Ayers and the McCain-G. Gordon Liddy Symbiosis
Does John McCain "pal around with terrorists?"
Certainly McCain's continuing "association" and relationship with the convicted Watergate burglar and domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy might suggest that is the case, if we are to apply the standards drawn by the McCain campaign.
In 1998, Liddy gave a fundraiser in his Scottsdale, Arizona home for McCain's senatorial re-election campaign -- the two posed for photographs together; and as recently as May, 2007, as a presidential candidate, McCain was a guest on Liddy's syndicated radio show. Inexplicably, McCain heaped praise on his host's values. During the segment, McCain said he was "proud" of Liddy, and praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." From the program:
LIDDY: Your experience in the Hanoi Hilton is remarkable. I mean, I put in five years in a prison [for masterminding the Watergate burglary, and associated crimes], but it was here in the United States, and they didn't torture - the only torture that I had was being forced to listen to rap music from time to time.McCAIN: Well, you know, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your family. I'm proud to know your son, Tom, who's a great and wonderful guy. And it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon. And congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.
Which of Liddy's "principles and philosophies" was McCain referring to? Liddy's advocacy of break-ins? Firebombings? Assassinations? Kidnappings? Taking target practice with figures nicknamed Bill and Hillary?
During the same period that Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Gordon Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.
Re: Liddy's "continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great:" Did McCain mean to include Liddy's instructions to listeners of his radio show in 1994 (around the time Ayres and Obama were on a board together discussing education programs and other plots) on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents (aim for the head)?
If ATF agents attempt to curtail a citizen's gun ownership, Liddy counseled, "Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests."
More recently, Liddy explained making the Clintons objects of shooting practice: "I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we - I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn't. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House."
The Liddy-McCain symbiosis has been mentioned in a number of posts on the Internet - mostly by bloggers and sites identified with The Left. But the documentation of their interaction (Liddy has also contributed financially to McCain's presidential campaign) is not a matter of Left or Right: It is astonishing that, given the prominence of the Ayers matter accorded by virtually every "mainstream" news outlet in America, there has been virtually nothing on the subject in the major newspapers and broadcast networks. This is a real journalistic failure and abrogation of responsibility.
Is Liddy any less a domestic terrorist than Bill Ayers? It is a zero-sum argument, for sure. I do not believe, incidentally, that John McCain shares the most abhorrent of Liddy's values, as expressed in Liddy's actions during the same period that Ayers was a Weatherman - and which Liddy continues to express, unapologetically, to this day.
But McCain has now become so unmoored from the principles he once espoused, so shameless in his courtship not only of the Republican "base" but in his eagerness to unleash a poisonous arsenal of character assassination and guilt-by-association - and plain-and-simple incitement of people's fears and prejudices - that, now, inevitably his and Sara Palin's rallies and campaign events have taken on the aura of mobs at times.
"Kill him," a man in the crowd responded last week, when Palin declared -yet again - "He's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." In Virginia, the State Republican chairman announced a set of talking points to campaign volunteers - stressing the incendiary connection, reported Time magazine, between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon. That is scary," the Republican chairman said.
The most recent McCain ad on the subject shouts, "Obama worked with terrorist William Ayers when it was convenient" - perhaps suggesting, indeed, even that the candidate was there planting bombs.
The intended message of the McCain campaign is, of course, that Obama is less than patriotic - enunciated even by the candidate's wife, Cindy: "The day that Senator Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body," she recently told a crowd of several thousand, which also heard her husband and Palin sound similar notes. (The chairman of the Lehigh, Pa., County Republican Party, William Platt, "implored the crowd to work hard to elect McCain or wake up November 5 to see 'Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama,' as the president," reported The Washington Post.)
Like Cindy McCain, the campaign's "Ad Facts" also trumpet - misleadingly - the only troop-funding bill that Obama voted against, in 2007 - without noting that Obama first voted for the bill, in a version that included a timetable for withdrawal. Nor did Cindy McCain mention that her husband, too, voted against the troop-funding bill - in the version that contained withdrawal language.
Thus has John McCain embarked on a scorched-earth death struggle for the presidency - cultural warfare that knows no bounds, exceeding perhaps even the mendacity and ferocity of the campaign waged against him by George Bush in 2000, and of which McCain once said there was "a special place in hell" for the Bush operatives who smeared him. (McCain also said of the Swift-boat attacks against John Kerry by Republicans in 2004: "I deplore this kind of politics. I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable.")
The lethal weapon of the McCain campaign's dreams is the explosive allegation that, in Palin's words - Obama "pals around with terrorists." McCain, wisely, did not raise the matter himself in the last presidential debate. Why?
At the time, much of the commentariat attributed the omission to McCain's purported concerns that Obama would respond by reciting the history of McCain's "association" with the S&L swindler Charles Keating, for which McCain was cited by the Senate Ethics Committee early in his career, for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening improperly with federal regulators on behalf of Keating, as part of the infamous Keating Five scandal.
But the more likely explanation of why McCain avoided a debate confrontation about "palling around with terrorists" is McCain's very real - and recent - symbiotic association and praise for another (not Ayers) domestic terrorist emblematic of the Vietnam era: G. Gordon Liddy.
