Treacher (who has been on fire lately--scroll around the site), in response to the "argument" that the Annenberg Challenge was funded by Republicans:
"Well, how about that. Did you know the planes used on 9/11 weren't built by terrorists?"
Yup.
[Update a while later]
If the Obama campaign think that the Senator's relationship with Bill Ayers is no big deal, why are they trying to hide the evidence?
[Update at 11:30 AM EDT]
Fact checking factcheck.org (which it's becoming increasingly obvious is badly misnamed). And this seems part of a pattern:
The press seems more interested in attacking Rep. Bachman than in doing its job by asking Obama the many legitimate questions that flow out of his past dealings with Bill Ayers.
Can't disrupt the narrative, particularly two weeks before an election.
So Ayers hijacked $50 million from Annenberg and a board of directors full of businessmen?
Why not?
Philanthropists don't necessarily think like businessmen when it comes to their generosity, since they don't expect a return from it. It's all about feeling good.
They simply hand over the money to non-profits. They don't expect to have to spend their time scrutinizing its effectiveness. In fact, that's one of the reasons that Warren Buffet subcontracted his to Bill Gates--he just had a perception that he'd do a better job with it.
"Treacher" link links back to itself
So what exactly did Ayres use as the box cutter in this metaphor?
The argument is that the fact Obama worked with Ayres says something about either Obama's judgement (that someone with better judgement would have stayed away from someone with Ayres' past) or his agenda (that it implies he shares Ayres' beliefs). But plenty of respectable people worked with Ayres in Chicago, and Obama has a long history of working with people with whom he does not necessarily agree.
All that leaves is the charge that Obama has downplayed, or even lied about his ties. As George Romney put it, when you're explaining, you're losing. Of course Obama would rather change the subject from Ayres. That's hardly evidence of a deep, dark secret waiting to be discovered.
Meanwhile, John McCain says he is proud of a man who is unapologetic about planning assassinations and firebombings in an effort to undermine U.S. democracy. I don't think that means McCain hates America, just that Republicans (and McCain in particular) get a free ride from the media on some issues.
...plenty of respectable people worked with Ayres in Chicago
Respectable to whom? I sure don't respect them.
Obama has a long history of working with people with whom he does not necessarily agree.
Where is the evidence that Obama and Ayers disagreed about the agenda for the CAC? Certainly not in any of his actions, or in the papers that Stanley Kurtz uncovered (but that the media refuses to discuss).
Well, if Ayers hijacked the grant, he's real good - maybe he should be working in security. ;-)
Regarding Bachman - I thought she was being fact-checked because she went on national TV and demanded the media investigate Congress to see "how many Congressmen were un-American."
Maybe there are a bunch of elected officials who are un-American. Or maybe her definition of un-American is not a broadly-accepted one.
Maybe Bachmann should yap some more.
Her opponent raised over $600,000.00 since she yapped this rubbish. What is it with these foul mouthed GOP women?
I thought she was being fact-checked because she went on national TV and demanded the media investigate Congress to see "how many Congressmen were un-American."
So (as is often the case) you comment without bothering to follow the links?
Rand - I did follow the link. What "The Corner" did not talk about was her performance on Hardball (see http://crooksandliars.com/node/23459 for video) where she said
"I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that."
That's what's gotten her in trouble, not her recycling of the same old Ayers BS.
What "The Corner" did not talk about was her performance on Hardball (see http://crooksandliars.com/node/23459 for video) where she said
"I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that."
Of course they didn't talk about that. It wasn't the subject of either the post, or the article that the post links to. Are you being obtuse?
Actually, Rand, I think you are being obtuse. The reason Bachman's opponent got flooded with money and Bachman is getting flooded with questions is that Bachman called for investigations of members of Congress.
In other words, the controversial part of her statement is NOT Ayers, but the "investigate Congress" part. Both the Star-Tribune and National Review articles are missing that point.
Respectable to whom? I sure don't respect them.
Respectable to the GOP establishment. The McCain campaign can't argue with a straight face that Walter Annenberg was unfit for public service by virtue of his funding Ayres.
Where is the evidence that Obama and Ayers disagreed about the agenda for the CAC? Certainly not in any of his actions...
Nothing in Obama's record as a state senator or U.S. Senator, much less his speeches, books, or position papers, or his choice of advisors, suggests that his education policy as president would be anything like what Ayres would pursue.
The whole Ayres attack is a bunch of grown-ups playing cooties.
But plenty of respectable people worked with Ayres in Chicago
How many are running for President? The standard for being elected President is a bit different from merely being "respectable," isn't it? After all, just to take a random example, there were plenty of guys in the 1960s who volunteered for the National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam, or who had a DUI once upon a time, and they're all perfectly "respectable." You wouldn't expect, say, Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News to take a highly critical look twenty years later at how, precisely, they got out of a tour in 'Nam.
