What is Obama hiding? When did he meet Ayers? Why did BO lie to the American public about his involvement with Ayers? Will McCain bring this up during Tuesday debate? One can only hope he will.
I can easily understand why some readers may have become confused by the explosion of stories today on the Obama/Ayers relationship.
The partial story told by the New York Times today is collapsing of its own weight but has likely added to the confusion. Since I am one of the “bloggers” referred to without an explanation in the Times’ story I thought I would summarize the top ten highlights of the current state of play. These ten key points confirm what I have argued all along - that Bill Ayers was responsible for the elevation of Obama to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge board.
1) The key question is whether Bill Ayers had a role in the selection of Barack Obama to become Chairman and President of the $160 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a multi year school reform effort started in 1995.
2) This is the key question because if it is true that Ayers played a role in Obama’s selection it indicates that Ayers and Obama had a pre-existing relationship.
3) If Ayers and Obama did have a pre-existing relationship it undermines claims by the Obama Campaign that the relationship between Ayers, an authoritarian political figure who once engaged in bombings to implement his politics, was “tenuous” or “casual” and that Ayers was just a neighbor of Obama’s in Hyde Park.
4) I believe that Obama and Ayers shared a similar world view with respect to education issues, at least. For example, during their time together running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge they supported funding for groups like the Small Schools Workshop and Local School Councils. These groups were criticized as engaging in “teacher bashing” by union activists and as a “political threat” to school principals by Arnold Weber, a fellow Annenberg board member.
5) I have presented evidence here at Global Labor that Ayers did in fact play a direct and personal role in Obama’s elevation to the CAC board. This evidence consists of letters exchanged at the time of these events between the national Annenberg Challenge led by Vartan Gregorian, the President of Brown University, and Bill Ayers, on the one hand, and between Gregorian and Adele Simmons, President of the MacArthur Foundation, an advisor to Ayers, on the other.
Those letters state clearly that Ayers was actively engaged in the board selection process in November and December of 1994.
I described those letter to the Times when asked about this and provided them copies.
Prayers and thoughts are with Senator Biden and his family on the passing of his mother-in-law today.
WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) – Joe Biden’s spokesman said the Delaware senator would be canceling campaign events Monday and Tuesday in the wake of his mother-in-law’s death Sunday.
“Other details will follow, but we appreciate everyone’s respect for the family’s privacy during this difficult time,” wrote Biden spokesman David Wade.
Bonnie Jacobs, Jill Biden’s mother, had been sick for a long time and was living in a hospice.
Wade announced Saturday that Sunday and Monday’s events were canceled after doctors told the family to stay close by. He said the family is now together at home in Wilmington.
The death comes the same day Biden’s son Beau deploys with his National Guard unit to a mobilzation station in Texas before a tour in Iraq.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Barack Obama’s allies warn that John McCain’s attacks on the Democrat’a character will lead to the political equivalent of mutual assured destruction: fire your big weapon at your own peril.
Several Obama surrogates said his supporters may start reminding voters of McCain’s ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner whose actions two decades ago triggered a Senate ethics investigation that involved McCain as one of the “Keating Five.”
The warnings of massive retaliation came as McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, took on the role of attacker and said that Obama sees America as so imperfect “that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” She was referring to an early Obama supporter, 1960s radical Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground whose members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was a child.
IN OTHER WORDS … WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! Sounds to me like someone is desperate to put an end to the Obama-Ayres connection. Wonder why?
Here was the response form the McCain Campaign:
McCain camp responds to Obama in NC..
Please see our campaigns response to Barack Obamas event in Asheville, N.C.. Today, Barack Obama accused our campaign of running swift boat attacks for discussing in precise and truthful terms Barack Obamas relationship with William Ayers, an unrepentant co-founder of The Weather Underground which was a domestic terrorist organization that bombed American targets:
The last four weeks of this election will be about whether the American people are willing to turn our economy and national security over to Barack Obama, a man with little record, questionable judgment, and ties to radical figures like unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers. Americans need to ask themselves if they’ve ever befriended an unrepentant terrorist, or had a convicted felon help them buy their house — because those aren’t smears, those are true facts about Barack Obama. —Tucker Bounds, spokesman McCain-Palin 2008
