The Real Ayers Problem
Posted by Shannon Love on August 26th, 2008 (All posts by Shannon Love)
I am amazed, simply amazed, at the amazement of many liberals that Ayers and Dohrn should matter to anyone.
As I have noted before, the real troubling aspect of the Obama-Ayers relationship is that Obama comes from a political subculture in which Ayers is an accepted and unremarkable individual. Looking at Ayers, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts.
[h/t Instapundit]
[update(9:59am 8.27.2008): Commenter Jjv says:
I think the bigger problem is what did Ayers see in Obama?
end update]
[update(10:12am 8.27.2008): If you wish to argue that you consider Ayers acceptable and unremarkable please provide an example of what Ayers would have had to do for you to consider him unacceptable.]
[update(12:37pm 8.27.2008): I contacted the Chicago Tribune and ask them about Ayers. They said that they had only published a commentary i.e. basically a letter to the editor. So the idea that Ayers is mainstream because the Tribune published him is dubious.]
[update (2:32pm 8.27.2009): The Tribune editoral page editor, Brian Dold, graciously called me back. He said that the Tribune, as part of its public mission, publishes a wide array of opinion without passing judgement on the character of the authors.]
[update (2:34pm 8.27.2008): Commentator Foo Bar has shown that the Tribune did publish several opinion pieces by Ayers over a period of several years.]
August 26th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Jonah should not be amazed that liberals are amazed, after all we have the Pauline Kael precedent. Remember the comment attributed to her after Nixon’s landslide re-election victory?: “I
can’t understand how the man got elected, no one I know has ever voted for him.” Which, as observers pointed out at the time, was probably literally true considering that her world was almost entirely bound by the environs of the upper-west side of NYC.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Looking at Ayers, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts.
I realize how and even why you use the term “unacceptable”. Still, when I hear/read it, I hear the refrain “well, of course, Saddam’s (Mugabe’s, Lenin’s, Stalin’s, Castro’s, Mao’s, Che’s et al) behavior has been unacceptable, but [append excuse because of America or tu quoque against America].
Sorry, it’s just me.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:33 am
the real troubling aspect of the Obama-Ayers relationship is that Obama comes from a political subculture in which Ayers is an accepted and unremarkable individual.
Yes, and that political subculture is called “the Democratic Party”. It makes me wonder who they will pick next. At the rate they’re going, their 2016 candidate will be promising a cabinet position to Samir Kuntar.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I am positive these types mourn the passing of the 9/11 hijackers.
Oh, I forgot. There were no hijacked planes - it was Bush who blew up the Twin Towers. Right.
Consider just who we’re talking about here. They live in a Matrix of their own construction.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Even a sympathetic one: a product of his times whose idealism simply failed to find the right outlet. Jonah would be less amazed had he heard this NPR interview of Cathy Wilkerson, who went into hiding after her friends accidentally blew themselves up in the basement of her father’s Greenwich Village townhouse in 1970:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17534987
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the interview is the P.O.V. taken by host Robert Siegel, who had a friend die in the explosion.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:09 am
The Chicago Tribune, which hasn’t endorsed a Democrat for President since 1872, has published Ayers’ op-eds several times over the years, going back as least as far as 1988. Here are two examples.
