Barry's Rumored Ghostwriter Sends Him a Message

Bill Ayers, long involved in education, is absolutely correct about Obama's disastrous policies.

Despite Duncan being his basketball buddy, he needs to be sacked as secretary of education.

The landscape of “educational reform” is currently littered with rubble and ruin and wreckage on all sides. Sadly, your administration has contributed significantly to the mounting catastrophe. You’re not alone: The toxic materials have been assembled as a bipartisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a merry band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad.

Whether inept or clueless or malevolent—who’s to say?—these titans have worked relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their particular brand of school change as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan—endorsed in your efforts by Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a host of reactionary politicians and pundits—now bear a major responsibility for that agenda.

The three most trumpeted and simultaneously most destructive aspects of the united “school reform” agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. While there’s absolutely no substantive proof that this approach improves schooling for children, it chugs along unfazed—fact-free, faith-based reform at its core, resting firmly on rank ideology rather than any evidence whatsoever.

It's impossible to argue with this.

I doubt Obama will care at all and change course. People with sense don't have the "cents" the billionaires have.

Miscellaneous

The Smithsonian would like to have Aretha Franklin's now-famous hat she wore at the inauguration, and she is considering donating it.

It's sad in a way hats went out of style after the early 1960s except among African American women. Hats had a lot of elegance, and women back then always wore hats, white gloves, and matching purses and shoes before they went out.

Fashion has been pretty much "anything goes" since the late 1960s.
_____

Bill Ayers has decided to lengthen his 15 minutes of infamy and go around the country to talk about his education reform, thanks to his association with President Obama.

Naturally he attracted protests when he spoke in San Francisco.

Don't forget to watch the video clip.
_____

Clearing the Ayers

When asked about the "dedication" in his 1974 book, Prairie Fire, which included the name of RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan, Ayers called it dumb to have included Sirhan's name but digs himself into a deeper hole.

Oh, what the hell, I'll post the clip:

Foot-in-Mouth Politics

Somebody should tell Bill Ayers to please shut up about his name being put out there during the campaign season, no matter how mild the criticism really was, and about his relationship to the president-elect.

He was a typical rich kid who managed to avoid serious prison time BECAUSE he and his wife Bernardine Dohrn had those rich connections. They got off on technicalities. Others in the Weather Underground did serious prison time.

Which leads to some speculation as to who these two REALLY were.

Those of us old enough to remember the mess that was the 1960s remember anti-war groups especially were infiltrated.

Political Commentary

I think William Kristol, Mister PNAC, doesn't have a lot of room to talk about John McCain when his neocon buddies helped ruin this country.

McCain needs help, but he sure as hell doesn't need Kristol's.

_____

If anything, an Obama win will help spearhead a revival in right-wingism, if Obama doesn't overly pander to the right as he has done.

I am sure the GOP is counting on a major fuck-up by Obama if he wins.
_____

It is so true neither candidate is up to the job of president.

As I've said repeatedly, if Biden were the nominee which he should have been (with Edwards screwing up his own chances), I would have no problem with this ticket despite misgivings about Obama. But with Obama on the top, I see disaster.
_____

Joseph Cannon has a LONG piece about Bill Ayers from a commenter that is worth reading, if one has the time.

Miscellaneous News

The USSC rules against the GOP regarding Ohio:

The U.S. Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.

The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility

_____

According to News from the Ass... Rep. Tim Mahoney admits he did it but claims he did nothing illegal.
_____

Jack Cashill has more evidence for his claim Barack Obama didn't write Dreams from My Father all by himself but had substantial help from Bill Ayers.

More Campaign Follies

And what does Obama's associate and alleged ghostwriter think of all of the hoopla surrounding him?

When the Tribune caught up with Ayers on Tuesday, he had no interest in joining the unpleasant conversation.

"What could I possibly add?" he asked from the door to his office. "Life happens."

Conspiracy Corner

Who REALLY was the author of Dreams From My Father?

I bought Bill Ayers' 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, for reasons unrelated to this project. As I discovered, he writes surprisingly well and very much like "Obama." In fact, my first thought was that the two may have shared the same ghostwriter. Unlike Dreams, however, where the high style is intermittent, Fugitive Days is infused with the authorial voice in every sentence. What is more, when Ayers speaks, even off the cuff, he uses a cadence and vocabulary consistent with his memoir. One does not hear any of Dreams in Obama's casual speech.

Obama's memoir was published in June 1995. Earlier that year, Ayers helped Obama, then a junior lawyer at a minor law firm, get appointed chairman of the multi-million dollar Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant. In the fall of that same year, 1995, Ayers and his wife, Weatherwoman Bernardine Dohrn, helped blaze Obama's path to political power with a fundraiser in their Chicago home.

