When Obama says that he was only 8 years old when Bill Ayers and his even scarier wife Bernadine Dohrn were active terrorists, he is calculating from the founding of the Weather Underground. But that group continued to exist decades later and did its greatest mayhem in the 1980s. Obama was an undergraduate at Columbia then. Ayers was also at Columbia at that time. Obama and his campaign will say nothing about his Columbia years, not even permitting his transcripts to be released. To clear up questions about his ties with members of the Weather Underground, it would help to know about his college days and what inspired him to go to Chicago to Saul Alinsky’s radical organization to work as a community organizer. Did he have radical ties at Columbia? From Ayers-Dohrn-Obama Tie Shouldn’t Be Dismissed:
Though the mainstream media has been curiously uninterested in Barack Obama’s undergraduate years, Obama spent two years at Occidental College developing into an activist and then transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1983. Little more is known about Obama’s time at Columbia and he seems to avoid mentioning it as much as possible. . . . Obama has also turned down repeated requests to release his academic transcripts. What happened during his time at Columbia that caused Barack Obama to be so secretive and hold the school conspicuously at arm’s length? . . . .
The big question unasked by the media is if Barack Obama met Bill Ayers during the time both were in the Columbia University community at the same time that a splinter group of the Weathermen was still actively planting bombs. While the possibility has been suggested in blogs, there does not appear to be any record of any media directly asking Obama if he met Ayers in New York and if such a relationship spurred Obama to travel to Chicago to begin his career as a community organizer.
Barack Obama’s first known meetings with Bill Ayers would occur three years after Obama graduated from Columbia, in Chicago in 1987. Ayers was an activist in the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools. Community organizer Barack Obama’s Developing Communities Project was a member of that Alliance.
Barack Obama was not eight, but a 24-year-old community organizer in Chicago at the time of the Weathermen’s last attacks, and 29 when many of the last remnants of the Underground in the offshoot May 19th Communist Organization were sentenced to prison in 1990. (Former Weatherman Elizabeth Ann Duke is still a fugitive and wanted by the FBI.)
BarackObama.com, the campaign’s official website, offers up a “fact check” that Obama was just eight years old when the Weathermen were active in 1969. The Obama campaign has tried to use the founding date of the Weathermen as a touchstone, claiming that the acts of the group were something that happened “40 years ago” when Obama was a child. Far closer to the truth is the December 6, 1990, sentencing date of Weathermen Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, when the last of the Weathermen were sentenced for their role in a string of bombings in the mid-1980s, including bombs that detonated at the National War College, the Washington Navy Yard Computing Center, the Washington Navy Yard Officers’ Club, New York City’s Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the Israeli Aircraft Industries Building, New York City’s South African Consulate, and the United States Capitol Building.
That the Obama campaign refuses to talk about these things and gets so indignant about anyone daring to bring it up just increases the suspicion. If Obama used to be a radical in these circles but has since tempered his views and no longer believes all that rhetoric about a socialist revolution, let him say so. But these are important charges and they deserve to be answered.
21 comments ↓
Personally, I would be indignant as well. The assertion that Obama is associated with a terrorist group (a relatively small group at that) just because he went to the same university (a relatively large university in a massive city) is absured. Even if he did have contact with the members, it doesn’t neccessarily mean that he was associate in any meaningful way or supportive of the group’s ideology or methods at all.
Now, don’t ge me wrong, I disagree with Obama and I sincerely hope that he loses in November, but if we’re going to attack him, it needs to be on substantive issues.
One thing that really disturbed me in hearing this story on the television news this past weekend was a description of the attacks as “non-fatal” bombings or blasts. That phrase has stuck in my head: “non-fatal”. If you google “non-fatal bombings”, a number of terrorist cases come up, so I am confused as to why the phrase would be used. Sure, it makes the attacks sound, somehow, less than bad, but I am having trouble reconciling the calculated way that a heinous and potential murderous act would be rewritten to sound innocuous.
More on the Ayers-Obama connection from an article by Stanley Kurtz -
“Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists
The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama’s first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers’s home.
The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis.” Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I’ve recently spent days looking through them.
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago’s public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation’s other key body, the “Collaborative,” which shaped education policy.
The CAC’s basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda.
One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama’s “recruitment” to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval.
The CAC’s agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers’s educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland’s ghetto.
In works like “City Kids, City Teachers” and “Teaching the Personal and the Political,” Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? “I’m a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist,” Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk’s, “Sixties Radicals,” at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC.
CAC translated Mr. Ayers’s radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with “external partners,” which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).
Mr. Obama once conducted “leadership training” seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama’s early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC’s in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement.
CAC also funded programs designed to promote “leadership” among parents. Ostensibly this was to enable parents to advocate on behalf of their children’s education. In practice, it meant funding Mr. Obama’s alma mater, the Developing Communities Project, to recruit parents to its overall political agenda. CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents “organized” by community groups might be viewed by school principals “as a political threat.” Mr. Obama arranged meetings with the Collaborative to smooth out Mr. Weber’s objections.