Maybe we should blame the Tribune, a solid conservative-leaning paper with the good sense to endorse folks like GWB, for setting a bad example by working with and promoting Ayers repeatedly.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I bet someone who blows up unoccupied IRS offices would not be treated the same way by these folks.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Has anyone asked Bill Ayers if he thought Timothy McVeigh “did enough”?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I was going to suggest that the Dems’ attitude toward Dohrn and Ayers was, no surprise, rather European, considering the ascendence of many 68ers, but then I thought better of it — really it’s more as if Ulrike Meinhof or Andreas Baader had been associates of the German president.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Anyone over 60 from large urban areas like NYC and Chicago, who did not serve in the military during the Vietnam war, probably knows someone like Ayers and thinks nothing of their past (60’s to 70’s) idealism cum terrorism links. I continue to read letters to editors even here in northeast Florida that ring of the same leftist-Maoist attributes and noisy rhetoric of the 60’s radicalism. Not every 60’s radical ended up getting mugged, you know. Some of them just shaved and went to work for newspapers, TV and book stores.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:23 am
In the same vein, I was amazed that the presence of a huge picture of Mao Tse-Tung was visible in the coverage of the Chinese Olympics and did not provoke any adverse comment at all. Talk about leftist terrorists! Mao was probably the greatest mass murderer of all time. And yet Bob Costas and the other shills did not think it worthy of notice that the Chinese had apparently not put his insane evil behind them. Would there have been comment if the Germans still had a picture of Hitler displayed in Berlin?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:28 am
“what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts?”
Only the kind that embraces free market economics as the best solution to poverty.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:29 am
” . . . what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable . . . ”
You mean ‘unacceptable’ to people who believe protest vandalism and interrupting the free assembly rights of others are forms of ‘free speech expression’? You mean unacceptable to people who whine constantly about ’stifling of dissent’ on nationally-televised news programs and in the pages of our largest newspapers, then lawyer up, lobby for speech codes, harrass YouTube or shout down anything they don’t want to hear?
Answer to your question: nothing is ‘unacceptable’. The ends will always justify the means, as that stack of corpses 100 million high from the last century attests.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I think the bigger problem is what did Ayers see in Obama?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Robert, yes, there would have been comment. But that’s not only because we’ve allowed Marxism to get away with things that we don’t cotton from Nazism, but also because Multicultism keeps us from being harsh about the Chinese. You’d be shocked at how many Chinese still revere Mao. Not just the sycophantic government mercenaries, but many of the common folk.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Foo Bar,
The Chicago Tribune, which hasn’t endorsed a Democrat for President since 1872, has published Ayers’ op-eds several times over the years, going back as least as far as 1988
Your argument assumes two facts not in evidence: (1) The the editors who accepted Ayers editorials actually knew what he had done and what he stilled believed and (2) the poor judgement of one non-leftist lets Obama off the hook.
A better explanation is that people on the right intuitively assume that someone like Ayers would be excluded from the political community and therefore they toke the leftist mainstreaming of Ayers as a sign he had recanted and reformed. Ayers is, sadly for our nation, a powerful figure in education. Why would someone on the right suspect that leftist would let someone like that have influence on our children’s education.
I think that prior to 9/11 most people assumed that Ayers had reformed because they assumed that had he not, his leftist friends would have shunned him.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Amos Wright, you may be right, but I’d amend that it is only the common folk who survived who have that luxury. Time combined with silence can do a lot to shape opinions. That is why Marxism survives in some bleeding hearts and empty heads while Nazism was blasted immediately after the war started.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:50 am
“I think the bigger problem is what did Ayers see in Obama?”
That’s an interesting take. I’d like to see a post on that one.
“a product of his times whose idealism simply failed to find the right outlet”
It didn’t just fail to find the right one, that’s common enough, it succeeded (in spades) in finding the wrongest one. He’s like Brad Pitt’s character in 12 Monkeys all grown up.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:54 am
foo bar,
You appear to find Ayers acceptable so please answer the question: What would he have had to do to for you to consider him unacceptable?
August 27th, 2008 at 10:00 am
jjv Says:
August 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am I think the bigger problem is what did Ayers see in Obama?
INDEED
August 27th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I think that prior to 9/11 most people assumed that Ayers had reformed because they assumed that had he not, his leftist friends would have shunned him.
