Obama’s top campaign staff have attempted to downplay the relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Obama and Ayers weren’t close and that Obama was only 8 years old when Ayers was bombing buildings.
But Obama’s connections with Bill Ayers are much more extensive than he or his campaign staff is willing to admit.
Bill Ayers was a founding member of the group that bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon during the 1970s. The coalition was said to be a violence-prone faction inspired by the Weather Underground’s ”Prairie Fire,” a guerrilla warfare manual published in 1974. The manual begins, ‘We are a guerrilla organization. We are Communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years.’ Bill Ayers is not someone a potential President should be friends with.
From March of 1995 until September of 1997, Obama and Ayers attended at least seven meetings together relating to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
In 1997, Obama praised Ayers’ book on the juvenile justice system.
Obama and Ayers have also appeared jointly on two academic panels, one in 1997 and another in 2001.
From 1999 to 2002, Obama served with Ayers on the Board of Directors for Woods Fund Of Chicago.
Obama and Ayers are neighbors in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.
To further clarify Obama’s association with Ayers, Obama will not discuss Ayers, which makes one wonder just what Obama is trying to hide.
What Obama is trying to hide from the general public is that he is a radical Leftist, to the left of Kerry, Clinton, and Kennedy. He is a left-over hippie with a design to rebuild America into a Socialist Utopia. Obama is more than unqualified to be President … he is dangerous to our culture.
Remember, five of the US Supreme Court justices are 70 years old or older. If Obama or McCain has the opportunity to appoint two or three justices, it could easily shift the balance of power. You get to choose what type of shift takes place.
Bill Ayers, Obama, Ayers, Weather Underground, Communist, Annenberg Challenge, Woods Fund Of Chicago, Hyde Park, Leftist, Socialist
9 responses so far ↓
1 thisisverysilly // Oct 11, 2008 at 1:34 pm
great fact checking! it really cleared things up! wait…so ayers organization was inspired by a book they wrote after the bombings took place? how was the formation of their organization inspired by their own book, written years after the organization was formed? do these terrorists have a time machine!??!
you’re also telling me that ayers and obama live in the same neighborhood and have been politically and socially active in the same place at the same time. is there any connection beyond that? how could they NOT have attended the same meetings? have you looked at the fundamental political stance of either of these men, apparent in both their writing and actions? both are leftists, sure, but i think doing your homework would reveal that ayers leans a hell of a lot further left than obama ever would.
have you read ayers book, “a kind and just parent,” that obama referred to? its a call for humane reform for juvenile delinquents. what’s wrong with that? do you really think that kids should be locked up forever, or subject to a justice system that only contributes to them feeling more angry and hopeless than ever, a system more likely to forcefully initiate them into a prison culture than help them find a way out? do you think obama saying that this was a good book automatically means that he agrees with ayers on all other social and political issues?
finally, your statement that obama is trying to turn america into a utopia is not very scary. actually, utopia sounds pretty great!
utopia 2008!!!!
2 RADICAL // Oct 11, 2008 at 2:31 pm
RADICAL? Yes. To insinuate that Senator Obama is as radical as Ayers is a far stretch. Its an attempt (on behalf of our Republican candidate) to keep the fear alive and kicking than feed you or the media any real substance. Plus, there is no way you can put Obama in the same context as Ayers. The only thing they have in common was their view on reforming schools. Why is reforming education considered a radical move?????
3 Looking for your Intellect // Oct 11, 2008 at 5:39 pm
You know, I’m wondering where are all the people who use common sense. And where are all the people who understand how a board works, how one might read a book written by someone they disagree with (are we communists or what? After all, Mein Kompf does sell in american bookstores. While I probably will never chose to read it, are all the people who do nazis?) how someone could live in a neighborhood with a radical, etc., etc., and all the other “radical” notions Obama has obvious (according to you) entertained!
I’m just looking for people who understand that you don’t normally get to choose your fellow board members, that whether you work with them or not, you don’t have to let their politics rub off on you. I mean, there are households where republicans and democrats are married to each other. But Obama could only be on a board with Ayers if he absolutely agreed with him on everything pertaining to life? How ridiculous!
You know, we do a great job daily of looking really stupid to the world. Heck, now, we should even look stupid to ourselves. People are starving (many right here in the US), dieing of diseases, losing their homes, and a host of other pressing problems too many to list anywhere. But we want to noodle and discuss out loud silly, unprovable, improbable suppositions, poison the uneducated and fear-prone, acting like this is a justifiable tool for election. Think people! Freedom and peaceful coexistence exist in a delicate balance. And our ignorance is definitely tipping it.
