Free Republic

In 1994, while Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father was being polished off, Bill Ayers co-authored an essay whose title befits a former merchant seaman: "Navigating a restless sea: The continuing struggle to achieve a decent education for African American youngsters in Chicago." In "Navigating," Ayers and his nominal co-author, former New Communist Movement leader Michael Klonsky, offer a detailed analysis of the Chicago school system and a discussion of potential reforms. Curiously, so too does Obama in Dreams. What makes Obama's educational digression notable is that he had spent only two months working on education issues as a...

Imagine if, as you chat with your child's first-grade teacher and ask about how he decided to embark on a career in education, he told you, "I walked out of jail and into my first teaching job." Imagine him furthermore telling you that his days in jail and violent protesting were formative to his teaching philosophy. Most parents would have a serious discussion with the principal, at the minimum. But the teacher who brags about such beginnings is now a "Distinguished Professor of Education." Despite his specialty as "Professor of Curriculum and Instruction," he trains future teachers to dispense with...

"Ayers and his co-author Michael Klonsky responded to [Arne] Duncan in an article published in Phi Delta Kappan -- a professional journal for education -- describing him as 'the brightest and most dedicated schools leader Chicago has had in memory'"http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/16/duncan-praised-bona-fide-reformer-chicago-educators/ _________________________________________________________________________________ "The Small Schools Workshop was founded in 1991 at the University of Illinois at Chicago to provide support for teachers who were trying to create new smaller learning environments. Its director is Michael Klonsky, a former professor of education at UIC."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Schools_Workshop _________________________________________________________________________________ Some background on Bill Ayers' SDS comrade, Michael Klonsky (Chicago Annenberg Challenge-related) "One of Bill Ayers’ and...

The mainstream press steadfastly refuses to delve into Barack Obama’s radicalism, his Leftist revolutionary collaboration with self-identified communists from Frank Marshall Davis to Bill Ayers. The McCain campaign, moreover, has contributed mightily to the whitewash by ineptly seizing on the issue’s least important aspect: Obama’s abject dishonesty about the depth of his relationships with committed Leftists — e.g., the portrayal of Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.” (Petrified of being smeared as a racist, McCain has never mentioned Davis, whom Obama identifies only as “Frank” in his memoir. And, of course, utterance of Jeremiah Wright’s name...

Barack Obama was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly last week. BARACK OBAMA: ...on this Ayers thing, which you've been hyping, Bill. O'REILLY: Not that much. BARACK OBAMA: This guy did something despicable forty years ago. O'REILLY: Despicable last week. He said he didn't do enough bombing. That's last week. BARACK OBAMA: Here's a guy that does something despicable when I'm eight years old. Alright? I come to Chicago. He's working with Mayor Richard Daley, not known to be a radical. So, he and I know each other as a consequence of work he's doing on education. That is not an...