7 March, 2008 | Leave a Comment
“He’s not an attractive character for a president to hang out with.”
– Fox News Channel on Barack Obama’s friendship with Bill Ayers
There have been some rumblings in the press recently regarding Barack Obama’s association with Bill Ayers. Mr. Ayers is influential in left-wing Chicago political circles, particularly in Hyde Park, which Obama represented in the Illinois State Senate. (Apparently, Obama used to be a lot more “left-wing” than he is now. Ahem.) Nowadays Bill Ayers is a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, but in the 1960s he was a prominent member of the Weather Underground, a left-wing radical group that was by any definition a terrorist organization. From Wikipedia: “[The Weathermen] carried out one of the first domestic terror campaigns in the United States, including bombings, jailbreaks and riots.” Ayers participated in bombings of the Pentagon and the Capitol.
Media reports of Obama’s connection to Ayers are interesting to me because when I did my MFA in creative writing at Bennington College, Bill Ayers was a student there as well. He was in the non-fiction program and I did fiction, but I had a few conversations with him. He was always very nice to me. Given my level of naivety back then, I had no idea he was a notorious figure. Once I found out (from my older classmates), I was quite shocked. He really didn’t look like the type (not that I have experience with such types). He was a little dude with an earring. An ex-hippie? Sure. An ex-terrorist? Um, no.
Ayers reportedly once said about the Weathermen’s mission: “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.” He spent much of the 1970s on the run from the law. His wife, Bernardine Dohrn, was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and J. Edgar Hoover referred to her as “the most dangerous woman in America.” Once, a bomb he and other members were building with the intention to blow up army officers at Fort Dix went off accidentally in their Greenwich Village townhouse, killing three of the bombmakers (including Ayers’s girlfriend at the time). Ayers is completely unrepentant regarding his actions with the Weather Underground. In 2001 he told the New York Times: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”
[Perhaps I should worry that my brief association with Ayers could also damage my future presidential ambitions? Oh dear.]
Ayers wrote a memoir called Fugitive Days about his involvement with the Weather Underground; I borrowed the book from a friend and will read it soon as research for my novel. I am exploring what makes a person decide to take violent action in support of their political aims. Perhaps I could email Ayers a few questions, but I imagine right now he’s pretty busy dodging reporters from Fox News Channel. Fox is (not surprisingly) quite interested in his connection to Obama, though it hasn’t become a big media story — yet. According to an article on Politico, Obama’s connection to Ayers is “virtually certain to be a subject Republican operatives will warm to if Obama is the Democratic nominee.”
Given that I’m not a fan of Obama, would I be happy if his association with one of my former grad-school classmates helped to bring him down? Well, if a politician with grand ambitions is stupid enough to become friends with a man who has openly bragged about bombing the Pentagon, he really has no one but himself to blame.
Other links:
YouTube: Fox News: Weatherman Bill Ayers was Obama’s “Mentor”
Commentary Magazine: Obama’s Ayers
WaPo: Scratching Obama’s Teflon
Anglofille said @ 2:25 pm | news & politics |
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Gadfleye Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 5:31 pmYep, you nailed Obama Anglofille. That’s one thing we’ll never have to worry about with the Clintons - their relationships with unsavory characters.
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I never said the Clintons didn’t have unsavory friends, but isn’t Obama supposed to be a change from all this? Isn’t this what Obamamania is all about?
He’s *different*, right?Oops, guess not. A slum lord, a terrorist…yes, Obama is a breath of fresh air in Washington.
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Gadfleye Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 8:15 pmThis is the argument that your post and follow-up comment imply:
One should not vote for candidates who associate with unsavory people.
Both Clinton and Obama associate with unsavory people.
Clinton’s unsavory associates are less unsavory than Obama’s unsavory associates.
Therefore, vote for Clinton.
The issue that I raise is that all politicians have (a) skeleton(s) in the closet. Surely you can give us a better reason to vote for Hillary then an ad hominem attack (linked to Fox News no less) against Obama.
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Gadfleye, that actually wasn’t the point of my post. The point was:
a) First, to share that I studied with Bill Ayers, a man who may cause trouble for Obama down the line. It was surprising to me to see that someone I knew in grad school is now being linked to Obama in this way;
b) To argue that if Obama’s connection with Bill Ayers causes him trouble with the press and in the election, he has no one to blame but himself.
Given her long history in Washington, I’m sure Hillary knows people who would make Bill Ayers look like a choir boy. I’m not a naive idiot. I’m just glad that the golden boy Obama is finally being exposed for what he is — a politician who will associate with whomever he has to in order to get ahead and obtain the power he craves. He’s no different than Hillary or any other politician and I’m sick of people pretending otherwise.
p.s. Why don’t you ever email me anymore? You just send these snotty anti-Hillary comments. *sigh*
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Gregory Says:
March 8th, 2008 at 5:19 amI went to school with dozens of ‘terrorists’, some became famous, some got killed, some went to America, or whatever.
We all said things like that in Paris, Berlin, or I seem to think we did, I can’t really remember to be perfectly honest.
I’ve always tended to frown upon rich kids playing with bombs myself, if only because they’re not very good at it.
The white working classes are a lot better and usually have a few genuine issues allied to the mechanics of being a dynamiteur.
If a gizmo goes off prematurely, and scatters your friends all over the place and you just scrape off the blood and body parts, one is probably a real terrorist.
That’s what it takes, it doesn’t take a message that works, it is akin to a cult, it is enough to have the strength of will and charisma to go forward and hold to a task.
It doesn’t really matter how belittling that objective may be to the human condition.
The idea of stopping whilst comrades are in prison, is difficult to accept, if the thing was worth the candle to begin with, that should be unacceptable.
On the other hand, there was always something psychiatric about rich kids playing with bombs.
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Gregory Says:
March 9th, 2008 at 12:43 amBeware of falling helicopter sign. ‘Terrorism’ with a sense of Irish humor.
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/mccormick/photos/no1337.htm#photo
It was technically (just) possible to calibrate a propane cylinder (stuffed with explosives) tossed from a larger decapitated propane tube, set on rubber tires for recol,
to hit a military helicopter, if the rig was on the back of a truck, which adds a bit more recoil compensation to the scheme.
One just needed to have a rough idea when it was arriving or leaving.
Mostly they were hit with anti-aircraft guns out in the sticks.
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Alice Rea Says:
April 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pmSend this info to all news media.
Americans need to know who they are voting for.
Thanks. -
Craiger Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 4:38 amIt’s interesting to see that Rick Ayers is as big a moron as his useless brother Bill. it is so disturbing that either of these pieces of sh– are allowed to teach our children and no doubt do their damnedest to turn them into the same kind of America hating communist scum that they are. How and why do we let this happen? I’ll tel you how - we elect people like Barack Obama. Obama was first introduced to the public at a Democrat coming out party held at terrorist Bill Ayers house in Hyde Park /Chicago. Sure you don’t believe in Ayers communist philosophy — sure you don’t, Barack
Congratulations to Hillary for outing all of these scumbags