4 vote2count // Oct 11, 2008 at 5:54 pm
This piece is no common sense at all!
5 databot // Oct 11, 2008 at 9:23 pm
So you list some associations and suggest they mean Obama has a hidden radical agenda. Would that be true of other people who had similar associations, or even deeper associations, like the Republicans that also served on the same boards? And Nixon’s former ambassador to the UK, who funded the education initiatives and hired Ayers? Or is there something that immunizes those people about charges of radicalism? What makes Obama different than these people – that he’s a Democrat? That he’s black? Seriously, you and everyone else that’s apoplectic about the association with Ayers have yet to explain just how being in the same room with a former radical – and Citizen of the Year in Chicago – makes Obama bent on some hidden radical agenda. You have yet to explain how exactly this association would influence his presidency. My guess is you can’t – because there is no hidden radical agenda. You’re playing the same game as McCarthy, Hoover, Wallace, and Nixon – all of whom proved wrong, flat out wrong, and very destructive to our democracy. You don’t like Obama’s policies or agenda, fine. Argue against them. But cut the guilt-by-association ad hominem innuendos and attacks.
6 via chicago // Oct 12, 2008 at 2:00 am
This piece is entirely illogical and pointless.
1. If I say I like a book, that does not mean I agree, or adopt, all the views of the author. I like Ezra Pound. I’m not a fascist.
2. Another person noted that when you are on a board of directors, you don’t pick and choose your other board members. So, by pointing out that both Obama and Ayers served on boards of educational non-profits together, you make… no point at all.
3. Hyde Park the neighborhood where Obama and Ayers live in Chicago, is big. It’s where U of Chicago is located. All different types of people live there. Do you know the political views of all your neighbors? Just because they’re your neighbors, does that mean you’re responsible for actions they took when you were 8?
Your piece is so non-sensical it’s laughable. You don’t agree with Obama. That’s fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Can’t you come up with some better argument than this? An argument this weak looks desperate.
7 Linz // Oct 12, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I love how everyone that disagrees with you is unwilling to leave contact info.
I also think they are missing your point. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are pointing out the fact that Obama claims he had basically NOTHING to do with Ayers. He almost asks like he has never met the guy. But, he clearly has. And, in all those years he was crossing paths with the guy, surely he had some interaction with him. But, Obama keeps mum on that. Like he has something to hide. He can’t say “Sure, we served on this committee or that board together, but we weren’t exactly golf buddies.” He just says nothing. And, that looks very suspicious to me.
Is that what you’re getting at?
8 Looking for your Intellect // Oct 13, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Linz, the fact that people are even bringing up Ayers with Obama is that they’re trying their best to find something. I truly believe that if there was ANYTHING to be found, the press would have worn us out with it by now. Instead, all we hear is this innuendo, supposition, and outright stretching of the truth.
If you know your history, a lot of people were against the Vietnam War. They did and said a lot of extreme stuff in protest of our involvement there. I am certainly not supporting any dangerous stuff Ayers might have done, but the fact remains, he’s not in jail, he’s been “cleared” by an entire community of educated folk, so this last minute interest in his activities without any clear connection to Obama smacks of just what it is: a smoke screen.
And to Obama not “discussing it” to your satisfaction, I believe he is giving this “story” the dignity it deserves: none. And if Ayers is a big deal, why aren’t we hearing more about Palin’s separatist husband’s activities, or McCain’s connections to Jesse Helms, Strom Thurman or any other Jim-Crow-reinforcing “colleageues” in the senate–I mean if we think we need to get into shaky, suspect associations? or to Keating and that financial fiasco that looks erily like our current financial breakdown? We at least have prose, video and audio for each of these examples.
9 Shamalama // Oct 15, 2008 at 8:10 am
Linz, it’s refreshing to note that a country girl can easily discover the point of my post while others miss it entirely. The old political question “What did Obama know and when did he know it” is exactly what I’m questioning. Heck, Obama initial political “coming out” party was held at Ayer’s home, so there is more than an “accidental” acquaintance here.
This post was linked on the New York Times’ Politics page under “Related Posts – From Around The Web”, so it’s getting exposure and replies from folks that have never visited here before, and probably will never visit again, folks that are primarily Obama/Biden supporters. Fret not, dear Linz, for they will crawl back under their rocks soon enough.