Posted on 10/04/2008 10:05:25 PM PDT by 2nd amendment mama
During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in early 1970. I was only nine then, the year Ayers’s Weathermen tried to murder me.
In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.
I still recall, as though it were a dream, thinking that someone was lifting and dropping my bed as the explosions jolted me awake, and I remember my mother’s pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn’t leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside. The same night, bombs were thrown at a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn. Sunlight, the next morning, revealed three sentences of blood-red graffiti on our sidewalk: FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS.
For the next 18 months, I went to school in an unmarked police car. My mother, a schoolteacher, had plainclothes detectives waiting in the faculty lounge all day. My brother saved a few bucks because he didn’t have to rent a limo for the senior prom: the NYPD did the driving. We all made the best of the odd new life that had been thrust upon us, but for years, the sound of a fire truck’s siren made my stomach knot and my heart race. In many ways, the enormity of the attempt to kill my entire family didn’t fully hit me until years later, when, a father myself, I was tucking my own nine-year-old John Murtagh into bed.
Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family’s life, there was never any doubt who was behind it. Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The same cell had bombed my house, writes Ron Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. And in late November that year, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife, promised more bombings.
As the association between Obama and Ayers came to light, it would have helped the senator a little if his friend had at least shown some remorse. But listen to Ayers interviewed in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, of all days: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Translation: “We meant to kill that judge and his family, not just damage the porch.” When asked by the Times if he would do it all again, Ayers responded: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”
Though never a supporter of Obama, I admired him for a time for his ability to engage our imaginations, and especially for his ability to inspire the young once again to embrace the political system. Yet his myopia in the last few months has cast a new light on his “politics of change.” Nobody should hold the junior senator from Illinois responsible for his friends’ and supporters’ violent terrorist acts. But it is fair to hold him responsible for a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates, and friends, and for showing a callous disregard for the lives they damaged and the hatred they have demonstrated for this country. It is fair, too, to ask what those choices say about Obama’s own beliefs, his philosophy, and the direction he would take our nation.
At the conclusion of his 2001 Times interview, Ayers said of his upbringing and subsequent radicalization: “I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.”
Funny thing, Bill: one night, so did I.
John M. Murtagh is a practicing attorney, an adjunct professor of public policy at the Fordham University College of Liberal Studies, and a member of the city council in Yonkers, New York, where he resides with his wife and two sons.
How do you figure?
As I already said: I know quite a few people who “never really supported Obama” but are going to vote for him anyway because they “just don’t like the other guy.”
I’m not sure if I would call it a backfire, but if the Fox News Sunday show is any indication, it fell flat on its face.
The sound bite of Palin calling O’bama’s character into question for ‘palling around with terrorists’ was greeted with the sneer of “Has McCain’s campaign turned ugly?” meme and dismissed as the ‘last desperate act of a losing campaign’.
IMO the linkage to Ayers should have been given high focus just as soon as the McCain camp found out. It would have established it in undeniable terms and given the issue the legitimacy it deserves.
Now it is too little too late.
Right thinking people are repelled by terrorists like Ayers and disgusted by any who would blithely associate with them. But the revelation of O’bamas peculiar and disturbing friendships isn’t catching fire. It’s not that no one cares - only that people on the left have decided to ignore it.
Consequently it isn’t gaining traction because those who might be offended already are, and the rest don’t care, no matter how many times you shove it in their faces.
Thank you, John Murtaugh, for the cold shower of reality!
There had to have been 1000’s of people who attended Gov Palin’s rally yesterday who had never heard of Obama’s ties to an unrepentant domestic terrorist from Chicago.
Gov Palin’s word are true and easy to understand. The more Obama’s long history of radical ties to Chicago's unrepentant domestic terrorist William ‘we didn't do enough’ Ayres is discussed, the better. This is not going away. Undecided voters will learn of Obama’s shady past this week and Obama’s team is helping get the message out. :-) Count on it.
There had to have been 1000’s of people who attended Gov Palin’s rally yesterday who had never heard of Obama’s ties to an unrepentant domestic terrorist from Chicago.
Gov Palin’s word are true and easy to understand. The more Obama’s long history of radical ties to Chicago's unrepentant domestic terrorist William ‘we didn't do enough’ Ayres is discussed, the better. This is not going away. Undecided voters will learn of Obama’s shady past this week and Obama’s team is helping get the message out. :-) Count on it.
Listen to her words again, very powerful. Gov Palin has a duty to inform the electorate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi3oP74kMjA
BTTT for those who were worshipping early or sleeping late (or a combination of the two:-))
Excellent, simply excellent.
John M. Murtagh is a practicing attorney, an adjunct professor of public policy at the Fordham University College of Liberal Studies, and a member of the city council in Yonkers, New York, where he resides with his wife and two sons.
I don't think so.
Why is Bernadine Dohrn allowed to practice law? Does the ABA have no standards of professional conduct? Don't answer that.
I guess you didn’t read the last paragraph above....I just forgot to italicize it....sheesh!
bump for truth
Sorry.
Thanks neverdem.
Communique #1 From The Weatherman Underground
American Daughter | May 21, 1970 | The Berkeley Tribe (Bernardine Dohrn)
Posted on 10/05/2008 1:55:39 PM PDT by 21twelve
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2098150/posts
“We didn’t leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside.”
Chills.
BUMP! I loathe these b@stards. I finally understand how the Looney Lefties “feel.” I understand their hatred, though it’s totally misplaced, of course.
“Why is Bernadine Dohrn allowed to practice law? Does the ABA have no standards of professional conduct? Don’t answer that.”
Actually, she doesn’t have a license, just the J.D. I have read that the Illinois Bar would not allow her to sit for the Bar Exam until she renounced her past acts...which she did not.
She teaches at Northwestern because Bill Ayers father, Tom Ayers, got her a position there...he was a Trustee at the University until he died.
There’s a long list of em’...:0/
BTTT
Link sent to Drudge.
This information needs to be disseminated to the masses via all available means. The MSM obviously isn’t up to the task - after all, doing so would get in their way of being “objective” - so we have to do their jobs for them.
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