Well, they published a brief
piece by him in September 2005 regarding media coverage of Hurricane Katrina. By that point they were fully aware of whatever unrepentant views he continued to have, since the Ayers NYT quote that coincidentally was published on 9/11/01 had already appeared, and since they had published criticism of him and his biography.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Yikes. Only meant to bold the word “coincidentally” in the previous comment. A “preview comment” feature, which many blogs have, would be nice…
August 27th, 2008 at 10:12 am
ref: “Upper West Side”
Not that it makes a helluva lot of difference, but when Nixon was elected, and for probably a full decade beforehand, Pauline Kael had been living in the SF Bay Area, where for some years she and her husband were proprietors of a hipper than hip repertory cinema on Telegraph Ave. in Berserkeley.
Yeah, she was still a film critic for the New Yorker.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Clazy: Check out Joscha Fischer.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Foo Bar,
Again, even granting your point about the Tribune, what does their bad judgement exculpate anyone else?
Perhaps, they published Ayers because he was so prominent, well respected and defended by leftist in Chicago that they would have faced retaliation had they ignored him.
If you think Ayers is acceptable what would make him unacceptable.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I worked in the Chicago Black Community from 67-70. I’d been involved with the NY art world earlier and got a call from friends of friends to put up a NY political friend. I did and it turned out to be a Mr. Hoffman. The one and only. He went off to the convention every day and I was quietly appalled. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him except the minimum pleasantries. It made me aware that even though I was a liberal, I wasn’t THAT kind of liberal - whatever THAT was. I didn’t know what kind until much later. I moved to Australia in 76 and became progressively (pun intended) annoyed with the Australian left. I thought Reagan hopelessly superficial until I found myself agreeing with him. Like about the Contras - on balance we really didn’t need another Cuba. I had to admit that George Schultz was saying pretty much exactly what I thought US foreign policy should have been all along. I’m not sure to what extent I was mugged or to what extent I never had any real exposure to solid conservative thinking. All I knew of conservatism was The Manchester (NH) Union Leader and William Loeb’s conviction the Ike was a commie. I liked William F Buckley for his deliciously appalling Yalie condescension, but never really heard what he had to say because of the way he said it. I’ve noticed Obama pushed buttons that hadn’t been pushed since they shot RFK. But I don’t think Obama is just a recycled 60s radical - I think he is legitimately of a new generation. Something different. In comparison to Bobby Kennedy, who took on the mob and Khrushchev and didn’t come off second best, he is an unknown who has accomplished very little. So I find myself a Lieberman Democrat - purged by the Stalinists - and quite happy to vote for Mr McCain. And no I wouldn’t vote for Hillary either and I didn’t vote for Kerry.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Re: Virgil Xenophon (comment #1):
As a lifelong Pauline Kael fan, I feel a duty to report that the quote you (among many others) attribute to her is apocryphal. No one has ever supplied a source for it, as far as I know. Her writing is as quick to bash liberal orthodoxy as the right-wing kind.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I doubt Obama will successfully hide the fact he is a screaming lettuce head. It would be a variation on the theme of fooling all the people all the time.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Shannon, Foo Bar (and I agree that s/he is fubar) is a full-time apologist for Lefty causes and behaviors. He doesn’t have time for giving answers (assuming he had any). S/he’s far to busy composing ad hominems and tu quoques. Anyway, the Trib *was* a conservative paper. It was more moderate Right from the middle 70s until maybe 2000. Since then it has completed its transformation and is now to the Left of the Sun Times, which is hardly Right wing. Also, the Trib in days of yore had ties to Bill Ayres dad, the head of ComEd, which probably explains accepting the op-eds.
If you’re holding your breath awaiting Foo Bar’s answer on what unacceptable is, I wouldn’t, for their is none when the behavior is committed by one claiming dedication to the cause.
I’ve pressed my Leftist colleagues over the years, and not one of them has ever defined a single behavior by anuone they consider on the Left as unacceptable. When I point an example of behavior they called unacceptable when done by others that has now been done on the Left, their response is first to try to re-define the natyre of the behavior then retreat into, “yes, but….” followed by a tu quoque.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Again, even granting your point about the Tribune, what does their bad judgement exculpate anyone else?
