Silly Season: Ayers, Obama, Hyde Park, and The University of Chicago: examining Republican code words

Silly Season: Ayers, Obama, and Hyde Park
Of the many ludicrous political discussions of the last six months, the most ludicrous may well be the discussion of the alleged association between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground.

Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, have lived in the Hyde Park area in Chicago. So has Barack Obama. (So have I.) If you lived in Hyde Park for (say) a decade, there was a good chance that you'd run across Ayers, and maybe even be at a social occasion with him. And if you were a social person, or someone who was running for political office, you would meet a lot of people, and it's pretty likely that you would run across Ayers, or be at some social occasion with him.

Ayers is one of numerous people, in the Chicago area, whom Barack Obama has run across. Obama has much closer relationships with numerous conservatives on the University of Chicago faculty, many of whom have given money to Obama's campaign, and many of whom have talked to him at length and been at social occasions with him.

I know for a fact that Obama has actually played basketball with Richard Epstein, a libertarian on the law school faculty who has written some pretty controversial things on property rights and government regulation. I also know that Obama has had a number of conversations with former law school dean Daniel Fischel, a Reagan Republican who has written some pretty controversial things on corporations and government regulation.

True, Ayers apparently had a small party for Obama back in 1995; true, Ayers gave some small sum of money to one of Obama's campaigns; and true, Ayers and Obama simultaneously served, for a time, on a board of a local organization, the Woods Fund, which helps disadvantaged children. But there was nothing even vaguely like a close relationship between them; and it would be easy to identify countless people, since 1995, with whom Obama has had much closer associations.

Of course many legitimate questions can be raised about any candidate for public office. But it is a gross understatement to say that the alleged Ayers-Obama association is not one of them.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/open_university/archive/2008/04/17/silly-seaso...
John McCain's campaign released a list of 100 former ambassadors endorsing the GOP presidential nominee.

Second on the list, though her name is misspelled, is Leonore Annenberg, currently the president and chairman of the Annenberg Foundation and widow of ambassador and philanthropist Walter Annenberg. Ms. Annenberg was herself the "chief of protocol" at the State Department under President Reagan.

If the last name sounds familiar, it's because it also graces the name of the Chicago education board where Barack Obama and William Ayers sat in the room six times together.

In recent days, the McCain-Palin ticket (and particularly Palin) has faulted Obama for having served on that board with Ayers, who was a founding member of the radical 60's Weather Underground group when Obama was in grade school.

Since then, however, Ayers has been rehabilitated in Chicago society, carving out a niche in education circles. As a former Republican representative in Illinois told NPR on Monday, smearing Obama for his board association with Ayers is "nonsensical."

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier ... It's ridiculous," Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said. "There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/mccains-trumpets-endorsem_n_132954.html
The gutter politics of the McCain campaign is reaching down once again to denounce Obama for his distant past links to Bill Ayers in an unprecedented guilt-by-association attack for a presidential campaign. Sarah Palin declared, "This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." Hannity's America featured more of these absurd lies about Obama and Ayers in Hannity's infomercial for idiocy, including an amazing interview with legendary anti-Semitic crackpot Andy Martin:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-k-wilson/30-lies-refuted-about-aye_b_13210...

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Pat
• Buchanan
• Sarah
• Palin
• racist
• rally
• speech
• crowd
• shouts
• kill
• him
• john
• Mccain
• race
• card
• William
• bill
• Ayers
• Barack
• Hussein
• Obama
• terrorist
• fox
• news
• Sean
• hannity
• Hyde
• park
• fundraiser
• education
• board
• University
• of
• Chicago

[craziness123]

wow u really make me sad to live in this country, where people like you still exist

[madisonelectronic]

Thank you Lord for Nov. 2010. I guess that is another progressive "victory".

[max298]

Yeah William Ayers an unrepentant terrorist.Also the man thah launched Obama's political career.Gee no connection,sure!Obama is a radical Marxist in any color.And by the way he won't release his birth cirtificate(if there is one)because it shows him the color of his mom.He is white.There goes his street cred! idiot!!!!

[dontanner232]

AC911 is one lonely dude ... " Fox news and the evil corps.making evil oil money and 9/11 and nazis and them and .... " Did ewe ever consider getting a job at MSNBC ? Your Perfect !!!

[HeadNtheClouds]

What is the point of the 'annotation bubble' coming out of the rabbi's mouth? What is the point , what are you trying to say here?

[Americaisgreat123]

I uhh hate it when uh people uhhh like you know use filler words to uhhh communicate. "AntiConformist911" sounds as stupid as Obama.

Most people outside of Chicago do not know where Hyde Park is.

If only McCain had done to Reverend Wright what he did to William Ayers....That political coward. It is what republicans get for nominating another moderate maverick loser....

I love this 9/11 conspiracy theorist. He's an "anti-conformist" yet he supports massive government intrusion (fascism).

[shacoby21]

hahaaha thats why obama won. It's the Economy stupid

[ARTIST791]

don't move alone take all the last eight year of non muslim trash with you ..thanks for right decision

[kego33]

Im moving to japan. Obama is a muslam and is going to bring in terrorist.

A man of muslam descent in his 40's will lead us and bring about the end of the world. someplace in the bible.

Obama sucks