Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, October 06, 2008 10:00:14 AM
This morning, we have a series of videos dealing with the
intersection of William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and the Obamas. Sarah
Palin’s accusation that Barack Obama “palled around with terrorists”
has Team Obama attempting to play defense on the morning talk shows.
David Axelrod went first and tried to play the Ignorance Is Bliss card:
JIM ACOSTA: Now a college professor in Chicago, Ayers
and Obama served together several years on a nonprofit board. And in
1995 Ayers hosted a coffee for Obama when the young community organizer
was making his first run for the State Senate. At this point looking
back, should he not have done that?
DAVID AXELROD: Well I mean, when he went, he certainly — he didn’t know the history.
ACOSTA: The Democratic nominee’s chief strategist David Axelrod
maintains Obama at that time had no idea about Ayers’ violent past.
Next, Robert Gibbs attempts to say the same thing, as well as calling it a “distraction” again:
ROBERTS: I just want to try to get to the heart of it so
that people at home can understand. Our Jim Acosta talked with your
senior strategist David Axelrod about this. In 1995 William Ayers held
kind of a get to know you event at his place where he was introducing
Barack Obama to the political culture there in Chicago when he was
running for the state senate for the first time. David Axelrod said
that at that meeting Senator Obama was not aware of Ayers’ radical
background. Is that true?
GIBBS: Look, if that’s what David said, that is true. look, again,
this is a relationship, excuse me, that Barack Obama has condemned the
actions of Bill Ayers. This is somebody that “”The New York Times”"
said Barack Obama’s not close to, and, again, John, this is a way of
distracting the American people from what’s important. just in this
more than’s paper John McCain’s campaign said if we talk about the
economy, we lose. That’s why we’re seeing the type of dishonorable,
dishonest, despicable smear campaign that you see right now with only
four weeks to go in this election.
Of course, voters have to make up their own mind as to whether
associating with domestic terrorists is just a “distraction” or an
indictment on the judgment of the candidate. However, both Axelrod and
Gibbs make it clear that judgment is applicable here. The Obamas had a
long association lasting several years with Ayers and Dohrn, serving on
two boards together and working for Ayers for several years at the
Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Does Axelrod now want to argue that Obama
never learned about Ayers’ radical politics and track record as a
Weather Underground terrorist? How clueless would Obama have to be to
miss that?
As this video shows — very, very clueless (via Public Secrets):
Ayers was hardly quiet about his life and his aspirations. He wrote
a book about it in 2001. Chicago Magazine did a lengthy profile of him
at the time, complete with pictures of Ayers standing on an American
flag thrown on the ground in an alley. Nevertheless, Obama continued to
work with Ayers at the Woods Fund and work together on public events.
Either Obama liked what Ayers did, or he’s the most clueless politician
to have ever reached the US Senate, and neither commends itself as a
recommendation for a presidential candidate.
Sarah Palin attracted considerable outrage from the media for
publicly pointing out Obama’s association with Ayers and Dohrn as
“palling around with terrorists”. However, she forced the media to
finally start covering it, as the CNN clips show, and to put Obama on
the defensive over it. As we see here, that defense looks terribly weak.