The Bomber as School Reformer (Obama's friend & mentor Bill Ayers)

The City Journal ^ | October 6, 2008 | Sol Stern

[2ndDivisionVet]

Back in the early eighties, in an interview with David Horowitz and Peter Collier, Bill Ayers remembered his reaction upon learning that he would not be prosecuted by the government for his bombing spree as a member of the Weather Underground. “Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,” he exulted. Ayers is now a university professor, but he must have been exulting all over again after reading Saturday’s front-page story in the New York Times.

The article explored the putative relationship between Ayers and Barack Obama during the time they worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a five-year philanthropic venture that, starting in 1995, distributed over $160 million in school-improvement grants to the Windy City’s public schools. Ayers wrote the grant proposal that secured seed money for the schools and ran the implementation arm of the project; Obama became chairman of the board that distributed the grants. Not only did the Times exonerate the Democratic presidential candidate of having anything like a “close” relationship with Ayers—their paths merely “crossed” while working on the Challenge, the paper said—but it also bestowed the honorific of “school reformer” on the ex-bomber. “Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform,” the article maintained. On Meet the Press Sunday morning, Tom Brokaw—who will be moderating tomorrow’s debate between the presidential candidates—picked up this now conventional wisdom and described Ayers as “a school reformer.”

Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.) For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

As I have shown in previous articles in City Journal, Ayers’s school reform agenda focuses almost exclusively on the idea of teaching for “social justice” in the classroom. This has nothing to do with the social-justice ideals of the Sermon on the Mount or Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Rather, Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children with the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive. As a leader of this growing “reform” movement, Ayers was recently elected vice president for curriculum of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s largest organization of ed school professors and researchers.

Despite the Times story, American voters still don’t have an accurate picture of the relationship between Obama and Ayers during their work on the Annenberg Challenge. The paper’s account quoted several people who worked on the project as saying that they didn’t think Ayers had any role in selecting Obama for his position as chairman. But we haven’t heard a word about the subject from the two principals. For the first time in his life, Ayers seems to be observing Democratic Party discipline and won’t be talking until after November 4. Meanwhile, in one of the Democratic primary debates, Obama said that Ayers was just “a guy I know in the neighborhood”—which certainly qualifies as one of the biggest fibs told by any of the candidates so far.

Is it too much to hope that one of the moderators of the two remaining debates will press Obama for a fuller accounting of his work with Bill Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and also ask Obama what he thinks of Ayers’s views on school reform? If the mainstream media deem it important that voters know which newspapers one of the vice presidential candidates reads, they certainly ought to be demanding more information from a presidential candidate about whom he collaborated with in distributing $160 million to the public schools. How about it, Tom Brokaw?

***************

Sol Stern is a contributing editor of City Journal and the author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice.

[2ndDivisionVet]

And yet, somehow, there's a better than 50% chance of Senator Obama being elected our next president.

[Darkwolf377]

Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer.

If McCain somehow pulls this off, I may have to return to God! (I'm an atheist.) THAT's how scary this Obama is.

[Right Wing Assault]

Check out the new CNN vid. Someone’s pants are on fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvROBLortBQ

[Wil H]

Obama said that Ayers was just “a guy I know in the neighborhood”—which certainly qualifies as one of the biggest fibs told by any of the candidates so far.

No Sh#t, Sherlock!

They met in New York in 1982/3 when Obama was at Columbia and Ayers was a quarter mile down the road at Bank Street College.

They have been joined at the hip ever since!

[Poincare]

Remember the Rev. Wright’s talk before the Wash DC press club where he talked about education? It all ties together.

[cookcounty]

Excellent. Ayers and Obama cheated the students and parents in Chicago.

"Calling William Ayers an education reformer is like calling Joseph Stalin an agriculture reformer"

!!!!

[CedarDave]

... Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children with the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive. As a leader of this growing “reform” movement, Ayers was recently elected vice president for curriculum of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s largest organization of ed school professors and researchers.

This is what Obama and Ayers were trying to foist upon the Chicago school children with their "Chicago Annenberg Challenge" and why this fourth "R" (Radicalization) did not improve the test scores of students in the inner city. They spent over $100 million dollars on these programs while ignoring applications for grant money for math and science programs.

[CedarDave]

Good catch. Forwarding to TGO.

[CedarDave]

They met in New York in 1982/3 when Obama was at Columbia and Ayers was a quarter mile down the road at Bank Street College.

Is there actual confirmation of that, or just circumstantial evidence? Last I heard that link was not yet proven.

[roses of sharon]

http://foia.fbi.gov/weather/weath1a.pdf

Read the FBI file, Ayer’s fingerprints were in the bombers appt.

