Posted on 04/16/2008 6:41:18 PM PDT by kristinn
In tonight's Democratic presidential debate between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on ABC TV, former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos asked Obama about his association with the former Weather Underground terrorist, Bill Ayers.
Stephanopoulos noted that Obama had attended a 1995 political meeting (which kick-started Obama's political career) at Ayers' home and that his campaign had said their relationship was 'friendly.'
Obama complained that he was being held accountable for the actions of a man that occured "40 years ago when I was 8 years old" and said that Ayers was now a university professor.
Besides his participation in waging war on the United States in the late Sixties and early Seventies by setting off bombs at the Capitol and Pentagon (among several dozen bombings,) Ayers was quoted in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001 as saying that he did not regret the bombings and wishes he had done more.
Clinton mentioned that Obama also served on a board with Ayers for three years.
The actions of Ayers and his unrepetenence should make any patriotic American flee from any association with him. Yet Obama wants us to believe that he should not be judged by his friends and political associates.
The question that should be asked of Obama to get to the heart of what his standards are is this:
Sen. Obama, would you have the same relationship with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers if he were instead an unrepentent Klansman who just a few years ago said he doesn't regret lynching Blacks and wishes he could have lynched more?
Unbelievable that someone who so obviously holds this country in disdain is in serious contention to be our next president.
How long ago was Strom Thurmond a segregationist? How old was Trent Lott when Strom Thurmond was a segregationist? I don’t recall ever hearing that Strom Thurmond killed anybody.
Wasn't the BTK killer managing a church?
I bet if Hitler had survived the war he could have operated a daycare center.
Oh, but George Bush, now there's an awful guy.
Thanks for this...
I just couldn’t bring myself to watch the debate.
Marxist Chicago activist Saul Alinsky has a lot for which to answer.
Did you notice Obama’s use of a Republican Prolife Congressman (?) as a strawman to Ayers. Equating prolife with leftist bombers?
I couldn’t stand listening to them but unless Hillery slipped up later she seemed on message more than Obama.
He did all of those things AFTER Ayers claimed he was unreprentant and just wished he had done morebombing.
This matters, and now it is going to be out there. The liberal commentators are getting it out there now in the hopes it will go away before the general. But it will not. It all adds up...more and more weight for Obama to carry around.
Rezco, Wright, Ayers, Farakhn, Black Panthers, now Hamas is endorsing him too. The combined weight all adds up.
The guy is shameless...but tonight he is also rattled.
Sure, there's an excuse.
This guy is nothing more than a steaming pile of excrement, if this is the best prepared answer his handlers can feed him their as stupid as he is.
Seems like the conservatives are trying every dirty trick in the book!
Don’t you know it is racist to consider someones close friends and accomplices when you are judging charachter? It is also racist to mention BO’s middle name.
It is also racist to point out that all three of Barak’s names are Arabic.
It is also racist to use what he said in proper context against him.
The only thing that can never be considered racist is voting for him based solely on his race.
The Dalai Bama was staggered and weak tonight. “Empty suit” is too charitable. He actually made Hillary look good.
Dems are having buyer’s remorse tonight.
He compared Ayres to Senator Coburn. If I were Coburn, I would be p*ssed.
Ayers and Obama make a perfect pair. Ayers is a 1960’s radical, and Obama is a 1960’s radical. It’s no surprise they get along so well. Obama is also much admired by Hamas and Code Pink.
Yes, rattled a bit, he had to know Ayers was going to come up but like his “pastor” he can’t bring himself to disassociate himself from him.
Gee, he was blowing up buildings when I was .....eight?’
Wrong answer! it didn’t matter WHEN but to these liberals
when is only important if it’s a republican, then they can go back eons.
“Hey, don’t all terrorist bombers geta pass if they become university professors?”
Yeah, how is it that violent anti-U.S. terrorists get jobs at universities? Do they get a pass because they’re radicals? Maybe we should withhold support from public and private universities.
