Obama and Ayers: It's not about what happened forty years ago

An hour ago Bill O'Reilly confronted Barack Obama and asked about his "really bad friends." These include the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and Bill Ayers.

The focus during the interview, which carried in over into the post-segment analysis with the Tammy Bruce and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page, was that Ayers committed these acts forty years ago. Sorta true. Ayers and the Weather Underground didn't start its terror campaign until 1969, and Ayers personally placed a bomb in a Pentagon men's room in 1971. Okay, almost forty years ago.

But Ayers and his equally unrepentant ex-terrorist wife, Bernardine Dohrn, lived as fugitives until 1980. That moves up the time line a bit. The duo lived on the margins of society by stealing identities of deceased children. Charges against Ayers were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct, although Dohrn spent some time in jail for contempt of court.

A jury never found them innocent. Okay, yeah, innocent until proven guilty, I know. But the pair flaunted the law. Ayers phrased it perfectly: "Guilty as hell, free as a bird—it's a great country."

Fast forward a few more years: Ayers becomes a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, and Barack Obama re-settles on the city's south side after graduating from Harvard Law School. Obama and Ayers work together (How much remains to be seen) on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, serve together on the board of The Woods Fund--Ayers was its chairman for a while. But most importantly, Obama, in 1995--less then forty years ago--launches his political career in the Ayers-Dohrn home, pictured above.

In 2001, Ayers' terror-memoir, Fugitive Days, is published, and as he promotes it, he tramples on an American flag, and he tells the New York Times, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." In 2001, not only does Ayers donate--and Obama accepts--a $200 donation to the-then state senator's campaign fund, the two men remain on Woods board. (Obama left the board a year later.)

Regarding his notorious past, Ayers was asked by the Times he would do it all again. "I don't want to discount the possibility" was his reply.

Also in 2001, Ayers, in response to those who believe the United States is a great country, says that "It makes me want to puke."

It's not just about 1969. And remember: Obama chose to associate with this radical.

And Ayers is "Guilty as hell, free as a bird."

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