You can be a convicted car thief and be "respectable" once you're out on parole. "Respectable" just means you're not being an active pestilence on the community. But there's a big gap between that low bar and the standard for picking the Commander in Chief.
Obama has a long history of working with people with whom he does not necessarily agree.
Yeah? Give us an example. We'll even overlook the strange presence of the adjective "long" in that sentence, since Obama doesn't have a "long" history of doing any kind of work at all, unless "long' means "about a year or two."
In other words, the controversial part of her statement is NOT Ayers, but the "investigate Congress" part. Both the Star-Tribune and National Review articles are missing that point.
Let's try this one more time.
I linked to a post at NRO, which in turn linked to a newspaper article about Bachman's comments about Obama. And you are complaining because neither the newspaper, nor NRO, nor I are discussing what you want us to discuss?
Don't you have your own blog to discuss what you want to discuss?
Carl Pham -
You said 1960s who volunteered for the National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam, or who had a DUI once upon a time, and they're all perfectly "respectable."
Ayers is not running for President - Obama is. To follow your logic, anybody who "palled around with" Bush back in those days is suspect?
The problem with Ayers is not that the questions have not been asked - the problem is you (and others on the blog) appear to not like the answers.
Respectable to the GOP establishment.
Since when has John McCain ever given a damn about the GOP establishment? Are we talking about the same John McCain?
Nothing in Obama's record as a state senator or U.S. Senator, much less his speeches, books, or position papers, or his choice of advisors, suggests that his education policy as president would be anything like what Ayres would pursue.
Alas, nothing in his record et cetera is a reliable guarantee that his education policy would be different from what someone like Ayres would pursue.
Mr. Obama has been very good at being a blank slate on which folks who like him can project any hope they cherish. And, of course, he has such a short and thin record of actual decisions and actual accomplishment that there's not much concrete data. Under those circumstances, it's not unreasonable for people to look at every bit of solid data, and the association between Obama and Ayers is a solid datum. It does mean something. If he had a much longer trail contradicting the implications of that association, it would be a different story.
But he doesn't. That's the problem with nominating a total newbie. Every tiny facet of his life takes on a larger importance.
Rand - no, I'm complaining that you and National Review are completely overlooking and missing the real reason Bachman is suddenly national news. The real reason she's national news is not Ayers, it's the follow-on where she wants to investigate Congress for un-American activities.
The problem with Ayers is not that the questions have not been asked - the problem is you (and others on the blog) appear to not like the answers.
Well, yes, because the answers seem to be misleading or lies, and the media just accepts them at face value, instead of diverting a reporter or two from the tanning bed stores in Alaska, or plumbers' tax liens in Toledo, to do a little investigation.
Ayers is not running for President - Obama is.
Er...Chris, go get some coffee.
Jim's argument was that plenty of respectable people in Chicago worked with Ayers and, therefore, if Obama also worked with Ayers in Chicago, that does not prove he (Obama) isn't respectable.
My response is that merely being respectable is a low bar to clear, and people are perfectly justified in thinking a somewhat higher standard should apply to Presidential candidates.
Rand - Fox News and the Wall Street Journal run out of reporters? The Chicago Tribune's been covering Obama and Ayers since forever, and never can seem to find anything.
Please note - the Tribune is not a Democratic paper, and has been crusading against Cook County Democrats since before Lincoln (they were a Whig paper). They are currently trying to get Democratic members of the County board voted out over a budget battle, and have no love for Daley. In short, if there was anything to find, it would be found.
Rand - no, I'm complaining that you and National Review are completely overlooking and missing the real reason Bachman is suddenly national news.
In other words, you continue to whine that we aren't talking about what you want us to talk about, since the post wasn't about why she is "suddenly national news." The post was about the fact that a newspaper noted that she has been attacked for talking about Obama and Ayers (which she has), and that Factcheck.org has it wrong. Whether or not she is in the news, or more in the news, for other things is completely irrelevant to that, no matter how much you want to make it so, and talk about what you want to talk about. Go talk about that on your own blog, instead of hijacking threads.
Rand - Fox News and the Wall Street Journal run out of reporters?
Fox News has been covering this. Perhaps you haven't noticed. And the Journal has a conservative editorial board, but its news staff tend to be just as Democrat as the press at large. If the Tribune had bothered to dig into the records at the University of Illinois the way Stanley Kurtz did, perhaps they might have come up with something.
Rand - I am not trying to hijack your thread about Bachman. I am trying to point out that the articles cited are wrong, incorrect and in error.
Since you're not getting it, I'll stop trying.