[Abe XVI]

Yeah, but if Obama wins you might consider returning to all the gods. :o)

[Wil H]

Is there actual confirmation of that, or just circumstantial evidence? Last I heard that link was not yet proven.

Absolutely

Obama graduated Columbia (class of 83) - that's undisputed, even by Obama!

Bill Ayers CV , downloadable from his own website, lists:

M.F.A. Nonfiction Writing. Bennington College, 2002.

Ed.D. Curriculum and Teaching. Teachers College, Columbia University, 1987.

M.Ed. Curriculum and Teaching. Teachers College, Columbia University, 1987.

M.A. Early Childhood Education. Bank Street College of Education, 1984.

B.A. American Studies. University of Michigan, 1968.

[CedarDave]

Obama graduated in ‘83; Ayers finished his graduate work four years later in ‘87. Assuming Ayers began his work in 1984 or even fall 83, how do you get to the inference that they knew each other?

[CedarDave]

Whoops, my mistake. I googled Bank Street College and it is just four blocks from Columbia Univ. So they were there in proximity about the same time. But still no proof that they actually became acquainted then. Speculation doesn’t help us here.

[CedarDave]

This from Stanley Kurtz just popped up:

Stanley Kurtz' Latest Research Into Barack Obama's Connections To Terrorist Bill Ayers...

Rashid Khalidi (Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University) is really, in a sense, the American successor of Edward Said, a very strong advocate for the Palestinians, extremely radical in his views and his opposition to American foreign policy. He was a friend and colleague of Obama. Apparently they used to get together and discuss world affairs. And he’s practically the best friend of Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers features Khalidi in some of his books about how to politicize the teaching for students. So actually, the more you look into it, the more you see that this is not just people running into each other. And again, I object to the idea of just simply counting the times people were together in a room. When you fund Bill Ayers education projects, with hundreds of thousands of dollars, when you as Bill Ayers publish Rashid Khalidi’s essay in your book of collected essays, they might have gone on. That’s a lot without meeting once.

[haroldeveryman]

“Is it too much to hope that one of the moderators of the two remaining debates will press Obama for a fuller accounting of his work with Bill Ayers ....”

Tony Blankly treats this theme at length in his excellent article “The Man Who Never Was”

Link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2089432/posts

[D-fendr]

This should be Phase 2: Obama funded and supported Bill Ayers "Educational Projects" This Bill Ayers:

At a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education.”

[anglian]

Another clue. Obama’s appointment as a key education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond. Darling-Hammond is a leading race theorist in education who has taught at Columbia and now Stanford. She contributed a chapter on education for a book edited by Ayers.

[CedarDave]

And yet another that just popped up from Brown Deer:

How many people know that Columbia University's Jennifer Dohrn, sister of Bernardine Dohrn, was married to the late W. Haywood Burns, a black lawyer who once defended the Attica inmates and also Angela Davis of the Black Panthers. She also once sued Mark Felt for ordering the FBI to break into the homes of the Weather Underground - thank God they did. She says, "Apparently on one of the break-ins, they took a pair of my underwear and put it in a glass case and gave it as a trophy gift to Mark Felt."

Interesting that she has been at Columbia University ever since Barack Obama began his studies there. Probably just another coincidence in this tangled web of deceit.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2099250/posts?page=405#405

How many people know that Columbia University's Jennifer Dohrn, sister of Bernardine Dohrn, was married to the late W. Haywood Burns, a black lawyer who once defended the Attica inmates and also Angela Davis of the Black Panthers. She also once sued Mark Felt for ordering the FBI to break into the homes of the Weather Underground - thank God they did. She says, "Apparently on one of the break-ins, they took a pair of my underwear and put it in a glass case and gave it as a trophy gift to Mark Felt."

Interesting that she has been at Columbia University ever since Barack Obama began his studies there. Probably just another coincidence in this tangled web of deceit.

[Wil H]

Speculation doesn’t help us here.

Obama has hidden ALL details of his time in New York (I wonder why?) so we don't have proof yet of them meeting. We do know they had mutual acquaintances, Edward Said being one.

We know they both lived off campus and therefore could even have lived together - is that why Obama won't show his transcript, because it might reveal his address?

We also know that none of his class remember ever seeing him, or at least will admit to it.

There are some strange coincidences that occur if Obama and Ayers did NOT know each other, like:

How strange that after working two years in New York following his graduation Obama should move to all places - Chicago! - Ayers' home town, and become a Community Organizer amongst Ayers circle of friends

How strange that Obama should then get help getting into Harvard from people connected to Ayers' father.

how strange that Obama should, in 1988 get a summer job at Sidley Austin - where Ayers' wife worked!

and so it goes on - Woods foundation, Annenberg Challenge, A book that looks for all the world like it was written in the exact style, cadence, construction, reading level, phraseology and vocabulary of William Ayers...