It certainly gives some very valuable context when evaluating how serious a lapse in judgment Obama’s association with Ayers is. Obama’s attackers want to make it sound like only far-left types would have anything to do with Ayers. If the Tribune was working with Ayers repeatedly, then how unusual or notable is it, really, if Obama interacted with him from time to time? Note also that your point about how the Tribune may not have known of Ayers’ unrepentant nature prior to 2001 probably applies to Obama as well, and most (although not all) of Obama’s association with Ayers occurs prior to September ‘01.
If you think Ayers is acceptable what would make him unacceptable.
I don’t condone what he did, and it’s certainly not a plus for Obama that he has some association with Ayers. It really doesn’t seem like much of a big deal, though, given how widespread Ayers’ reintegration into polite society was by the late ’80s.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:47 am
“Maybe we should blame the Tribune, a solid conservative-leaning paper with the good sense to endorse folks like GWB, for setting a bad example by working with and promoting Ayers repeatedly.”
Uh, is the Tribune running for President? If the Tribune displays bad judgement in providing a forum for a terrorist bomber does that mean Obama gets a pass for associating with him? What kind of convoluted logic is that?
August 27th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Let me reiterate that I do not, in any way, condone what Ayers did. My point is that Obama is hardly unusual in having some association with Ayers. For better or worse, Ayers was a major education policy player in Chicago by the 90s and worked with the mayor and the Trib.
If Ayers had carried out attacks that targeted innocent people (rather than merely buildings) and remained unrepentant that would raise his wrongdoing to the level where I really couldn’t understand anyone wanting to have anything to do with him. I realize that the Greenwich Village bomb was meant for people, but after that went off accidentally during the planning stages and killed some of their own members, it appears that they came to their senses to at least some small extent and only targeted property after that. Again, I don’t condone the bombing of property or buildings that they did carry out, but there is an important distinction between that kind of activity and carrying out attacks against innocent people.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:54 am
“widespread Ayers’ reintegration into polite society was by the late ’80s.”
This is a red herring. What polite society? Ayers is still stomping on US flags, still unrepentant, still equating “US terrorism” with 9/11, still saying the bombers “didn’t do enough”. The fact that he might be accepted in leftist academia and by corrupt Chicago politicians doesn’t make him acceptable to society at large.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Oh, I think the only way for Ayers to be viewed as truly and irrevocably unacceptable to the lefties would be if he became…a Republican.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I’d like to defend the Chicago Tribune. When leftists are aware of speech they do not like, they move to squash it. Confident conservatives allow fools to speak and show their true colors. It all goes back to believing in the people’s intelligence to figure it out for themselves.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Foo Bar,
It certainly gives some very valuable context when evaluating how serious a lapse in judgment Obama’s association with Ayers is.
Not necessarily, newspapers often publish the opinion of people with whom they strongly disagree or find contemptible. The NY Times published an editorial by the president of Iran, does that imply they approve of him in some way.
I don’t condone what he did, and it’s certainly not a plus for Obama that he has some association with Ayers.
Again, I ask: What would Ayers have to do before you consider him beyond the pale?
August 27th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Lorenz…
You said “…since they shot RFK…”.
It was my understanding (I was watching it live on TV at the time, and live in the L.A. area) that Sirhan shot RFK.
Who is “they”?
August 27th, 2008 at 11:20 am
“I realize that the Greenwich Village bomb was meant for people, but after that went off accidentally during the planning stages and killed some of their own members, it appears that they came to their senses to at least some small extent and only targeted property after that.”