From what little I could stomach, Herself~! did much better tonight. She was able to turn questions about herself
around and make them relevant to Obama, and she stayed on message questioning his qualifications etc.
BILL AYERS
* Leader of the 1960s and 70s domestic terrorist group Weatherman
* “Kill all the rich people. ... Bring the revolution home. Kill your parents.”
* Participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972
* Currently a professor of education at the University of Illinois
Born in 1944, Bill Ayers, along with his wife Bernardine Dohrn, was a 1960s leader of the homegrown terrorist group Weatherman, a Communist-driven splinter faction of Students for a Democratic Society. Characterizing Weatherman as “an American Red Army,” Ayers summed up the organization’s ideology as follows: “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents.”
Today Ayers is a professor of education and a Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois. He has also authored a series of books about parenting and educating children, including: A Kind and Just Parent; To Become a Teacher; City Kids; City Teachers; To Teach; The Good Preschool Teacher; Zero Tolerance: Resisting the Drive for Punishment in Our Schools; and Teaching Towards Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom.
In his most recent screed, Fugitive Days, Ayers recounts his life as a Sixties radical, his tenure as a Weatherman lieutenant, his terrorist campaign across America, and his enduring hatred for for the United States. “What a country,” Ayers said in 2001. “It makes me want to puke.”
Ayers was an active participant in Weatherman’s 1969 “Days of Rage” riots in Chicago, where nearly 300 members of the organization employed guerrilla-style tactics to viciously attack police officers and civilians alike, and to destroy massive amounts of property via vandalism and arson; their objective was to further spread their anti-war, anti-American message. Reminiscing on those riots, Ayers says pridefully: “We’d ... proven that it was possible — we didn’t all die, we were still there.”
A substantial portion of Ayers’ book Fugitive Days discusses the author’s penchant for building and deploying explosives. Ayers boasts that he “participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972.” Of the day he bombed the Pentagon, Ayers says, “Everything was absolutely ideal. ... The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.”
On another occasion, Ayers stated: “There’s something about a good bomb Night after night, day after day, each majestic scene I witnessed was so terrible and so unexpected that no city would ever again stand innocently fixed in my mind. Big buildings and wide streets, cement and steel were no longer permanent. They, too, were fragile and destructible. A torch, a bomb, a strong enough wind, and they, too, would come undone or get knocked down.”
All told, Ayers and Weatherman were responsible for 30 bombings aimed at destroying the defense and security infrastructures of the U.S. “I don’t regret setting bombs, said Ayers in 2001, “I feel we didn’t do enough.”
In 1970, Ayers’ then-girlfriend Diana Oughton, along with Weatherman members Terry Robbins and Ted Gold, were killed when a bomb they were constructing exploded unexpectedly. That bomb had been intended for detonation at a dance that was to be attended by army soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plan been successfully executed. Ayers attested that the bomb would have done serious damage, “tearing through windows and walls and, yes, people too.”
After the death of his girlfriend, Ayers and his current wife, Bernardine Dohrn, spent the 1970s as fugitives running from the FBI. In 1980 the two surrendered, but all charges against them were dropped due to an “improper surveillance” technicality. Ayers’ comment on his life, as reported by Peter Collier and David Horowitz in their authoritative chapter on Weatherman in Destructive Generation, is this: “Guilty as sin, free as a bird, America is a great country.”
Notwithstanding his violent past, Ayers today does not describe himself as a terrorist. “Terrorists destroy randomly,” he reasons, “while our actions bore ... the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate.”
In Fugitive Days, Ayers reflects on whether or not he might use bombs against the U.S. in the future. “I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility,” he writes.
In 1999 Ayers joined the Woods Fund of Chicago, where he served as a director alongside Barak Obama until the latter left the Woods board in December 2002. Ayers went on to become Woods’ Chairman of the Board. In 2002 the Woods Fund made a grant to Northwestern University Law School’s Children and Family Justice Center, where Ayers’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn, was employed.
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