In short, Ayers had the means, the motive, the time, the place and the literary ability to jumpstart Obama's career. And, as Ayers had to know, a lovely memoir under Obama's belt made for a much better resume than an unfulfilled contract over his head.

For simplicity sake, I will refer to the author of Dreams as "Obama." Without question, he contributed much of the book's raw material, especially the long-winded accounting of events and conversations, polished just well enough to pass muster. The book's fierce, succinct and tightly coiled social analysis more closely matches the style of Fugitive Days, a much tighter book.

More Campaign Notes

I think winning Virginia and other states in the region is a pipe dream for the Democrats.

Forget it.
_____

Obama's campaign is making threats that if Sarah Palin and John McCain don't shut up and worship at the Messiah's altar, there will be hell to pay.
_____

Although I have written on this blog Obama's relationship with William Ayers was basically a waste of time but noting ANY association with the one-time Weather Underground member would make it very easy for the GOP to exploit, I cannot see how anybody mentioning the relationship in order to score political points is somehow racist.

I guess any criticism of the Messiah can be construed as being racist.
_____

Obama's Connections

Although it has been news for months on end, the NYT has decided to look into the relationship between Obama and former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, but it concludes they weren't all that close.

After all, the NYT is going to do its damnedest to make sure Obama gets elected, either by hook or by crook.

In the stark presentation of a 30-second ad or TV soundbite, Mr. Obama’s connections with a man who once bombed buildings and who is unapologetic about it may seem puzzling. But in Chicago, Mr. Ayers has been largely rehabilitated.

Federal riot and bombing conspiracy charges against him were dropped in 1974 because of illegal wiretaps and other prosecutorial misconduct, and he was welcomed back after years in hiding by his large and prominent family. His father, Thomas G. Ayers, had served as C.E.O of Commonwealth Edison, the local power company.

Since earning a doctorate in education at Columbia in 1987, Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois, author or editor of 15 books, and advocate of school reform.

“He’s done a lot of good in this city and nationally,” Mayor Richard M. Daley said in an interview this week, explaining that he has long consulted Mr. Ayers on school issues. Mr. Daley, whose father was Chicago mayor during the street violence accompanying the 1968 Democratic Convention and the so-called Days of Rage the following year, said he saw the bombings of that time in the context of a polarized and turbulent era.

“This is 2008,” Mr. Daley said. “People make mistakes. You judge a person by his whole life.”

The trouble is Ayers isn't a bit sorry for what he did. That doesn't mean Obama subscribes to Ayers' beliefs or is soft on terrorism.

I'd be far more worried about Obama's Chicago School connections.

Campaign Hatchet Jobs

Obama whined about Stanley Kurtz's hatchet job on him and his association with Bill Ayers and wanted to lower the hatchet on Kurtz.

The podcast in question is here. You don't have to support Obama to know Kurtz is totally full of shit.

An earlier screed by Kurtz regarding the Annenberg Challenge is here.

Walter Annenberg, the founder of TV Guide and Seventeen, died in 2002 at the age of 94. He was hardly a radical; in fact, he was a longtime Republican and a close friend of the Reagans.

Why the Obama campaign didn't just send a representative to counter Kurtz is a mystery. It was a big mistake.

Instead they sent an email. That is much less effective than going one-on-one with Kurtz.

I have always thought the Ayers angle was grasping at straws in terms of truth. Yes, Ayers did what he did, and yes, Obama had an association with him, but that doesn't mean Obama endorses what Ayers has stood for regarding his years with the Weather Underground. I don't think the opponents pushing the Ayers line even care about the "judgment" factor; what they want to do is lump Obama in with terrorists and play the 9/11 card.

Because Obama had a relationship with Ayers, it is very hard for him to counter the talking points, to separate his libertarian/right-leaning politics from Ayers' radical left politics. The right-wingers want to tag Obama as a far leftist, but in fact he is not. It's laughable to paint him as a Marxist or a communist. He has more in common with his critics' politics than he does with Ayers. He worked at the University of Chicago, for God's sake, the heart of right-wing ideology in the United States and has advisers who are from the same university and surrounds himself with neocons. THOSE are the associations voters should be worried about, for Obama is not only not a "leftist" or a liberal, he's not even a Democrat. If by a miracle he got in office he would be open to some of the Republicans' more extreme economic policies. But what the GOP and hacks like Kurtz want to do is say because of his association with Ayers, Obama is soft on terrorism.

Whether this is ultimately effective remains to be seen.

In short, so much of Obama's past can so easily be twisted by the GOP and their 527s and mouthpieces like Stanley Kurtz, which is another reason why he should have never been the nominee for president.

Campaign Wrongheadedness

In addition to running his own response ad to the American Issues Project ad tying him to former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, which is a fact, Obama wants to silence them from even running the ad.

Don't answer the questions raised by the ad, just silence the opposition for raising it.

