Monday, October 06, 2008

National Review: Obama-Ayers' "Substantial and Lengthy Working Relationship"

There is nothing “sporadic” about Barack Obama delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of many years to fund Bill Ayers’ radical education projects, not to mention many millions more to benefit Ayers’ radical education allies. We are talking about a substantial and lengthy working relationship here, one that does not depend on the quality of personal friendship or number of hours spent in the same room together (although the article greatly underestimates that as well).

http://bsimmons.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/the-media-discovers-the-obama-ayers-relationship/

The Media Discovers the Obama-Ayers Relationship

The [1] New York Times looks at the relationship between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. It concludes that Obama may have downplayed his relationship with Ayers, but believes the relationship between the two was not close.

A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

[2] Stanley Kurtz, a National Review writer who has extensively researched Barack Obama’s working relationship with Ayers in connection with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational foundation based in Chicago, vehemently disagrees.


There is nothing “sporadic” about Barack Obama delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of many years to fund Bill Ayers’ radical education projects, not to mention many millions more to benefit Ayers’ radical education allies. We are talking about a substantial and lengthy working relationship here, one that does not depend on the quality of personal friendship or number of hours spent in the same room together (although the article greatly underestimates that as well).

Shane’s article buys the spin on Ayers’ supposed rehabilitation offered by the Obama campaign and Ayers’ supporters in Chicago. In this view, whatever Ayers did in the 1960’s has somehow been redeemed by Ayers’ later turn to education work. As the Times quotes Mayor Daley saying, “People make mistakes. You judge a person by his whole life.” The trouble with this is that Ayers doesn’t view his terrorism as a mistake. How can he be forgiven when he’s not repentant? Nor does Ayers see his education work as a repudiation of his early radicalism. On the contrary, Ayers sees his education work as carrying on his radicalism in a new guise.

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