The Obama/Ayers connection

[emeleel]

For those planning to vote for Obama, I have a question. What are your thoughts on the Obama/Ayers connection, and why should it not matter to the voters?

[mtomm[$]]

A stretch?

[lynnzop[$]]

I'm not planning to vote for Obama at this point, but to me it's a decades old reference that bears little impact on current events.

So it doesn't sway me to fall off the fence either way.

[drmomentum[$]]

emeleel said

For those planning to vote for Obama, I have a question. What are your thoughts on the Obama/Ayers connection, and why should it not matter to the voters?

Is this the kind of thing that New Yorker was parodying with the terrorist fist bump? (i.e. the attempt at portraying Obama as a terrorist?)

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

In 1997 Bill Ayers published a book that criticized the treatment of juvenile defendants in the criminal justice system including the practice in some states of trying these individuals as adults. Barack Obama praised the book as a “searing and timely account” in the Chicago Tribune.

This I like. But I believe in people being able to be reformed, I believe that there's the potential for good in all people, and he must not be purely evil if he was able to get a job from a respecatable university, eh? I've not dug deep but from what I see, where Obama and Ayers worked together, it was for positive common goals, not building bombs.

[brian_igo]

This is a post I made on my motorcycle forum

Let's also keep the timeline in perspective

1969

• Weathermen group formed from a split with the SDS group.
• Barack Obama turns eight.

1970

• Weathermen declare war on the United States.
• Barack Obama is nine.

1971-1972

• Weathermen continue campaign of behaving like douches.
• Barack Obama is ten years old, then eleven years old.

1973

• Weathermen disband after the end of the Vietnam War. In their four-year "war" against the US, the only casualties are three members of the group who are killed while making a bomb.
• Barack Obama becomes a twelve year-old.

1980

• William Ayers comes out of hiding, surrenders to FBI, government drops charges against him.
• Barack Obama becomes a freshman in college.

1981

• Ayers returns to his hometown of Chicago, becomes an advocate for public school reform and a professor at UI-Chicago.
• Four other former members of the disbanded-for-eight-years Weathermen attempt a robbery of a Brinks truck, resulting in the murder of two police officers and a Brinks guard. All but one (who took a plea deal in exchange for testifying) gets a 60-75 mandatory prison sentence.
• Barack Obama is just one year away from being able to buy a legal beer.

1995

• Obama and Ayers meet 22 years after the Weathermen disbanded, and 14 years after Ayers surrendered to authorities and had the charges against him dropped.

[realtraveller]

Ayers is not reformed. He has never said he regretted his actions. Instead he said he wished he'd done more bombings. He shows this defiance by being photographed trampling on an American flag. Obama and Ayers worked together for years on the Annenberg Challenge and on the Woods Foundation. Obama held his first fundraiser at Ayer's home.

Ask yourself. Would you socialize or work with O. J. Simpson or Eric Rudolph? Even 30 years from now? I wouldn't.

[brian_igo]

Unlike OJ and Eric Rudolph, William Ayers did not kill anyone. The only people hurt by the Weathermen were three of its own members.

And about the flag - I'm still (mostly) polite with people who grabbed pom-poms while Bush wiped his ass with our Constitution. Be careful where your hurling rocks, Kathy.

[realtraveller]

brian_igo said

Unlike OJ and Eric Rudolph, William Ayers did not kill anyone. The only people hurt by the Weathermen were three of its own members.

So you'd associate with Charles Manson (who didn't personally kill anyone) or Sqeekie Frome (who only attempted to murder Gerald Ford) but you draw the line at someone who was a better shot. So the shoe bomber would be someone you'd serve with on a board. Or Moussaoui. Or even Bin Ladin. After all, Bin Ladin didn't personally kill anyone. Sheesh. Your attempt at justifying the association with Ayres is lame.

Addendum: Ayers admitted in his book to bombing NYC police headquarters in 1970, to bombing the U. S. Capitol in 1971 and to bombing the Pentagon in 1972.