I am trying to point out that the articles cited are wrong, incorrect and in error.
So it is now your claim that Bachman has not been criticized for her comments about Obama and Ayers? If not, then in what way were either in error? They didn't claim that she wasn't criticized for other things--they simply ignored the issue (not realizing how unhappy it would make Chris Gerrib).
So what exactly did Ayres use as the box cutter in this metaphor?
White liberals' fear of being called racist.
The McCain campaign can't argue with a straight face that Walter Annenberg was unfit for public service by virtue of his funding Ayres.
Nobody ever accused United Airlines with being in league with al-Qaeda, either.
The whole Ayres attack is a bunch of grown-ups playing cooties.
You'd certainly better hope so.
And it's Ayers.
Obama is only a blank slate to people too lazy to look. He's been in office a dozen years. He's cast hundreds of votes, written two books, and given hundreds of speeches. He's worked with hundreds of people in government, education, philanthropies and the private sector. One of those people is Bill Ayres; another is Warren Buffett; another is Tom Coburn; another is Valerie Jarrett; another is David Axelrod; another is Pete Rouse [hint: some of these people have more influence on Obama than others]. You could go on and on.
If the Obama campaign think that the Senator's relationship with Bill Ayers is no big deal, why are they trying to hide the evidence?
The linked article is about a blog post that is no longer available. And from this Rand concludes that it was the Obama campaign that made the post unavailable. Care to offer any proof?
The missing post proves nothing that the Obama campaign hasn't confirmed, namely that Ayres and Dohrn hosted a meet-and-greet for Obama when he first ran for the State Senate.
As for why the Obama campaign might want less attention paid to Ayres: well, duh! They know that talking about Ayres doesn't help them, that doesn't mean there's anything scandalous to be found. Palin won't release her medical records, that doesn't mean she's hiding a life-threatening condition.
If the Tribune had bothered to dig into the records at the University of Illinois the way Stanley Kurtz did, perhaps they might have come up with something.
Ah, hope springs eternal that somewhere there's a smoking gun. There was a similar conviction on the right about Bill Clinton. Millions were spent looking high and low. In the end the only charge they could make stick was the one voters already knew about as of the 1992 60 minutes interview: that he was an adulterer.
Meanwhile, John McCain is also an adulterer, launched his political career using the money of a convicted felon and buddy of mobsters, is proud of his connection to an unrepentant political terrorist, and the Obama campaign says nothing about any of it. Which of these campaigns is serious?
Chris, you wrote:
So Ayers hijacked $50 million from Annenberg and a board of directors full of businessmen?
Yes, I'd say this is the number one problem in US charities today. Misuse of funds. Some trusts are absolutely notorious for this: Pew Charitable Trusts, Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, etc. The Annenberg Foundation is following a well trod path. This is one of the reasons the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a bit unusual. It has an expiration date and hence cannot devolve as some of these other trusts have done. That's also probably why Warren Buffet supported it.
Number two is redirection of public funds to private non-profits such as the funding of ACORN by Congress.
Rand - I am not trying to hijack your thread about Bachman. I am trying to point out that the articles cited are wrong, incorrect and in error.
As usual, you have an odd way of going about it.
Sounds like the other Jim has already put up his "CONGRATULATIONS OBAMA!" banner. Your confidence, sir, is inspiring.
Jim (not Treacher-Jim) states it right. Well said.
II: "Nuh-uh."
Hey, did you know that Liddy went to jail, and McCain admitted and repented for what he did to his wife?
II, you wrote:
Jim (not Treacher-Jim) states it right. Well said.
Indeed, it's not important who did what. It's only important that nobody can prove Obama did it. One only has to look at the previous president (for example, nobody can prove that Bush officials lied to rationalize the invasion of Iraq) to see the problem with these sorts of statements.
Here's my take. Obama has associated with some real nutcases and businessmen engaged in criminal activities. He has then chosen to greatly downplay his association with these people.
When I then consider that Obama reoriented himself after winning the Democrat primaries (for example, reneging by voting for the recent FISA legislation), it says to me that Obama will say what he needs to say to get elected.
Yes, Liddy went to jail. What difference does that make? He still says he doesn't think he did anything wrong. Would you be cool with Obama's Ayers connection if Ayers had done time?
Karl: The other standard would be that it doesn't matter what Obama did, it's only important that you can imagine that he did horrible things. Of course proof is important.
Both Obama and McCain have associated with nutcases and criminals. Both have changed positions. I would argue that McCain has associated more closely with his nutcases and criminals, and changed positions more drastically. But neither has clean hands on those criteria.
Both Obama and McCain have associated with nutcases and criminals.
Obama has a long-time and consistent pattern of it, going back to college (and before if you count his communist mentor).
