Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to ABC's Pennsylvania Democratic debate
Jeremiah Wright nontroversy? Not a problem.
Bitter clingy blue collar types, flag lapel pins? He can navigate those annoyances with ease.
But come November the Bill Ayers issue rushing up in Barack Obama's rear view mirror could be a real political problem.
A former member of the Weather Underground Organization -- a radical group responsible for a string of bombings in the early seventies - Ayers was a privileged kid turned domestic terrorist. Reformed and respectable Ayers is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, an informal advisor to Chicago's mayor and a past contributor to an Obama campaign. In Wednesday's debate Senator Clinton gave a preview of what to expect from conservatives come the general election should Obama take the nomination: accusations that Obama's cozy with radical liberals. There's not much the Clinton machine can do with the accusation seeing as President Clinton commuted the prison sentences of a couple of WUO members.
Conservatives will try to do considerably worse, and they'll have a lot to work with.
Back in the day Ayers was a radicalized liberal in the worst way. Not merely because he and his comrades turned to indiscriminate violence, but because of the reason they turned. Chiefly, their paternalistic belief that blacks could not secure civil rights without their helping, explosive hand to guide them. "Black people have been fighting almost alone for years," read the Declaration of War; the first communiqué of the WUO. "We've known that our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution."
Armed revolution.
Going metaphorically arm in arm with Dr. King -- as innumerable liberal minded folks of all persuasions did -- was not enough for the WUO. They had to blow stuff up. And they did it without regard for the fact that they were essentially spitting on the memory of a man who was committed to non-violence. Yes they were partially radicalized by the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton at the hands of the Chicago police -- and Hampton was murdered. But many vented their very righteous anger without lighting fuses. But many, also, didn't fancy themselves modern John Browns leading otherwise helpless blacks to freedom.
The WUO claimed to want to avoid human suffering. But you can't express yourself with explosives without somebody getting hurt. Who got hurt were three of their own members. Blown up in an accident so tragic it's actually empty of irony.
But I'm sure at the time the WUO figured they were doing something noble.
And I'm sure Ted Kaczynski figured he was doing the same.
The issue, though, isn't what Ayers thought then, it's what he thinks now.
Read Ayers memoir Fugitive Days which was published -- in actual horrific irony - on September 10, 2001. Though I have to admit it's pretty well written, it's filled with more paternalism (A squad of cops in Cleveland had dragged Black men from a motel and shot them down in cold blood, and now we would, I thought, even the score.) and romanticism of what were ultimately terrorist acts. Ayers is also quoted after Sept. 11th saying that he has no regrets for his past actions, but rather he feels that "we didn't do enough." Take a gander at his website and see if you find contrition, or self-aggrandizement.
What someone did forty years ago -- within reason -- should not damn them forever. But that's assuming the offending individual pays their debt to society and repents. Ayers has done neither.
I genuinely hope Obama's got as much distance as humanly possible between himself and Ayers, and that Ayers is just, as Obama said in the debate, "a guy who lives in my neighborhood."
I do not in any way, shape or form want Obama's Willie Horton to be a former terrorist/current elitist who feels compelled to once again even the score for a black man.
Related:
Jason Linkins: Hannity Spoonfed Left-Field Debate Question To Stephanopoulos
Rick Ayers: Clinton's McCarthyism (and my Brother Bill Ayers)
Huffington Post: Ayers And Obama: What Is Their Relationship?
Jeffrey Feldman: Et Tu, ABC?
Marc Cooper: Hillary And The Commies
Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to ABC's Pennsylvania Democratic debate
Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but you seem to suggest that Ayers' activities were especially awful because he's a white guy-- therefore his efforts and motives in the civil rights struggle were paternalistic. Maybe so, but I don't know Ayers (and it seems you don't either), so I'd hesitate to jump to that particular conclusion. Even if it's true, are we gonna start ruling out candidates because they had a seemingly rather tenuous connection to someone whose motives and attitudes are not pure enough for John Ridley?
My personal impresion of Ayers is that he seems kinda like an arrogant jerk, but:
a) I could be wrong-- lots of good people seem perfectly comfortable hanging out with him, and
b) have we reached the point of rejecting a talented candidate because he hung out with an arrogant jerk? This is really getting pathetic.