It's not going to work, Barack. Chicago-style tactics will NOT work against the GOP or their advocacy groups.

As one commenter noted, Obama fell right into the GOP trap by making this an issue. He should have ignored the ad in the first place or addressed the Ayers question to the media long ago besides saying what Ayers did was when Obama was in grade school. After all, Ayers helped Obama launch his political career.

Prosecuting people won't work, either. By the time anything is done, Obama will have lost in a landslide anyway.

Here is the ad in question:

Let the Bloodbath Begin

Just as I have been saying on this blog and elsewhere for many, many months, the media REFUSED TO VET Barack Obama in hopes he would get the nomination, then once he got it, they could unload all of the ammo, whether real or not, against him. Then it would be too late for Democrats to turn back.

There will be dozens and dozens of stories like this Ayers one just waiting to be dumped on the voting public.

Nobody can say they weren't warned the Messiah from Hyde Park was just another corrupt emperor with no clothes.

More Campaign Notes.

More questions are being raised about Obama's judgment re Ayers.

Again, I don't think this would sink him because this happened nearly 40 years ago. The issue being raised is what the Republicans would do to him in the fall with this information, guilt by association, in other words.

Obama has a lot of problems with judgment; Ayers is probably the least toxic of his associations, which says something. He has Wright, and he has Rezko, both of whom have problems of more recent note.

If Obama

becomes the nominee, he may have to pick "The Lullaby of Broadway," with its mention of Broadway babies, as his campaign theme song:

So let's wait until Labor Day, when Broadway Baby may become a catchphrase. Here's why: According to a 1982 New York Times report, Broadway Baby was implicated in an investigation of a series of violent armed robberies in New York—netting more than $2 million over a two-year span—committed by former Black Panthers and Weather Underground members in the early '80s.

And who was involved?

And who was the manager of Broadway Baby during that period of the customer ID theft?

Dohrn, the future wife of Ayers, identified by investigators as taking customer information from one, and possibly both, of the women shoppers. Dohrn was never charged in that case.

Dohrn and Ayers had been running for some 11 years, fleeing federal charges that they instigated riots in Chicago in 1969.

They finally came in out of the cold in 1980, but the New York gang continued its spree, ending in the bloody 1981 robbery in Rockland County that left a Brinks security guard and two police officers dead.

Oh, brother, more fodder for the GOP slime machine.

Campaign Follies.

I know blood is thicker than water and maybe even oil, but Rick Ayers is engaging in a bit of spin regarding his brother, Bill Ayers.

By ANY definition, whether or not people's lives were at stake in the bombings, the Weather Underground WAS a domestic terrorist group. The whole point of blowing up buildings was to send a message, and yes, to create fear in a wrongheaded attempt to bring about change in Vietnam War policy. Unfortunately, the group's actions helped create a public backlash with still exists today.

It isn't entirely accurate to say nobody died as a result of their actions; after all, Bill Ayers' girlfriend at the time, Diana Oughton, and two other people (Ted Gold and Terry Robbins), were killed in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion on March 6, 1970.

A recent article about is here. A snip of the details:

In February 1970, Ms. [Cathy] Wilkerson was ordered to go to New York, reuniting her with Terry Robbins, a leader of the group with whom she had defied the antimonogamy policy. They set about building pipe bombs, with Fort Dix the main target. She persuaded her father to let her stay in the town house on 11th Street while he was away, saying she had the flu. He reluctantly agreed. The rest of the group moved in.

On the day her father was to return, she was ironing bed linens. Revolutionaries they may have been, but Ms. Wilkerson did not want him to know they had been sleeping in his beds; it had never been her own home.

As she worked in the kitchen, the room exploded. The pipe bombs in the basement had gone off, detonating three cases of dynamite. Mr. Robbins, Diane Oughton and Ted Gold were killed.

Ms. Boudin had been taking a shower, Ms. Wilkerson writes, and together they crawled out of the wreckage. A neighbor brought them inside and gave them clothes. They found a single subway token, then walked to the subway on Sixth Avenue. They went through the turnstile together and did not look back.

Incidentially, Bill Ayers has a blog.

More Campaign Notes.

Obama paid a courtesy call to John Edwards today.

I doubt any endorsement is in the works, particularly given how close the race is between Obama and Clinton.
_____

Obama's many colorful ties, and not the kind he wears, could present problems down the road.

For a man who hates the 1960s, Obama sure doesn't mind hanging out with a one-time member of the Weather Underground and husband of fellow Underground member Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers.

He's an education professor in Illinois. Most of the surviving members of the homegrown terrorist group have led quiet lives since those heady days of 30-40 years ago.

I remember the group well. They were always in the news back then, and they didn't help the image of the left, either, with their antics.

However, the association of Ayers to Obama is grist for the Republican smear machine.
_____