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.

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.

If Obama Got

the nomination, could he get the John Kerry treatment?

This is classic guilt by association. There is no evidence Obama condones anything Ayers and Dohrn did back when Obama was in elementary and middle school. None. I am not sure how this is going to fly with voters, many if not most of whom have no memory at all of the late 1960s to early 1970s.

The documentary about the Weather Underground is outstanding. Here is the YouTube link to the first installment. No doubt somebody posted the entire thing illegally. Anyway, it's a good recounting of those times. Little did the members realize their wrongheaded actions helped create the backlash we are still living under and helped to discredit the left in the eyes of many.

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.
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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.
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