Lanny said repeatedly that Ayers was a "murderer" and that he killed innocent people (which anyone who knows anything about the Weather Underground knows they went out of their way to make sure no one was injured, the only people killed were three of their own members when they accidently set off an explosion in their own apartment in Manhattan). Meanwhile he was also blowing the Obama connection out of proportion.
Clintons people really need to lay the f**k off. They are so vicious. And they are now siding with FOX News against Obama. Wow. You know things are really whacked when Clintonites make sense to sean hannity.
I guess the next thing they will connect Obama to are all the convicts that his church reached out to through their prison ministries. I guess they'll blame Obama for all the crimes the committed too.
Clinton needs to drop out... It is way past time.
Do you really and truly believe that the good people of America are that stupid?
That they cannot see how the same games are being waged for the past 8 years?
Let show the American people a bunch of shiny things, get them all caught up in that...Then we can go ahead and do what we will...Start wars, get in and get as much $$ as we can, then out in 4 to 8 and leave the mess for the other guy...And then we start all over again.
And if by chance the good people of America are that stupid and votes in a Clinton or a McCain...then you deserve whatever you get...Good luck while the rest of the world moves on and progesses.
You complain about Homeland security that the government is too involved but want them running everything else and when it comes to the children and No Child Left Behind you say the government is too involved for wanting to hold teachers and schools responsible (which was a John Kennedy idea.. which Kennedy's and Bush's agreeing on something maybe that should of been a clue to all)
So taxes going up government more involved in every aspect except our security and schools then
taking money out of homeland security and military.
"It seems to me that Obama's serving on the board of the Woods Fund for a few years with [Ayers] is not fundamentally different from my serving for more than a decade on a law faculty with [Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn]." http://volokh.com/posts/1208495556.shtml
In other words, there's no "there" there.
With progressives too busy attacking each to debate, it's reassuring to know we can at least turn to a few honest conservatives for useful news.
Then yes.
Somehow for you, what Ayers was doing when Obama was 8 years old, not living in this country, and unaware of Ayers existence anywhere in the world.
Now Obama has become responsible for the actions of this man by chance association. If people who disagree should not be around each other, then republicans and democrats could not exist in the same room with each other.
You have taken the republican smear mentality and applied it to Obama and somehow now Obama is responsible for the actions of this man. Under your logic Germans are responsible for Hitler, whites in the U.S. are all responsible for slavery and the massacre of the Native American.
Certainly there are people, like yourself who might feel Ayers is something significant to be concerned about. This returns us to the begging of this blog. Yes, some people are attracted to drugs, alcohol, or gambling. And there are some people for whom racism and hate is tasty. If that is your favorite dish, well that is up to you, but don't feed it to me.
What this is about JUDGEMENT who you associate with. Ayers and his gang of terrorist bombed US buildings. Actually killed members of their own gang while making them and the group (not Ayers, he was not on that mission) but he/his wife are guardian of the child of the person that is in jail for killing cops and a security guard. WHAT the problem is = he is unremorseful !! he wrote a book seven years ago about how he is proud and wished he did more. It would be like in 40 years from now a presidential candidate (if when they first became sentor) had that announced at Adam Gadahn's house(who now is a model citiizen, but not sorry for what he did cough) who a U.S. Citizen but made the choice of joining Al-Qaeda bombed US buildings.
There where such things as peaceful protests. Bunch of rich kids trying to make a statement. Weather Undergound. Shows how extreme left he is by the company he keeps, including his Reverand Uncle. Knowing the man for that many years go to his church but didn't know his points of view never heard him say the comments he made on tapes they were selling to his congragation. How stupid does he think the US people are to believe that one, over the course of 20 years, married the couple, baptisted his children. NOT naive.
Not saying that Clinton or McCain have associations that could hurt them too. But they have more substance then Obama for the people to debate about. NO ONE KNOWS OBAMA we have to go by what we are seeing and hearing. He was more of a blank slate but what is being filled on it is not what I want my President to be.
of General Creighton Abrams, does that make me a supporter of the Viet Nam War? I also shook the
hand of the Tman that put Al Capone away, does that make me a supporter of the invasive techniques
that the government is currently using to spy on us? Find a better place to store your head when not
in use.
No only would Hillary be the first female President, but also the first female Richard Nixon. Enemies list and all.
She would be disaster, but it is going to take more than Obama's bumper sticker slogans. There are not enough liberal democrats to get elected. He needs other parts of the Political spectrum. It is these people he is either insulting or worrying.