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Jim wrote:
If the Ayers thing is so bad, why do people on the right feel the need to overstate the case? Ayers never said that his only regret was that he didn't kill more people.
Other criticisms:
* Why spend 40 seconds of the ad talking about a bombing that didn't happen, and 2-3 seconds about the ones that did?
* Check out the haircuts on those "young servicemen"! The filmmakers were apparently too lazy to get even plausible stock photos.
* Extra gratuitous imagery points for showing the bloody baby from Oklahoma City. At least Oklahoma City has something in common with Ayers' crimes. But Ted Bundy?!?
* Bonus question: The video says that Ayers will vote for Obama. If the Oklahoma City bombers were free today, who would they vote for? Should I be extra careful to not vote the same way?
Rand Simberg wrote:
If the Oklahoma City bombers were free today, who would they vote for?
I have no idea. But if they were to vote at all, I doubt if it would be either major party candidate.
Do you think that if the Oklahoma City bombers had gotten off on a technicality, they would have become respected members of the Chicago community? Or any community?
Rand Simberg wrote:
...why do people on the right feel the need to overstate the case?
Are you so completely out of contact with reality that you really believe that only people on "the right" do that?
Bob wrote:
Rand, I interpreted Jim's comment as saying that people are overstating the case about Ayers, rather than as vacuous generalization about right wingers' behavior on a range of subjects, which, as you rightly point out, could hardly be applied only to right-wingers.
Jim wrote:
What Bob said.
To put it more plainly, if the makers of that video feel they have a strong argument to make about Ayers, why do they lie about what Ayers said?
Rand Simberg wrote:
Rand, I interpreted Jim's comment as saying that people are overstating the case about Ayers, rather than as vacuous generalization about right wingers' behavior on a range of subjects...
I think you're overgenerous in your interpretation. Not that I'm a "right winger."
Bob wrote:
If you look at the depth of feeling in Dave G.'s comment in the previous post on this blog, you can see that there is no need to overstate the case on Ayers - the facts are enough to get people quite stirred up. That's why it is kind of odd when careful people overstate the case.
Rand Simberg wrote:
They didn't "lie" about what he said; they paraphrased. It might or might not be true--it's hard to know what he meant by doing "more." But among other things, what he was doing was attempting to kill people, so it's not an unreasonable interpretation.
David wrote:
The problem is, this Ayers nonsense is not resonating with the average American. Yes, I agree, Obama should not be friends with terrorists, but the average American doesn't care for whatever reason. They should, but they don't.
The only charges against Obama that have resonated in this election have been: 1) socialism, and 2) his disdain for flyover America. The average (non-liberal) American feels bad taking stuff that isn't his - Obama buying votes with other people's money will not sit well with them, even if the other people are rich. The average (non-liberal) American is also sick and tired of hearing about how much smarter liberals are than themselves - they know the true score, even if CNN won't report it.
People get mad when they buy one thing and get another. They don't get mad when the product has a defect they already knew about. Obama's crazy friends are a known defect (he is a liberal, after all) - so no one cares. Obama had sold himself as everybody's friend, a reach across the aisles guy - so that's where he is vulnerable.
Jim wrote:
The video claims that Ayers said he regretted not killing more people. He did not say that. You can argue that he meant that, but that still isn't the same as saying it.
As it happens Ayers has clarified his comment, and specifically disowned the video makers' interpretation:
As it happens Ayers has clarified his comment, and specifically disowned the video makers' interpretation
Well, it's nice to see that at least he's lying about it now, rather than professing pride in his murderous intent.
I think...
Karl Hallowell wrote:
The video claims that Ayers said he regretted not killing more people. He did not say that. You can argue that he meant that, but that still isn't the same as saying it.
Right. Remember it's less important what he meant than that you can't prove that's what he meant.
