Ayers On GMA: GOP Used "Dishonest Narrative ... To Demonize Me"

ABC News' "Good Morning America" featured an interview with "campaign boogeyman" William Ayers Friday, his first since the election:

Ayers remained militant in his defense of his bomb-throwing past and repeated a statement that has infuriated his critics: "I don't think we did enough."

Ayers became a bogeyman for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, who demanded to know more about Obama's relationship with his Chicago neighbor. Palin accused Obama of "palling around ... with a terrorist."

Breaking his silence, Ayers told "Good Morning America" today that the GOP attack was a "dishonest narrative...to demonize me."

Watch:

Comments

[Tayo]

America needs people like Bill Ayers. They are the conscience of the nation. It is disappointing that there are opportunists like Hillary Clinton, John McCain et al, who find it convinient to misrepresent honorable individuals for their own political gain. Well....

[timm]

Whats great about this is you can just feeel the interviewer hoping to get some crazy off the wall responses from ayers, and he responds with nothing but straightforward rationale. Thankfully a large part of the reason the Ayers thing didnt stick was because there wasn't a face like Rev. Wright behind it saying crazy things that could be replayed over and over in commercials. The whole tactic behind the Ayers smear relied on people to ignore that Ayers had all his charges dropped and is a respected member of society today; and then ignore that obama's connections to him were loose at best. If you were aware of either of those two things then all the Ayers attacks came off as misleading and murky. Really in a way we're lucky hillary wore out the Rev Wright "scandal"; that was a much more effective smear.

[Snagsby]

Whatever your views on Bill Ayers, political protest, and the Vietnam war, one thing's undeniable: HE'S ONE HECK OF A MAVERICK!

[caspiann]

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"-Dylan

Very revealing interview - kudos to Ayers for doing it and to Cuomofor pushing him on repenting for his "terrorist" past.

He should repent. His lame excuse about not targeting people or actually wanting to kill anyone is bogus. Setting off bombs in a democracy fosters a climate of terror as well as creating the perfect conditions for some wacko administration to exploit the fear and promote the erosion of the only thing that can legitimately stop war...demo­cracy.

Would any Vietnamese have supported or condoned Ayers' actions? I doubt it. Who asked him join their fight? The world is lucky he didn't help turn the US into a totalitarian state with his "protest" bombs.They­'d probably still be in Vietnam today if he had. Great form of "resistance" there, pal. Grow up - he clearly needs to speak to a therapist to get past his denial.

That said, what he had to say about his "associations" with Obama was pitch perfect. Our leaders do need to associate with as many viewpoints as possible. Viva Obama!

[JBS]

Guilt by association???

Well, the relevance here is Good Morning American put William Ayers on TV, therefore Good Morning America has an association with William Ayers that means Good Morning America supports TERRORISM!

[Barbara2423]

Good looks does not make you a good journalist; this goes for females and males. Cuomo did not display the same intellect as Ayers.

[GrainneKathleen]

I think Cuomo is trying out for a job with Fox. He showed a basic disrespect and disdain for a man who has contributed much to the field of education. I agree with his protest of the Vietnam War - walk along the Vietnam War Memorial and you might feel the same. But I don't believe militarism and violence is the way to make as profound a political statement as possible (look how poorly it worked out for Northern Ireland and is still taking innocent lives in Israel and Palestine). Considering the fact that three members of the Weathermen died just making the bombs, you can see what a waste of life and passion for peace it was. Ayers was also continuously misquoted during the campaign. Instead of quoting him saying that he wished he had done more, Clinton and the McCain camp said that he wished he had BOMBED more - clearly a different message altogther. It seems Ayers must have learned the art of the peaceful protest because he has been making legal and important contributions to our culture for a while now. I believe what he did in the late sixties was reprehensible, but he himself is not reprehensible. Yet Cuomo treated him that way. Ayers was patient and polite and made Cuomo look like a jerk. And Ayers is very eloquent and made good point after point about his relationship with Obama, though Cuomo chose to ignore them because they were not what he wanted to

[whatchamean]

Terrible interview. Ayers ate him for lunch. Chris Cuomo is looking to make a name for himself and he just comes off looking like he is trying to do a hack job on Ayers. Career over Chris.

