The latest spin from the Obama campaign on the Obama-Ayres ties is a doozy. In an interview with CNN's Jim Acosta, Obama campaign manager David Axelrod came up with the latest whopper:
JIM ACOSTA: Now a college professor in Chicago, Ayers and Obama served together several years on a nonprofit board. And in 1995 Ayers hosted a coffee for Obama when the young community organizer was making his first run for the State Senate. At this point looking back, should he not have done that?
DAVID AXELROD: Well I mean, when he went, he certainly — he didn’t know the history.
ACOSTA: The Democratic nominee’s chief strategist David Axelrod maintains Obama at that time had no idea about Ayers’ violent past.
What?! Obama didn't know about the history of William Ayres's Weather Underground? That is a crock of manure.
As Ed Morrisey wrote:
Ayers was hardly quiet about his life and his aspirations. He wrote a book about it in 2001. Chicago Magazine did a lengthy profile of him at the time, complete with pictures of Ayers standing on an American flag thrown on the ground in an alley. Nevertheless, Obama continued to work with Ayers at the Woods Fund and work together on public events. Either Obama liked what Ayers did, or he’s the most clueless politician to have ever reached the US Senate, and neither commends itself as a recommendation for a presidential candidate.
The aforementioned 2001 photo of Ayres standing on the flag is at top.
For the sake of argument, let's assume Obama didn't know about Ayres's past in the 1990s, it still doesn't excuse him for associating with him after 2001. Obama couldn't have missed the Chicago Magazine article or Ayres's book (Ayres may have even proudly sent Obama a copy of his book along with the article).
Ayres is well-known to be a huge braggart, and no doubt he would have bragged to Obama back in the 1990s of his youthful "exploits" as a domestic terrorist. At the time the charges against Ayres were dropped, Ayres boasted, "Guilty as hell, but free as a bird!" Such modesty!
Sorry, but it is unbelievable that Obama would not have known of Ayres's past prior to 2001. It doesn't hold water.
From HotAir.com:
Erick Erickson says that Obama would have had to avoid local media altogether in 1996 to miss the mentions of his friend and neighbor.
In 1996, the Democrats held their national convention in Chicago, and Ayers got a lot of attention beginning with the decision in 1994:
At the height of this exposure, major media outlets were quoting Bill Ayers and pointing out his radical past.
What else happened in 1996 when the media was reminiscing about the Democratic Convention of 1968, and interviewing key players like Bill Ayers?
Bill Ayers held a fundraiser for Barack Obama.
And we’re really supposed to believe Obama did not know, by 1996, given all the major media coverage of the 1996 Democratic Convention going back to Chicago despite the 1968 riots — including local and national media interviews with Bill Ayers on the subject — that Obama did not know?
You’ve got to be kidding me.
UPDATE: Stanley Kurtz' Latest Research Into Barack Obama's Connections To Terrorist Bill Ayers And Radical Palestinian Advocate Rashid Khalidi
UPDATE 2: "Mr. Magoo Goes To Washington"
By David Freddoso
Barack Obama would have you believe that, after 20 years of friendship, he had no idea the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a bomb-throwing racial demagogue. And that after 15 years of what he described as a close friendship, he had no idea Tony Rezko was a crook.
Similarly, this week, his campaign claimed that when Obama entered William Ayers’s home in 1995 to raise money for a state-senate run, the future presidential hopeful didn’t know Ayers was a former terrorist.
So by his own account, Obama wanders through life completely unaware of his surroundings.
For more: "Mr. Magoo Goes To Washington"
2 comments:
William Ayers is currently a professor of early education at the University of Chicago. He cofounded an organization called the Weather Underground in the late 1960's. That group became the more violent wing of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) , and Ayers was eventually accused of involvement in several bombings in opposition to the Vietnam War. His relation to Obama is minimal. Apparently he once hosted a "coffee klatch" for Obama's run for the state senate. They lived in the same neighborhood, and ran into each other due to their shared passion for educational reform. Barack Obama was eight years old when the Weather Underground was active, and has denounced its past operations. The two do not speak to each other currently.
Read more at SERENDIPITY
Nice fairy tale. The Obama-Ayres ties are much more extensive than you and your Obama campaign talking points are trying to convey.
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