Ahhh, the finer points of discourse. Ayers was a terrorist bomber who stopped targeting people after some people were killed, and only started targeting “buildings”. With this important clarification, it’s obvious Obama is being wronged here. Let me explain something, a terrorist bomber is a terrorist bomber, Presidential candidates don’t associate with people who “only bomb buildings”.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Foo Bar,
What of their comrades who carried out the Long Island robbery that killed two policemen and a truck driver? Dohrn had a chance to redeem herself but refused to testify against her ‘comrades,’ for which she justly went to prison and thus cannot work as a lawyer. When Law and Order did the case they even had actors who looked like Ayers and Dohrn (although the woman was, I think, a Lesbian in the TV episode.) The fact that they failed to kill the many people they wanted with the nail bomb and got cold feet because it was too dangerous to themselves …
August 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am
To Jeyi and Solidstate:
This old dog always glad to learn new tricks. Pauline as a lefty, yes, but as a “hipper than hip” anything???? Wonders never cease. And if the quote is indeed apocryphal, it would be a good detective story to find out source of the legend. (I, also,
was a big fan of her writing, btw)
August 27th, 2008 at 11:36 am
PS: It was probably Kael’s personality, background, and open political sympanthy’ for all things left that made attribution of the quote seem so plausible as keeping in character. More’s the pity if not true–because it should be. It’s too great not to be, encapsulating as it does in one quote the insular mind-set and life-style of a huge segment of the left.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:38 am
PS: It was probably Kael’s personality, background, and open political sympanthy for all things left that made attribution of the quote seem so plausible as keeping in character. More’s the pity if not true–because it should be. It’s too great not to be, encapsulating as it does in one quote the insular mind-set and life-style of a huge segment of the left.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Again, I ask: What would Ayers have to do before you consider him beyond the pale?
I answered that a few comments ago.
Not necessarily, newspapers often publish the opinion of people with whom they strongly disagree or find contemptible. The NY Times published an editorial by the president of Iran, does that imply they approve of him in some way.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to. Maybe such an editorial exists, but can you provide a link? If you’re referring to Ahmadinejad’s letter to Bush- that’s hardly the same thing. Publishing that is more like reporting on diplomatic events.
If you’re referring to an editorial by Khatami, then he is one of the forces of moderation that the Bush administration wants to encourage in Iran, so that would hardly be surprising.
In any case, even if they did publish such an Ahmadinejad editorial, this would be a situation where Ahmadinejad was already the head of state of a significant nation and doesn’t need any help from the NYT to achieve prominence. Contrast that with Ayers as of 1988, who was only 8 years removed from being a fugitive and at most a few years out of a PhD program. The Trib saw fit to do him the favor publishing an editorial of his, which certainly helped promote his career.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:44 am
How can anyone defend Bill Ayers, his wife or the other memebers of the Weather Underground. They intentionally blew up buildings and murdered at least three people - and, at least as to Mr. Ayers and his wife, they are unrepented and, indeed they have said that they feel they didn’t do enough. I wonder how many more they feel they should have murdered to think that they did enough.
IMO, a candidate for President of the United States who continues an association with these terrorists, knowing who they are and what they did, and their present views, is unworthy to be elected. This cannot be rationalized or excused. And for the “liberal” posters on this site - face it - if you support Obama, you are supporting someone who has befriended a non-repentent terrorist. If that’s OK with you, that is your right, but at least admit that doesn’t matter to you. It does to me!
August 27th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Post-Vietnam/Watergate baby “liberals” like John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton etc. are not usually liberals in the FDR-Truman-Adlai Stevenson-Hubert Humphrey-LBJ sense of the term but rather are authoritarian-minded social democrats.
As such, associating with outright anti-democratic totalitarian leftists like Ayers isn’t much of a stretch morally, just on methods and rhetoric.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Foo Bar,
I answered that a few comments ago.
Sorry, I missed it.
If Ayers had carried out attacks that targeted innocent people (rather than merely buildings) and remained unrepentant that would raise his wrongdoing to the level where I really couldn’t understand anyone wanting to have anything to do with him
So, the fact that Ayers was wimp and didn’t actually have the nerve to carry out the attacks he advocated, planned, supported and justifies to this day, redeems him in your eyes? You see a profound moral distinction between merely goading others into attacks and carrying out the attacks themselves? Do you believe that a person remains above reproach if they advocate that others carrying out killings. Why shouldn’t Ayers be judged by what he wanted and intended to do?
