Obama says he assumed that Ayers had been rehabilitated

Barack Obama is now claiming that he thought that unrepentant ex-terrorist Bill Ayers had "rehabilitated" himself.

Obama's Ayers' story keeps evolving. From Politico:

In an interview with the sympathetic conservative talk radio host this afternoon, Obama offered the clearest explanation yet of how an extremely careful politician allowed himself anywhere near a former '60s radical who would become a Republican target in this year's presidential campaign.

Obama "had assumed" from Bill Ayers' stature in Chicago, he told the Philadelphia-based Michael Smerconish, that Ayers had been "rehabilitated" since his 1960s crimes.

In the interview, which was taped this afternoon and will air tomorrow, and which you can listen to above, Obama recalled moving back to Chicago after law school, and becoming involved in civic life there.

"The gentleman in question, Bill Ayers, is a college professor, teaches education at the University of Illinois," he said. "That's how i met him -- working on a school reform project that was funded by an ambassador and very close friend of Ronald Reagan's" along with "a bunch of conservative businessmen and civic leaders."

McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds had this to say:

Barack Obama implausibly claims that he was unaware of William Ayers' radical and violent past when the two first met, in Ayers' home, at a party thrown in Obama's honor, and at which Ayers intended to introduce Obama to Chicago's left-wing political elite. When Obama found out his new friend was an unrepentant terrorist, rather than sever his ties to a man associated with attacks on the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, Obama says he just 'assumed [Ayers] had been rehabilitated.' Does Barack Obama continue to believe William Ayers has been 'rehabilitated'? Or has Barack Obama changed his mind now that William Ayres is a liability, rather than an asset, to his political ambition?"

What shoud be equally disturbing to voters is that the $50 million secured by Ayers for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge--which Obama chaired for a few years--is that money was wasted. The cash didn't go to the schools but to left wing groups. Test scores at the CAC schools did not improve. Obama's only executive experience with the CAC. He failed.

About that money being Republican cash, courtesy of Stanley Kurtz last month:

The Obama camp denies CAC's radicalism by pointing to the fact that this foundation was funded by Nixon Ambassador and Reagan friend, Walter Annenberg. Moderates and Republicans often support Annenberg activities, it's true. Yet the story of modern philanthropy is largely the story of moderate and conservative donors finding their funds "captured" by far more liberal, often radical, beneficiaries. CAC's story is a classic of the genre. Ayers and Obama guided CAC money to community organizers, like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and the Developing Communities Project (Part of the Gamaliel Foundation network), groups self-consciously working in the radical tradition of Saul Alinsky. Walter Annenberg’s personal politics don't change that one iota.

ACORN...where did I hear that name?

Obama supporters, and Obama himself, believe that Ayers' is unimportant, and to use the campaign's favorite word, a "distraction" away from issues such as the economy.

But Obama couldn't manage the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Now he wants to run a nation.

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