Here is a rather surprising “piece” from CNN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvROBLortBQ
Kirk, I think the general thrust is that Obama’s association with Ayer was NOT just limited to happening to be at the same college.
I agree with you - if that was the only connection between the two, then it would be ridiculous, but it seems there is certainly the suggestion of far more interaction between the two.
As far as the Obama campaign obscuring vs facing the issue, I don’t really see much in that. It’s a political campaign decision, and politics is rife with examples of politicians who tried to hide even small things when it would have been better for them to directly address them. It’s a typical politician response - something that applies to many of McCain’s actions too. Maybe there’s a skeleton in that closet, maybe there’s just a moldy smell - either way the campaign would probably react the exact same way.
Certainly, an association with an unsavory person is legit campaign fodder. My problem is, is that the article above, while certainly addressing Obama and Ayer’s relationship, suggests that Obama was complicit, or at least condoning of the Weatherman group’s bombings. I will admit, however, that these two men’s relationship is unsettling.
I think there must be something here; college is, after all, where a lot of people more or less set their course for life. It’s not unreasonable to want to take a look at what he did, and quite frankly, his refusal to allow anyone to look (just like Hillary Clinton’s senior theses if I remember correctly) ought to be occasion for suspicion.
After all, if it looks good–great. If it looks bad–note how you’ve changed since then. Of course, hanging around with Rev. Wright, Fa. Pfleger, and the Weather Underground probably isn’t a terribly good way of assuring people that you’re less radical than you used to be. :^)
Oh good, the McCain talking points have been circulated. And the rest of the campaign is no longer going to be about issues, presumably because the McCain campaign has been doing so poorly in the polls. Never mind that Obama has condemned Ayers’ militant activities.
But let’s try this on a Republican candidate now using left-wing talking points and see how it feels.
The birth of Trig Palin has been another subject of much discussion and mystery. In March, when the Anchorage Daily News announced Sarah Palin’s pregnancy, it had this to say:
The Web site of the hospital where Trig was born lists babies born there, but not Trig. Many say something doesn’t add up, and yet the McCain campaign won’t release all the medical records.
Would you also agree, then: “That the McCain campaign refuses to talk about these things and gets so indignant about anyone daring to bring it up just increases the suspicion. … But these are important charges and they deserve to be answered.”
Or would you consider such an argument ridiculous, an obvious attack on Palin, meant to distract from more important issues, that doesn’t deserve a response?
[1] “Secret’s out: Palin pregnant”, ADN.com, 3/6/08
Perhaps Obama could respond to this reconstituted Ayers foofaraw the way McCain did in a recent interview:
But then, no doubt many here would only hear that John McCain admitted he was “best friends” with the head the SDS and say he’s untrustable because of his associations.
Yes, tODD, Sen. Obama has thrown Ayers under the bus NOW, just like he threw Pfleger and Wright under the bus when it got too uncomfortable.
Key phrase; when it got too uncomfortable, not because of any conviction on Obama’s part.
Bike (@10), it’s not clear which post (or which part of a post) you’re replying to. I’m guessing it’s when I said (@8), “Never mind that Obama has condemned Ayers’ militant activities.”
First, that’s not throwing him under the bus — it’s just condemning the wrong Ayers did without condemning the man as a whole. You seem to imply that Obama was at one point not opposed to such militant activities. Other than this association with Ayers (which is not sufficient proof, any more than McCain’s association with SDS leaders is proof of his political beliefs), can you point to something that indicates Obama is in favor of domestic terrorism?
So what does it say about McCain that for this campaign he hired Phil “More Deregulation for This Nation of Whiners” Gramm and Carly “Golden Parachute” Fiorina, and then ditched them (well, officially, at least)? Anything?
Also, I am impressed by your ability to judge Obama’s heart like this: “when it got too uncomfortable, not because of any conviction on Obama’s part.” Ooh, tell me what I’m really thinking right now!
tODD, that story is easily determined ridiculous and is completely lost on women. Note that the story doesn’t explain how she’s BREASTFEEDING Trig, an incredibly difficult(though not impossible, if you don’t mind pumping for hours a day - not possible in a governor’s case) feat for adoptive mothers-to-be.
The Ayers story is not ridiculous and improbable. It needs an explanation.
TK (@12), before I respond, I’ll say this: it’s ridiculous that we should have to debate Trig’s origins when there are actual issues to debate. But the ground rules laid out here are that any assertion being leveled must be responded to with the requested documentation, or else it “just increases the suspicion.” “These are important charges and they deserve to be answered.”
Now, what you’ve failed to do is offer proof that she actually breastfeeds Trig. I can at least point to something: the hospital Web site that fails to document Trig’s birth. What are you pointing to that documents that she is truly breastfeeding? Her word? That’s great, but why is Palin refusing to release her medical records? What is she hiding? Doesn’t it make you suspicious?
See how this works?