More importantly, should not Ayers political beliefs which led him to actively support political violence in and of themselves put him beyond the pale? After all, what would those beliefs impel him to do if he had greater physical power? Should we not judge him on the acts his believes justified not just the acts he is competent to carry out?
August 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
You know how it goes: Mao was a mass murderer. That was wrong.
Now about the American re-ed camps called the Public School System….
August 27th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Ayers, reintegration? Ha ha ha ha ha. How appallingly white of you to ignore his background and his shameless embrace of his own self-righteousness- then and even now. I will not speak of Mr. Ayers - however (as a native, old-school latin. blah blah) my family and background would not be so sanguine about a “radical” who - from the comfort of his middle-class life, inflicted violence upon the working class he purported to care about - so he could later live the same comfortable, soft upper-middle class life he condemned and would deny to those he previously threatened with death. Indeed, if such a “person” had by fate inflicted death upon a member of the family - then sociologists would have an interesting case study to compare and contrast social group responses to violence directed at consanguine family members. Oh, and forensic pathologists would have samples to study too. small, widely scattered samples.
Sigh. Violence begets violence.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
So, the fact that Ayers was wimp and didn’t actually have the nerve to carry out the attacks he advocated, planned, supported and justifies to this day, redeems him in your eyes? You see a profound moral distinction between merely goading others into attacks and carrying out the attacks themselves? Do you believe that a person remains above reproach if they advocate that others carrying out killings. Why shouldn’t Ayers be judged by what he wanted and intended to do?
You seem to be suggesting that Ayers “justifies to this day” attacks against innocent people. That seems pretty clearly wrong.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ayers is the tip of the iceberg. Many of the people who have been influential on Obama, from his expatriate mother to his wife to his former preacher, seem to be people who didn’t much like America, who thought that it is a bad country that is the source of many of the world’s problems, rather than a good country that is on the whole part of the solution. Add in Ayers and Dohrn and other people of questionable character like Rezko and you have to wonder about the kind of people that would be surrounding a President Obama, should that happen. It shows a critical lack of judgment on Obama’s part of the character of the people working with and for him.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Sorry, the link for “wrong” in the above comment didn’t come through OK. here it is.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
What Ayers and Obama saw in each other was a way to steer money to themselves and those they wished to befriend. Between the two of them and their cronies on that committee, they went through $50 million of Annenberg’s money in a fairly short time, and it appears that it was entirely wasted. Assuming, of course, that by ‘waste’, one means that it didn’t benefit any children. Now, as to certain adults that it might have helped…
BTW, managing the expenditure of that money constitutes the sum total of Barry Soetoro’s executive experience, and the best-quantified measure of his ability to pursue loft goals at someone else’s expense. Why in God’s name would we want to put that man in charge of the U.S.?
August 27th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Coming late to this fun fest but let me just point out that Shannon nailed it without realizing it when she quoted the commentator:
I think the bigger problem is what did Ayers see in Obama?
What did Ayers see in Obama? What he’s been seeing in Chicago society for decades now. A chance to re-enter mainstream society. In that respect, he is about 99.9% successful due to several facts:
* He’s concentrated on doing lots of ho-hum do goodery that no one really cares about but nonetheless gets noted just enough to get pegged as “that activist guy who does stuff for kids”.
* His father, a wealthy and influential Republican, used both money and influence to bring him back into respectable society.
* For the most part, no one remembers the 60’s anymore. A 20 year old person in 69 is 68 today. Unless you have a soft spot for the 60’s the response to the question of Bill Ayers is Bill Who? 60’s radical? Ohh ok, wasn’t everyone radical then?
Looking at Ayers, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts.
