UIC library reverses course on Obama documents

Chicago Tribune ^ | 8/23/08 | GRRRRR

[GRRRRR]

Annenberg Challenge information will be released Tuesday

Tribune staff report 9:17 PM CDT, August 22, 2008

Documents related to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's service for a nonprofit education project started by former 1960s radical William Ayers will be released Tuesday from an archive at the University of Illinois at Chicago library, the university announced.

UIC said Friday it will make public its archive of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in the library's Special Collections Department. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was formed in 1995 to fund education reform initiatives in the city.

The university's Richard J. Daley Library had refused to release records of the project, which had put Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in contact with Ayers, who now is an education professor in Chicago.

The university said it had determined after an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the gift that it has legal authority to allow public access.

[GRRRRR]

Should give them enough time to shred most of the 'good stuff'...

[Senator John Blutarski]

“Should give them enough time to shred most of the ‘good stuff’...”

..... Exactly what I was thinking.

[tips up]

Wonder of Bubba got involved and assisted in their decision. Good timing. What might be found before the actual nomination?

[rod1]

Actually they probably just realized that Joe Biden had already plagerized them so that snippets were available elsewhere via “Your words in my mouth” Joe.

[uvular]

First in line to 'review' these papers?

Sandy Burglar

[Linda Frances]

Not shredded. There in Sandy Bergers pants.

[mikefive]

I wonder if the “fix” is in to ensure hillary can run in 2012

[Chode]

[MainFrame65]

The delay has created a “bad news/good news situation. It has allowed time to do some scrubbing of the files, and based on the personal integrity of those involved, this possibility is very real. But it has called attention to the issue that would not otherwise be present, which may be enough to make the outcome quire favorable.

Also, a cross-reference to a subset of the documents at Brown University in Providence, RI might fill in any mysterious gaps and omissions, and serve to confirm both archives.

A summary and discussion of these records at Brown U. can be found at: http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/08/behind-annenberg-gate-inside-chicago.html

[PapaBear3625]

They can't afford to dig too deep into the Ayers connection. It would expose FAR too much about the VERY long-running connection between the Ayers clan and Chicago politics

Sorry for cross posting on multiple threads, but this data is just too juicy:

We know that Ayers started Obama's political career, and is very influential in Chicago politics. What hasn't been really examined is HOW and WHY he's influential

The HOW and WHY is his dad Thomas G Ayers (1915-2007). Tom Ayers was President of Commonwealth Edison from 1964, and was chairman and CEO from 1973 to 1980. Besides that:

"He had a great social conscience and believed in breaking down the barriers that confronted so many people, particularly minorities and women," said James O'Connor, who succeeded Mr. Ayers as ComEd chairman. "Beyond what he did at Commonwealth Edison, he really set an example for other leaders in the Chicagoland business community to follow."

Mr. Ayers also served on boards of nonprofit initiatives and chaired those of the Chicago Urban League, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Erikson Institute, Bank Street College of Education in New York, Community Renewal Society and the Chicago Community Trust.

While chairing the Northwestern University Board of Trustees, he helped start Chicago United, dedicated to racial minority group access to jobs and education. The project that made him most proud, son John Ayers said, was Dearborn Park, an integrated South Loop housing project, which he conceived and for which he raised funds.

With his sons deep in protest of the Vietnam War (one, Bill Ayers, was a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society who went underground for about 11 years) the businessman supported his children and their campaign. "Our father always stood by us," John Ayers said. "He was an establishment guy, but he believed in us. He believed in change."

After the Board of Education's financial collapse of 1979, Mayor Jane M. Byrne named Mr. Ayers as her choice for president of the new board.

Bill Ayers' dad was a primary mover and shaker in Chicago politics, with strong ties to the Daley machine. Besides all the above:

He was the Chicago establishment, serving on the boards of Sears, G.D. Searle, Chicago Pacific Corp., Zenith Corp., Northwest Industries, General Dynamics Corp. of St. Louis, First National Bank of Chicago, the Chicago Cubs and the Tribune Co.

Mr. Ayers also was an agent for change, negotiating between Mayor Richard J. Daley's administration and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s open housing campaign in the mid-1960s, and developing the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities to fight racial discrimination in housing.