Bill Maron wrote:
This is fun watching Jim defend a real terrorist. For Jim to fault the ad for using people is hilarious. So Jim is saying shame on them for saying Ayers wanted to kill more people when all he said was he wished he did more. At the time he said that, you have to take it as he wished they did more violence, regardless of any "clarification" later. That would be more bombings since that was what they were doing, don't you think?. So Jim, it didn't take place because the bomb they planned to use on Ft. Dix blew up prematurely and killed the bombers. Are you saying because they killed themselves instead of their intended targets it doesn't count? Why not Ted Bundy? Ayers and Bundy are both psychopaths.
Jim wrote:
The video is trying to make a point about Ayers state of mind, as revealed by his own statements. For the video to put its own interpretation on those statements kind of defeats the purpose; "We think Bill Ayers regrets not killing more people" carries a bit less weight than "Bill Ayers said he regrets not killing more people." Given that (to my knowledge) Ayers has never admitted killing anyone, it would be strange indeed for him to say that he regrets not killing more.
But by all means, have McCain and all the 527s run this ad. It's long, unfocused, dull, poorly made, and spends all its time talking about Ayers rather than connecting Ayers to Obama. So I don't think it'll have the desired effect.
Voters don't seem to be responding to even professionally made attack ads on this topic. E.g. the lady in the focus group Ben Smith wrote about (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Voting_for_Obama_anyway.html):
"Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."
Andy Freeman wrote:
> Given that (to my knowledge) Ayers has never admitted killing anyone, it would be strange indeed for him to say that he regrets not killing more.
No, it wouldn't. The fact that I haven't spent any time on the moon doesn't make it strange for me to say that I wish that I'd spent more time on the moon.
It's strange to say that you wish that you'd done less of something that you haven't done, but that's because it's hard to do negative amounts.
BTW - Hasn't Ayers admitted being involved in the group which blew itself up, killing several of their own members, including Ayers girlfriend at the time? If so, that's killing that he was involved in.
Also, wasn't Ayers involved in a NYPD bombing that killed some cops? Or, don't they count....
Ayers certainly regrets not pulling off the Pentagon bombings and they certainly would have killed people, "more people" if you like.
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About this Entry
This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on October 21, 2008 10:57 AM.
If the Ayers thing is so bad, why do people on the right feel the need to overstate the case? Ayers never said that his only regret was that he didn't kill more people.
Other criticisms:
* Why spend 40 seconds of the ad talking about a bombing that didn't happen, and 2-3 seconds about the ones that did?
* Check out the haircuts on those "young servicemen"! The filmmakers were apparently too lazy to get even plausible stock photos.
* Extra gratuitous imagery points for showing the bloody baby from Oklahoma City. At least Oklahoma City has something in common with Ayers' crimes. But Ted Bundy?!?
* Bonus question: The video says that Ayers will vote for Obama. If the Oklahoma City bombers were free today, who would they vote for? Should I be extra careful to not vote the same way?
If the Oklahoma City bombers were free today, who would they vote for?
I have no idea. But if they were to vote at all, I doubt if it would be either major party candidate.
Do you think that if the Oklahoma City bombers had gotten off on a technicality, they would have become respected members of the Chicago community? Or any community?
...why do people on the right feel the need to overstate the case?
Are you so completely out of contact with reality that you really believe that only people on "the right" do that?
Rand, I interpreted Jim's comment as saying that people are overstating the case about Ayers, rather than as vacuous generalization about right wingers' behavior on a range of subjects, which, as you rightly point out, could hardly be applied only to right-wingers.
What Bob said.
To put it more plainly, if the makers of that video feel they have a strong argument to make about Ayers, why do they lie about what Ayers said?
Rand, I interpreted Jim's comment as saying that people are overstating the case about Ayers, rather than as vacuous generalization about right wingers' behavior on a range of subjects...
I think you're overgenerous in your interpretation. Not that I'm a "right winger."