The problem here is Ayers:
1. Benefits greatly because no one looks at him much either left or right. The times have moved on.
2. Leftists who do think about him because they have to (such as the book reviewers who had to read & review his book of big outlets like the NYT or the NYRB) do not like him very much. Note here the previous point about Ayer’s PR strategy…..he’ll engage in some public do-goodery but he avoids doing anything that would cause people to actually spend much time thinking about who that English Professor is or was.
See, for example, Michael Kinsley’s take on Ayers and the Obama brouhaha
3. It isn’t the leftists or the extreme leftists of Chicago society who ‘let Ayers back in’ but mainstream Chicago society including Republicans and even conservatives:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1810338,00.html
The obsession some have with what is essentially a non-story is pretty amazing. Some of it I attribute to what Shannon herself said, she feels the need to ‘circle the wagons’ around McCain in an election year. In such a climate grabbing any story and running with it may seem like a good idea. I think another element of it is the way Obama critics here deride supporters with the Messiah label….as in “look at your Messiah now”. Sometimes I think the right is operating under the fantasy that Obama really is supposed to be or has to be a Messiah hence he not only is expected to run a good campaign and present a good alternative to 4 more years of Republican failure…he literallly has to redeem all of Chicago politics, all sins of the last 40 years and while he’s at it he might as well redeem all of human nature. This, quite frankly, is investing a bit too much in a Presidential campaign.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Government buildings are more than just real estate. They are public property, built and paid for by the American people to facilitate the State’s sovereign power to “ensure domestic tranquility”: that is, to protect our lives and private property from seditious gangsters like William Ayers. Ayers’ attacks on our public buildings are an attack on the free, democratic institutions of government on which our prosperity and security depend. By attacking them, this vicious criminal is attacking us - his neighbors and fellow citizens. He proudly acknowledges this. Obama’s friend is a killer who would, if he could, destroy the society that Obama seeks to lead. Obama does not have a problem with this. He is unfit for dog catcher.
By placing a murderous Communist like Ayers on its faculty, which it had no necessity to do, the University of Chicago is endosing this nut’s terrorism and the collectivist totalitarian anarchy that he advocates. This man in the Law School of any university is a travesty, an insult to the ideal of the rule of law. Since the alternative to law is tyranny, we are justified in concluding that UoC doesn’t know the difference. Maybe they’ll get away with their cultural and moral bankruptcy, like thieves sneaking away in the night. But like Obama himself, and the Democrat Party that is choosing such a dolt for President, this feckless University is an empty shell. They are dangerous to our health, because in a crisis all will be blown away.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Foo Bar,
From the article:
”I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. ”I feel we didn’t do enough.”
The only possible interpretation of that is that he has not renounced his actions. Indeed, it appears he only wishes he had had more power to impose his will on the American people.
And if there were another Vietnam, he is asked, would he participate again in the Weathermen bombings. By way of an answer, Mr. Ayers quoted from ”The Cure at Troy,”
What he did not say was “no”.
My advice: When you’re in a hole stop digging.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Let’s look at your words a little differently:
“As I have noted before, the real troubling aspect of the McCain-Keating relationship is that McCain comes from a political subculture in which Keating is an accepted and unremarkable individual. Looking at Keating, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of institutionalized corruption would be considered unacceptable by McAin and his cohorts.”
“If John McCain had similar associations with a former KKK member like, say Robert Byrd , David Duke would you be as understanding? How about if it was a guy that bombed an abortion clinic instead of the Pentagon?”
August 27th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
The only possible interpretation of that is that he has not renounced his actions. Indeed, it appears he only wishes he had had more power to impose his will on the American people.
Yes, his actual actions, i.e, bombing buildings.
I made the distinction between attacking people and attacking property. In your response, you suggested that he “justifies to this day” attacking people . When I provided evidence that he does not, in fact, justify to this day attacking people, you inexplicably cite evidence that he does not regret setting the bombs that he set, i.e., the ones that attacked property.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Foo Bar,
So, you find it acceptable for a person to enforce his political views on others with violence as long as they claim they do not explicitly target people?
How much do you know about the Weatherman especially their political philosophy?