"Would you be cool with Obama's Ayers connection if Ayers had done time?"
So it doesn't matter to you that he hasn't.
And thank you for reiterating the connection.
Rand: You really think it's significant that Obama was friends with a communist friend of his grandfather's? Obama's take on Frank Marshall Davis in Dreams is hardly that of someone towards a mentor: he explicitly distinguishes his own views on race from Davis's. Is it impossible for you to imagine someone having a friend without assuming the friend's views? Do you think Obama would be a better potential president if his teenage self had shunned Davis? No doubt you would criticize Martin Luther King Jr. for all of his communist associates. Clearly King was up to no good.
Meanwhile, the middle-aged John McCain accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a felon to launch his political career. And that doesn't bother you at all.
Jim Treacher: You didn't answer the question. I don't think the fact that Ayers wasn't prosecuted for his crimes makes him a scarier influence than someone who was prosecuted. I do wish the FBI hadn't violated the law in its investigation of the Weathermen, so Ayers could have been prosecuted and imprisoned. Your implication is that the FBI's law-breaking somehow reflects badly on Obama!
> I don't think the fact that Ayers wasn't prosecuted for his crimes makes him a scarier influence than someone who was prosecuted. I do wish the FBI hadn't violated the law in its investigation of the Weathermen, so Ayers could have been prosecuted and imprisoned. Your implication is that the FBI's law-breaking somehow reflects badly on Obama!
The FBI's law-breaking resulted in no trial and no conviction. No conviction makes it possible for Obama to say that Ayers is just a guy from the neighborhood. A conviction and some jail time would have diminished Ayers somewhat in even that neighborhood.
Of course, maybe Obama would have sought out Ayers even if he had been convicted. However, then the Obama apologists would have had to argue that his conviction was no big deal. As it is now, they don't even admit any wrong-doing without being pressed, and retreat to that whenever possible.
Ayers non-conviction is a rhetorical benefit.
I don't think the fact that Ayers wasn't prosecuted for his crimes makes him a scarier influence than someone who was prosecuted.
You think? Let's try a very similar but analogous situation. You like to rock climb. You meet a guy who, in his youth, did some amazingly foolish and arrogant things, taking really stupid chances on the rock face, in ways that endangered not only his own life but the lives of others with him.
However, fortune smiled on him, and neither he nor anyone else was every injured. Pure dumb luck. Since then, he's gotten older, and understands theoretically how taking those chances wasn't a good idea.
Now: would you trust your life to this man, climbing? Or would you feel more inclined to trust him if he had gotten hurt, had actual scars to remind him of the penalty for being an asswipe?
See, here you've got a guy who behaved profoundly antisocially, even murderously, and got away with it. We're told he understands, from a purely theoretical point of view, why that isn't a good way to behave. But he has no scars to remind him. Does that make him dangerously more likely to retain profoundly antisocial behaviour patterns? You betcha.
Carl:
A nice metaphor, but if doing time always made the inmate less antisocial we'd have much less crime. Sometimes prison only hardens the criminal, and reinforces a martyr complex. Liddy wears his time served as a badge of honor. I suspect Ayers would have done the same.
Andy:
Yes, if Ayers had been convicted of serious crimes that additional notoriety might have made it harder for him to become Chicago's Citizen of the Year. But the right is arguing that it's okay for McCain to be proud of Liddy because Liddy was convicted. Shouldn't Liddy's conviction give McCain even less of an excuse?
Christ, Jim, think that one through a little bit more.
If prison doesn't routinely make people less antisocial, why do we have it at all? What's the point? Why not just kill everyone who commits a serious crime and save a lot of money?
Liddy wears his time served as a badge of honor. I suspect Ayers would have done the same.
No he wouldn't. Ayers doesn't have nearly the balls of Liddy. That's why he stayed behind the scenes in the 70s, used the anonymous bomb as his weapon of choice -- Liddy would have used a .45, or even a hunting knife -- and is now hiding out in an education department, declining to discuss those tricky 1970s years, and keeping a strictly low profile while his bud campaigns. Liddy is an idealogue, Ayers is just a Stalinist creep.
Carl,
Check the recidivism rate:
dhttp://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/reentry/recidivism.htm
Over 2/3rds of prisoners are rearrested within 3 years of their release. A lower (but still very high) percentage are then convicted.
Presumably some ex-cons commit crimes but aren't re-arrested, and some ex-cons are convicted but are innocent. My largely ungrounded suspicion is that there are more people in the first group than the second group, and most of you probably agree with me on that.
Prison doesn't work in the majority of cases. I don't know what the solution is, but, Carl, it surely isn't just killing everyone (even if their organs are harvested).