If you look at the depth of feeling in Dave G.'s comment in the previous post on this blog, you can see that there is no need to overstate the case on Ayers - the facts are enough to get people quite stirred up. That's why it is kind of odd when careful people overstate the case.
They didn't "lie" about what he said; they paraphrased. It might or might not be true--it's hard to know what he meant by doing "more." But among other things, what he was doing was attempting to kill people, so it's not an unreasonable interpretation.
The problem is, this Ayers nonsense is not resonating with the average American. Yes, I agree, Obama should not be friends with terrorists, but the average American doesn't care for whatever reason. They should, but they don't.
The only charges against Obama that have resonated in this election have been: 1) socialism, and 2) his disdain for flyover America. The average (non-liberal) American feels bad taking stuff that isn't his - Obama buying votes with other people's money will not sit well with them, even if the other people are rich. The average (non-liberal) American is also sick and tired of hearing about how much smarter liberals are than themselves - they know the true score, even if CNN won't report it.
People get mad when they buy one thing and get another. They don't get mad when the product has a defect they already knew about. Obama's crazy friends are a known defect (he is a liberal, after all) - so no one cares. Obama had sold himself as everybody's friend, a reach across the aisles guy - so that's where he is vulnerable.
The video claims that Ayers said he regretted not killing more people. He did not say that. You can argue that he meant that, but that still isn't the same as saying it.
As it happens Ayers has clarified his comment, and specifically disowned the video makers' interpretation:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/in-a-not-remote.html
As it happens Ayers has clarified his comment, and specifically disowned the video makers' interpretation
Well, it's nice to see that at least he's lying about it now, rather than professing pride in his murderous intent.
I think...
The video claims that Ayers said he regretted not killing more people. He did not say that. You can argue that he meant that, but that still isn't the same as saying it.
Right. Remember it's less important what he meant than that you can't prove that's what he meant.
This is fun watching Jim defend a real terrorist. For Jim to fault the ad for using people is hilarious. So Jim is saying shame on them for saying Ayers wanted to kill more people when all he said was he wished he did more. At the time he said that, you have to take it as he wished they did more violence, regardless of any "clarification" later. That would be more bombings since that was what they were doing, don't you think?. So Jim, it didn't take place because the bomb they planned to use on Ft. Dix blew up prematurely and killed the bombers. Are you saying because they killed themselves instead of their intended targets it doesn't count? Why not Ted Bundy? Ayers and Bundy are both psychopaths.
The video is trying to make a point about Ayers state of mind, as revealed by his own statements. For the video to put its own interpretation on those statements kind of defeats the purpose; "We think Bill Ayers regrets not killing more people" carries a bit less weight than "Bill Ayers said he regrets not killing more people." Given that (to my knowledge) Ayers has never admitted killing anyone, it would be strange indeed for him to say that he regrets not killing more.
But by all means, have McCain and all the 527s run this ad. It's long, unfocused, dull, poorly made, and spends all its time talking about Ayers rather than connecting Ayers to Obama. So I don't think it'll have the desired effect.
Voters don't seem to be responding to even professionally made attack ads on this topic. E.g. the lady in the focus group Ben Smith wrote about (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Voting_for_Obama_anyway.html):
"Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."
> Given that (to my knowledge) Ayers has never admitted killing anyone, it would be strange indeed for him to say that he regrets not killing more.
No, it wouldn't. The fact that I haven't spent any time on the moon doesn't make it strange for me to say that I wish that I'd spent more time on the moon.
It's strange to say that you wish that you'd done less of something that you haven't done, but that's because it's hard to do negative amounts.
BTW - Hasn't Ayers admitted being involved in the group which blew itself up, killing several of their own members, including Ayers girlfriend at the time? If so, that's killing that he was involved in.
Also, wasn't Ayers involved in a NYPD bombing that killed some cops? Or, don't they count....
Ayers certainly regrets not pulling off the Pentagon bombings and they certainly would have killed people, "more people" if you like.