with golden curls rolling below his ears, Ayers reviewed his activities as a terrorist for my tape recorder. When he was done, he broke into a broad, Jack Horner grin and summed up his experience: “Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country.”
That would have been 1991. This was a man who would later be put in charge of millions of dollars, with Barack Obama, to propagandize and radicalize Chicago schoolchildren. Either Obama had no problem with his past, or he was unaware of it. I don’t believe the latter. But either way, I don’t want him to be running the country. For all we know, he’ll appoint Ayers to be head of the Department of Education.
[Evening update]
“Bill Ayers has never hidden the fact that he was part of the Weather Underground, part of this radical group. In some ways it has made him somewhat famous in the South Side, Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood where he lives.”
I guess we’re supposed to believe that he somehow only hid it from Barack Obama.
This comment is horrifically stupid on multiple levels.
And of course, you can’t, or won’t, explain.
You’re right, Iraq hasn’t yet even begun to approach the stupidity of Vietnam, but it has clearly exceeded it in dollar costs by several orders of magnitude, dollar costs that today you will not be able to recover from.
But let’s look at the similarities : Vietnam escalation was based upon lies : Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq invasion was based upon lies : Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).
Vietnam and Iraq destroyed American credibility and standing in the world. Check.
Vietnam and Iraq killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of foreigners. Check.
Vietnam and Iraq have no strategic value. Check.
Did I miss anything? Again I ask, were you even alive during the Vietnam era?
All you’ve done is expand on the stupidity (e.g., “lies” about WMD).
No matter how many times you ask the stupid question of my age during Vietnam, it remains irrelevant. But for what little it’s worth (zero) I was close to draft age during Vietnam.
Obama and Ayers worked on Education in Schools. Let me repeat for the logic deprived here, Ayers was not in the bomb making business when Obama met him. Ayers was a Professor at the Univeristy of Chicago specializing in early education.
Whatever Ayers did forty years ago is irrelevant to what Obama was working on with Ayers. That is unless you can replace innuendo with some proof that there was something else going on.
Twenty some years ago McCain and Keating were fast friends to the extent that they vacationed together at Keating’s expense and had joint Birthday parties, while Keating contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to McCain’s campaigns. A much closer intimate relationship than Obama and Ayers ever had.
And for the record, Keating did far more damage to the lives of average Americans than Ayers ever did. Ayers wanted a war to stop. He wanted the killing in that war to stop. Keating knew he would be killing off old people by depleting their savings; he wasn’t trying to stop any killing. McCain aided and abetted this monster in the midst of his crimes.
Again:
(1) McCain aided and abetted Keating while Keating was committing his crimes against the American People.
(2) Obama worked on schools and education with someone who was then a Professor at the University of Chicago.
Who is the criminal here? Until you can come up with something more substantive, that’s where it stands.
Ayers was not in the bomb making business when Obama met him.
Not by choice. He was just trying to continue to avoid prison. He not only never expressed regret for his bombs, but as recently as seven years ago, regretted that he didn’t do more.
McCain aided and abetted this monster in the midst of his crimes.
How did he do that? What did he do to “aid and abet” Keating?
Are you saying that (Democrat) Bob Bennett was wrong when he completely exonerated McCain (and Glenn), and said that they shouldn’t have been dragged into the investigation?
Rand – yes Bennett was wrong. McCain personally attempted to impede bank regulators investigating a fraud investigation.
but as recently as seven years ago, regretted that he didn’t do more.
More of what?
More bombs or more to stop the killing in the war?
Still no proof that Obama and Ayers discussed anything other than Public Education. I’m waiting.
McCain aided and abetted Keating’s swindling older Amercians of their livelihood. One met and befriended a current criminal, the other worked with a violent-war-resister twenty years after the fact on a topic far removed from bombs.
McCain clearly was on active duty to hurt older Americans. Obama, not.
yes Bennett was wrong. McCain personally attempted to impede bank regulators investigating a fraud investigation.
Really? Cite?
Why do you think that you know what happened better than the (Democrat) investigator?
Hmmmmm.
@ Mike Gearson
“Still no proof that Obama and Ayers discussed anything other than Public Education. I’m waiting.”
Yes because doing the blog equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming “la la la la” is soooooo effective.
“McCain aided and abetted Keating’s swindling older Amercians of their livelihood. One met and befriended a current criminal, the other worked with a violent-war-resister twenty years after the fact on a topic far removed from bombs.”
Amazing. You stated the precise opposite of what actually happened in -both- instances.
Hmmmmm.
@ Dick
“But let’s look at the similarities : Vietnam escalation was based upon lies : Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq invasion was based upon lies : Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).”
And funny enough in both instances aided, abetted and -authorized- by Democrats and with a Democrat in charge of the CIA.
How about that.
Won’t people learn? Don’t have Democrats in charge of the CIA folks!
Hmmmmm.
@ Bob
1. “Memo, I wasn’t going to participate today (too much work) but I keep thinking about your cardboard cutout metaphor. Nice job – very evocative. People really can be like tha sometimes, but why do you suppose that liberal democrats are solely or even more guilty of thinking that way?”
I am the most fortunate of men. So.
Why do liberal Democrats think that way? *shrug* Am I to know the secrets of the universe?
2. “Think of a war you supported, along with your fellow conservatives. Maybe you supported the first Gulf War (as I did).”
Yes I did.
3. “You know how many Iraqi conscripts were killed by the US during the first day of the conflict, but at the time, and even now, it is hard to really feel their suffering, right?”