TK @12, you can find good articles about the Obama/ Ayers connection at, for one, The Nation website. I suspect many here will reject that source out of hand as a left-wing (and therefore evil) publication, but it is perhaps because it is liberal that it looked very carefully at the Obama/Ayers connection when Clinton raised it during the Democratic primaries. You may not be persuaded by these articles, but at least you’ll reading some reporting, rather than innuendo.
@tODD, you might want to look into HIPAA laws put into place by your girl Hillary. Medical records are private and therefore none of any our business should the family desire so. A release of Palin’s medical records by the hospital would be a huge fine.
I’m amazed how you attack people on the use of quotes around the word “you” and other points are meniscule nature in posts.
Obama should have to answer WHY he was associated with Ayers and why that association continued for many years. And yes McCain should have the answer for the association you brought up. You can tell a lot about people by the friends they keep. If Ayers et al are Obama’s friends then how big of players will they become should Barack step in the White House.
tODD,
I know that we are having this discussion with tongues firmly in cheeks, so I’ll answer your questions:
What are you pointing to that documents that she is truly breastfeeding? Her word? Yes. No Christian woman…no woman…is gonna lie about something like that. I’ve seen her hold her infant son and I’ve seen how he responds to her body. Can’t fake that mother-infant stuff. (I was a LaLeche League member for about 7 years. )
That’s great, but why is Palin refusing to release her medical records? Why should she? I’ve actually not heard of a hospital releasing such records on a website; that’s a new one to me. At the very least, releasing such information on a sitting governor would be a huge security risk for the infant while in hospital.
What is she hiding? Nothing.
Doesn’t it make you suspicious? Not at all.
See how this works? Yes, it’s an exercise in the ridiculous. Questions about the founders of the Weather Underground are completely different. Is my opinion partisan? You may think so, but I really hope you don’t.
Now if Palin had her political start in the living room of influential abortion activists with a history of non-fatal violence, then you’d have a comparable situation.
What did you think of the debate?
Jonathan,
Thanks for the tip. You will need to link to a specific article; I’d love to read a left-wing journalistic piece. You can’t be serious about The Nation! In viewing the start page, all I can see is piece designed to inflame the base with extreme headlines and slanderous one-liners. Surely, there is a legitimate liberal site that has a helpful article.
TK, try The Nation. It’s really quite a thoughtful magazine. I won’t link to a specific article, but there are several available there.
But why not read the same NY Times article that Palin cites as proof that Obama pals around with a domestic terrorist? You’ll see firsthand that the article says exactly the opposite.
Neb (@15), I realize you’re new around here, but if you’d care to peruse the archives of this site, you’d find that Hillary is not, and never has been “[my] girl”. You seem to have me confused with some stereotypical Democrat, merely because I do not like McCain.
Anyhow, I’m not actually making this case for Trig’s medical records, so much as making a comparison about this Obama/Ayers argy-bargy, but … in the context of my comparison, you do understand that I’m not actually asking for the hospital to release Palin’s records against her will, but for Palin to do so voluntarily, right? I’m all for a patient’s medical privacy as far as the patient’s control is concerned, but I also think that if we’re going to assert that a candidate should voluntarily release any and all records that pertain to any smear assertion that comes along … then Palin should voluntarily release her medical records to clear up this whole Trig question. What, as the ridiculous question often goes, has she got to hide?
Also, Neb, I have no idea what your second paragraph (@15) refers to. As to your third paragraph, I disagree that “McCain should have the answer” for his being “best friends” with the SDS leader. But I guess you’re being consistent.
TK (@16), I’ll use your responses about Palin and see if you like them with respect to Obama: “No Christian man … is going to lie about something like that [the Ayers thing].”
Regarding the demand that Obama release his Columbia transcripts, you would say: “Why should he?” What is Obama hiding? “Nothing.” Does it make me suspicious about him? “Not at all.” Except you don’t agree with this with respect to Obama.
As to tonight’s debate, it was definitely the least informative debate so far this year. Brokaw was definitely the worst moderator, whining over and over about the time limits, but not enforcing them. The format lent itself to stupid questions, followed by stump-speech answers of the most stultifying variety. Blech.
@19. why is there even a ? about the baby Palin bore? Are you serious you’re trying to compare Palin’s child to Obama’s association with terrorists? You’re smarter than that tODD.
my 2nd paragraph (while not stated with good grammer) states what many have stated. You go off on tiny points rather than answering the big ?’s about the party you support. You seem to debate whether quotes were properly placed vs. answering the ? Why? I’ve read a number of your posts which are very thorough and well written. why not continue that trend in regard to politics?
Can you answer the ? how does a conservative Christian theologically vote liberally for Obama or any other left leaning politician?????
At least we agree that the debate stunk!
Neb, what you are seeing are Alinskayan tactics, which Baraq Hussein Obama studied and promoted with those tens of millions of dollars of Annenberg funds that Ayers appointed him to distribute.
Whether it applies or not, remember too, that Jesus and the apostles warned us that false brethren would slip in to try to deceive the sheep.
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