[loraxcp]

Evidenced by this interview, Mario Cuomo is truly lucky to have been born into a family that opened doors for him that he would have been unable to open on his own!

[StevenBolstad]

If this is Mario Cuomo's kid doing the part of Bad Cop in this interview he must be playing Devils Advocate to appear as hardball questioner.
He is sounding like a FOXer. ugh.
But maybe just to inoculate Ayers from that group.
Ayers does get a chance to answer the questions at least.
Even thought the apparent assumptions of the interviewer were inane.
On FOX he would just be interrupted continually.

Or did Chris Cuomo go to "the Other Side"? I don't watch enough TV to know.

[vuudu]

He spends time with Hannity. He actually called Hannity to discuss the interview on Hannity radio. I felt sick when I heard he calls often. Ayers fell into a trap, but then this was the interview he needed.

[ChetHolly]

The simple minded style that this interviewer uses to "probe" would be laughable if it were not soooo relevant. How often do we hear the interviewer say.......­"their are those who would say"......­Blah, Blah,Blah!
This lazy way a journalist approaches the subject requires little ground work or back round to say ........"C­an't you see why some would question your relationsh­ip".....Bl­ah,Blah,Bl­ah!
Ayers it seems was discounted in the Bill Ayers interview, as the questioner ignores potential new ground in order to rehash old scripts. Ayers seemed to be opened to discussing his feelings about our current government which would have been interesting. It seems that gotcha Journalism has replaced solid Journalism to a large degree.

[kjwhite]

How long will republicans continue to beat this dead horse? They have been told repeatedly by all parties concerned that there is simply nothing more to this "story" than that Obama and Ayers knew each other on a professional level, and that no matter how hard republicans try, not even if they cross their fingers and wish really, REALLY hard, will they be able to make something out of nothing.

This reporter was about as "un-biased" as that obnoxious female reporter that interviewed Joe Biden! They sound ridiculous, all wanting to claim that Sen. Obama refused to answer questions regarding how well he knew Ayers, when nothing could be further from the truth. He DID answer these questions, REPEATEDLY, the problem was that the republicans didn't like the answers. It seems the truth wasn't very interesting or incriminating. They WANTED THERE TO BE MORE, they wanted something sinister, and were determined to CREATE it if necessary, even if it didn't exist in reality.

Doesn't the TRUTH matter any more? The campaign is over. Give it a rest. The whole country can see that Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's campaign and will have nothing to do with his presidency, so why are we even talking about him? I wonder if this reporter's questions were approved by the network before-hand or were they a surprise? If so, I hope he was chastised for this stunt.

[Grundibular]

I bet this is real disappointment for the GOP. What did they expect? For him to be foaming at the mouth perhaps?

Sorry, no. Just straightforward, intelligent, honest and incisive - everything they hate. Good job Bill.

[GwenElle]

That was one of the most idiotic interviews I have ever seen. The ABC host, whatever his name, repeatedly responded to Ayers' answers to the questions with illogical conclusions and suggestions about something implied, but not stated; insistence on justifiable curiosity when Americans have already answered the question about just how concerned we were and are about whatever association Obama had with Ayers.

What people don't get is that some of us are pretty good judges of character. Many of us have read Barack's books and feel that we have a pretty good measure of the man . . . what he stands for and why.

For those seeking or believing nefarious intent in associations, the rationale for the questions are more in their own hearts than in the character of the man we elected to be our next President.

Let's move on shall we? Our President-elect and the nation he must lead has some huge problems to solve. Bill Ayers definitely is not one of them.

[todhiye]

Media isn't fair.
Ted Palin supported a group whp campained Alska to be an indepedent state that breaks away fron the rest of the united states.
please lets also talk about this.