[brian_igo]

realtraveller said

So you'd associate with Charles Manson (who didn't personally kill anyone) or Sqeekie Frome (who only attempted to murder Gerald Ford) but you draw the line at someone who was a better shot. So the shoe bomber would be someone you'd serve with on a board. Or Moussaoui. Or even Bin Ladin. After all, Bin Ladin didn't actually kill anyone. Sheesh. Your attempt at justifying the association with Ayres is lame.

You are becoming unhinged.

[lynnzop[$]]

TIME OUT everyone.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

OK folks, time for a refresher:

http://www.eaforums.com/forums/sympo...reference.html

[drmomentum[$]]

Is there any reason a voter should care about this which can be expressed without silly analogies to boogeymen?

To be more specific, if I'm voting for Obama because I think he was right abotu the Iraq war and I think he's committed to bringing equity to the tax system, thus strengthening the economy... is there a reason I should care that he has communicated with Ayers and possibly aprroved of some very non-controversial ideas of the man?

Or is this, in actuality, a baseless smear that has nothing to do with my concerns as a voter?

[emeleel]

WHOA, people.

I'm asking to be better informed, and to get insight into other people's reasonings for voting for a particular person, not to start a war. Brian's post makes good points, so does the first *half* of Kathy's first response.

And right now I don't have time to catch up becaue I've been gone for hours. Behave.

[emeleel]

JP, I hope you know me better than to think I'm trying to start up a "baseless smear" here on EA. It's a question I find to be of interest, that's all, and I hope to get insight into other's thoughts on it.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

The campaign directors and staffers and/or 527 groups are like magicians - very good at making people look at one thing and imbuing it with all sorts of importance when they don't want people to look at something else. And we all keep falling for it on both sides.

[drmomentum[$]]

emeleel said

JP, I hope you know me better than to think I'm trying to start up a "baseless smear" here on EA. It's a question I find to be of interest, that's all, and I hope to get insight into other's thoughts on it.

I do.

Do you feel your question has been sufficiently answered? I think some good answers have been provided.

My question is similar, but from the flipside, I guess. As a supporter of Obama on the issues, I'd like to know why this should be relevant to me?

Would Ayers interfere with Obama tackling the inequity and health of our economy? How does this relate to the issues? That's a question of my own interest.

I'll ask it rhetorically; I wasn't intending to coerce you into answering it.

[wivabef]

mjfrombuffalo said

The campaign directors and staffers and/or 527 groups are like magicians - very good at making people look at one thing and imbuing it with all sorts of importance when they don't want people to look at something else. And we all keep falling for it on both sides.

Amen, MJ.

[frazzledspice]

I had only heard about this from Sean Hannity (whom I listen to about 5 minutes a day, learning that he makes Rush Limbaugh look like a choir boy. I am SO embarrassed that Sean Hannity grew up in my hometown...and a little bit concerned that he might have even attended my alma mater Catholic grammar school.)

But if the biggest point of agreement between Ayers and Obama is that juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults, I agree.

McCain has had some questionable friends, too.

The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB).

McCain took $112K in campaign contributions and dozens of flights on Keating's private jet, among other things.

[hadassahchana[$]]

The Ayers connection does matter to me. So does McCain's hanging out with Keating. Obama's pastor's opinions matter a lot to me, as does Palin's religious beliefs. I don't like any of the candidates. I am in a pissy mood because I keep looking at both candidates and saying,"Is that all there is?". I don't like that politicians hang out with people who range from mildly deranged to actually criminally liable for stuff. But, I also don't know any folks running for anything who have a clean slate on this, so I'll vote for the least offensive. Right now, Obama sucks less IMO. Knock Palin out of the equation and I'd vote McCain in a heartbeat. Does that answer your question at all, Melanie? My dad's saying about being able to tell the most about a man by judging his enemies doesn't seem to apply any more.

[wivabef]

The Keating 5 debacle.

Yeah, that was back when he was more in line with the democrats.