No I pretty much know what they went through. I spent a couple years in the USMC and my specialty was in killing tanks and other armored vehicles. Part of that training is learning what happens to a man when an armor-piercing round either penetrates the armor or causes spalling. Particularly with Soviet style equipment that has such idiotic design flaws as fuel tanks in the doors or live ammunition+fuel tanks surrounding the crew section.
If the spalled armor fragments don’t kill you, a mercy really, then the resulting brewup of ammunition and fuel will kill you, but slower.
Frankly war is the stupidest thing that mankind ever invented. But until the other guy puts down his club, we can’t put down ours.
4. “Everyone is guilty of thinking the way you describe – it is a coping mechanism.”
I think that is what you’d like to believe. But that doesn’t make it so. I know a lot of liberal Democrats. And how they view people -is- as if they were cardboard cutouts that walked and talked.
5. “If you think liberals do it more than conservatives, perhaps it is because your fellow conservatives are just pretty cardboard cutouts to you, incapable of having the flaws real people possess.”
This passes for logic?
Hmmmmm.
@ Jane
“If there was a reason, it was because your ideaology was inconvenienced, and you are too damn lazy to change it.”
Yes Jane.
Because we all know it’s extremely effective, when presented with an irrefutable argument, to then switch quickly to some ridiculous strawman pose about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject at hand.
The blog version of a squid ejecting a cloud of ink. Rather like a bureaucrat really.
Memo,
Your specialty is pretty interesting. I’d gladly shut up and substitute this conversation for a lecture on tanks and artillery.
Memo, I’m not saying that Democrats don’t act that way some of the time. I’m saying that everyone acts that way some of the time. I don’t mean any disrespect, but you’re the one with the illogical response if your retort is that you know liberal democrats and they really do act that way. You need to explain why conservatives are different from liberals.
I wonder why you are arguing against the common stereotype. Usually, liberal democrats are the ones who get characterized as “bleeding hearts”. who are more apt to take low-paying service-oriented jobs, who are naively against violence at any cost, and who will spend too much taxpayer money on compassionate programs, even when they’ve been proven to be ineffective.
Hmmmmm.
@ Bob
1. “You need to explain why conservatives are different from liberals.”
*shrug* might as well explain wind to someone living in a plastic bubble.
2. “I wonder why you are arguing against the common stereotype. Usually, liberal democrats are the ones who get characterized as “bleeding hearts”. who are more apt to take low-paying service-oriented jobs, who are naively against violence at any cost, and who will spend too much taxpayer money on compassionate programs, even when they’ve been proven to be ineffective.”
But you see you’ve proven my point.
Someone who really -is- compassionate would spend the effort on achieving what -works-.
Liberals spend time, money and effort on what -appears- to work without much care if it actually does work. The issue isn’t the people being “helped”. The real issue is that the liberal Democrat feels good about himself.
Take as an example “diversity” in college admissions. Something that most liberal Democrats would say is a noble ideal. However this principle really only works for -freshmen-. Once you’re past the admissions process then it’s up to the student to make the grade and if he does not then he either gets discouraged and gives up or he falls behind. Either way he’s the one that drops out and ends up in a dead end job.
So how did this student get into a school that he’s unqualified for? Why the rules of “diversity” of course. These rules allow a black person with an SAT of 700 to be admitted to the same college (Berkeley College in SF) as an Asian with a 1500 SAT. These same rules, until ruled unconstitutional by a court, also allowed Berkeley College to refuse admission to asians with 1400 SAT at the same time they were admitting black students with SATs of 700-800.
Now tell me. Can someone with a 700 SAT really make it through a 4 years degree when many other students have 1400+??
This is actually a well documented “vacuum” effect where various tiers of colleges act to meet their internal, and entirely illegal, quotas for minority students. Since, for various reasons, it’s difficult for a tier-1 school to fill that quota with tier-1 minority students that school fleshes the roster out with tier-2 students. And then tier-2 schools have to do the same with tier-3 students. etc etc etc.
In effect students that could otherwise have excelled at a lower ranked school are, because of liberal Democrat’s desire for self-congratulation, sucked into schools where there is little chance they could possibly succeed.
Now after reading that, and I recommend researching it yourself, would you conclude that the people in charge are either:
A. total morons
B. solely interested in self-gratification
And these are people who know precisely what the admissions rate is for freshmen and the drop out rate is for sophmores – juniors – seniors. So it’s impossible that they haven’t noticed.
Seriously. Would you, under any circumstance, allow someone to be admitted to an tier-1 college with an SAT of –700–?
I don’t believe in tier-1 schools. I believe in tier-1 teachers. My mother worked very hard with college students who needed it to keep them in school. She might have agreed with the basic premise that they shouldn’t have been admitted, but since they were there, she was damn well going to help get them up to speed. Also, if the alternative was non-admittance, she’d favor admittance and then working with them in a remedial program. She just wanted everyone to be a success. I realize I’m not addressing the problem limited availability. My mother wasn’t connected to admissions in any way, so she didn’t look at it in zero-sum terms, and given her personality, I think she would have refused to make hard choices — too compassionate, too liberal.
Hmmmmm.
@ Bob
Nice story about your mother, but this really isn’t about her. It’s about students who get sucked into academic situations for which they are not qualified.
“I don’t believe in tier-1 schools. I believe in tier-1 teachers.”
Aaaaaaannnnnnnnnnndddddddddd. Who has the financial support to pay for tier-1 teachers?
Go ahead. You can say it.