As for Obama's claim that he was just eight years old while Ayers and his Weather Underground terrorists were setting off bombs, the senator implies that he was too young to be aware of these atrocities. Well of course he was. But as I've remarked before, Obama and I are the same age, and "the healer" almost certainly knew about Ayers' and his equally notorious wife well before he visited their home in 1995.
From The Audacity of Hope:
In my teens, I became fascinated with the Dionysian, up for grabs quality of the era, and through books, films, and music, I soaked in a vision of the sixties very different from the one my mother talked about: images of Huey Newton, the '68 Democratic National Convention, the Saigon airlift, and the Stones at Altamont. If I had no immediate reasons to pursue revolution, I decided nevertheless that in style and attitude, I, too, could be a rebel, unconstrained by the wisdom of the over-thirty crowd.
Okay, based upon that passage, I think by, oh, 1979 or so, Obama was well aware of the Weather Underground, as I was, courtesy of my high school lessons and stories from my parents.
More from the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog:
Obama, who a moment before had complained about "manufactured" issues, responded: "George (Stephanopoulos) ... this is an example of what I've been talking about. This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English (correction, he's an education academic) in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
"And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George."
Obama had made his point and probably would have been well-advised to stop there. Instead, he struck a blow against bipartisanship by mentioning that he is friends with Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who he termed "one of the most conservative Republicans" in the Senate and a politician who "once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions."
Continued Obama: "Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those, either.
Oh yes, Obama should have stopped there. As for Coburn, one of the selling points of "The Obama Brand" is that he crosses the party aisle to build consensus. That's for the most part untrue, as Obama typically votes the Democratic party line in the Senate, as he did while he was a state legislator.
But Obama's one bill that has been enacted into law, in three years as a US Senator, is the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, the chief sponsors of which were Obama and Coburn.
How about that? Obama gets one bill signed by President Bush, and he throws his Republican co-sponsor under the bus by comparing him to William Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist who was part of an organization that declared war on "Amerika."
Audacity!
Pat Hickey has more on Ayers on his fine blog, ...With Both Hands.
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The State of Illinois Mental health facility on Harlem was the site of refuge for Katrina Victims. Perhaps that to might bear some scrutiny as to whom the guiding forces on that site might be.
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