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Wow! That is alot of information I had not heard. I knew Gordon had something to do with Watergate but I have not heard specific instances in mainstream news.
There is one blessing that has come from the media blackout..
How can we make the media pay attention to Liddy and His violent past? Please somebody tell me!
You can't. He doesn't have a violent past. You need to learn how to read more carefully.
McCain talks about ACORN subverting democracy and yet that was the exact purpose of the Watergate burglary-to give the GOP an unfair advantage over the Democrats, apparently a goal McCain admires since he is such a fan of G. Gordon's ethics.
Nothing Bill Ayers did even comes close to the damage the Watergate break in did to the democratic process. What could be more unAmerican than trying to steal the election for President? Perhaps McCain has forgotten that little incident already.
"Nothing Bill Ayers did even comes close to the damage the Watergate break in did to the democratic process."
You're joking, right?
Can Bernstein send this to a newspaper as an op-ed piece or something? It needs to find a wider outlet.
YOU WON'T FIND THIS IN THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA:
http://www
Bravo! to you Carl Bernstein.
When are we going to see full paged spreads on these questionable associations like we've been subjected to on the Obama-Ayres issue( / non-issue)?
It appears the Mainstream Media has looked the other way...unfo
I have been writing and emailing the MSM for weeks urging them to report on Liddy and AIP. It's worse than a double standard, it's a media blackout. Please please write, email, call the MSM and complain about their irresponsible and shameful 'looking the other way' when they drill Ayers, like Rev. Wright, into our heads 24/7.
I also have been e-mailing ( and calling ) the MSM for weeks about the lack of coverage of Palin/ AIP, McCain/ US Council for World Freedom ( Iran/Contra ), and Lawrence Timmons( McCain's transition team leader, a lobbyist for Saddam Hussein ) . I finally heard Anderson Cooper ask Bay Buchanan about Palin and AIP ( she quickly brushed the question aside, with no follow-up from Cooper ). This has been an exercise in deep frustration. I wish someone would offer an explanation.
SORRY, but WE AND THE MEDIA are grading "F" on this story. What good are we to Obama if we cannot somehow GET THE MEDIA TO DRAW THIS COMPARISON?? The last thing we need, as McCain is attacking on Ayers and robocalling, is to look back and say.......
THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE DOUBLE STANDARD AND YOU KNOW IT!
WOULD ALL OF YOU PLEASE GET THIS OUT THERE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!
One valid point even the Left declines to bring up. Why? Why did the Weather Underground do what they did vs. why did Liddy do what he did?
The Weather Underground were protesting the Vietnam War, and wanted to bring it to an end.
Liddy wanted money and power. And, in the case of the break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, revenge.
The "why" should be just as important, if not more so, than the "what."
For McCain, its a matter of Obama telling the truth about his relationship with Ayers, not Ayers himself. Can you believe that? And when pressed 'Senator McCain, what is it that you know regarding my relationship with William Ayers? How have I not been telling the truth?'
As for Liddy, McCain stated on Letterman: 'He's paid his dues.'
It took a late night comedic talk show host, albeit a famous one, to press McCain about Liddy -- and about Palin -- because our own press does not have the guts to ask the questions a large majority of the public wants answered.
Criminal. Network news/journalism died with Murrow.
Liddy is still going to shooting ranges? Why is Liddy even allowed to own or operate firearms after being a convicted felon? My understanding is that ex-felons cannot own or operate guns.
Unfortunately Carter pardoned him. That is one dumb thing I think Carter did during his presidency. It's really sad that a Democrat like Carter believes in redemption but the Republicans don't (unless it's one of theirs who is being redeemed).
Just imagine who Dubya is going to pardon. I guess Scooter will be number one on the list?
The sad thing is that neither Ayers nor Liddy really make any difference at all. Over time, we don't vet every person with whom we have a professional or personal relationship. And time does tend to gloss over what seems a big deal at the time.
The issue is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. And most of us live in glass houses. I am just sorry John McCain, of all people, would use these tactics. He has been the target of smears in the past, smears designed by the Karl Rove team. I didn't think he'd ever stoop to use them.
Liddy made a difference. He was a part of the team of Republican operatives working to subvert the 1972 election. He and the pack of Nixon cronies that were convicted of participating in illegal activities to steal the presidency of the United States of America.
The people in charge of the Bush administration cut their teeth on the Watergate scandal and its aftermath. People like Cheney are in the positions they are now and have the power they do because Liddy and others paved the way for them. In any sane society, people like Liddy wouldn't be allowed to have made fortunes off of books and radio shows. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger would have been scorned rather than made in elder statesmen.
ONCE IT COMES TO POLITICS. MCCAIN AND PALIN ARE SO BANKRUPT, THAT THEY RESORT TO
MUDSLINGING AND TRASH TALKING. I AM CONFIDENT THAT AM PEOPLE NO LONGER LISTEN TO THIS TYPE OF POLITICS. OBAMA STANDING SO TALL , THAT THEY CAN NOT REACH HIM.
TIME FOR A RADICAL CHANGE IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS
Taxpayers deserve independent representation with teeth. NOT suppliant gofers taking orders from special interests.
http://pac
Great article Carl.
The media should John McCain ask hard questions about his Liddy association and the time to do this in this election is now.
It's OK if you're a Republican ...
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