I think the question for conservatives is not, did Obama share Ayers' views, or even were they close friends, but why did Obama not "reject and repudiate" Ayers? My general feeling about Obama is that he's a "go along, get along" kind of guy, in that unless there's something concrete to be gained by criticizing someone (i.e. an opponent in a political race, someone standing in the way of a reform -- though even then, the preferred approach seems to be reconciliation), he doesn't see any reason to speak out and repudiate certain people.

I suppose I'm a hypocrite for writing on this "issue" after cricitizing the shallowness of the current campaign coverage. Admittedly, I have a weakness for 60s history so consider the Ayers brouhaha my political guilty pleasure. But it is admittedly a very silly topic for discussion.

My question is why Ayers is a tenured professor in the first place. It would certainly be shocking to me if I learned that someone involved in the Oklahoma City bombing had a tenured position somewhere. Is there a double standard in favor of left wing terrorists at universities?

If it were the Ayres/Dohrn connection in isolation, it wouldn't be an issue for Obama.  But the accretion of these connections/comments over time should be troubling to any Democrat serious about winning the White House.  A pattern of questionable personal associations and cultural attitudes is emerging that will be easily exploitable by Republicans this fall.  When the GOP slime machine is done with Obama, Dukakis will look tough and resolute by comparison.  Obama is banking on the hope that his candidacy can transcend politics-as-usual.  I think that's just one more example of his arrogance.  

The problem is we know nothing about Obama. He is nobody. He is just words. Therefore every new bit of info is important.

Let me ask you a question.

As a  community organizer did this Harvard graduate  distinguish himself in any way?

Did his work  have any lasting effect? He claims that the last 25 years of American life were unmitigated disaster  and he is last greatest hope to save this country He can do it because of his unique abilities to produce miracles. Can you point to any such miracle?

Yes, the outlines of the GOP attack are visible:  Wright+Ayers+"bitter"+Michelle's comment about not being proud of the US until now+flag lapel pin +others yet unknown.

And that's just on the BS stuff.  There will be fertile ground on substance as well.

How silly. Oh, yes, it's a big "larf," as we sophisticated academics say. Ha ha. Obama's association with this or that point-of-view, this pastor, that violent radical, this social philosophy, that political philosophy all of it means nothing ... nothing. He's seemingly mired in an endless Freshman survey course and can't seem to decide what his major's going to be. It's difficult to locate something or even anything about Obama, this "world person" who is like a political Hovercraft whooshing over the landscape powered by focus groups and the new Democratic power base, the moneyed Latte liberals, that latter day social engineers, the "Elite" Christopher Lasch so brilliantly described way back when. So, of course, Ayres/Dohrn, the Reverend Wright, one a foaming at the mouth American and white-hater (and anti-Semite)  and the other, radicals who not only advocated murder but committed it, who would be automatic disqualifier at any other time, is only some particles of the mist that surrounds Obama. Or is it an aura. Or a halo. It really doesn't matter. He's Harvard and a talisman who can turn the voting booth into a confessional where all out sins with be absolved.

I guess Obama should have had a non-negotioable condition to his community organizing and civil rights work on the South Side:  only contact with fully vetted foreign policy moderates! By theway I checked the current board of the Woods Fund and Ayers is still there along with representatives of such radical origanizations as BP North America and UBS.  

RappRods:

"It's difficult to locate something or even anything about Obama, this "world person" who is like a political Hovercraft whooshing over the landscape powered by focus groups and the new Democratic power base, the moneyed Latte liberals, that latter day social engineers, the "Elite" Christopher Lasch so brilliantly described way back when."

Exceptionally well said!  Bravo.

Unfortunately: Bullshit.

Ahem: are the majority of Dems "latte liberals"?  Because he is winning.  Are the overwhleming majority of black voters latte liberals?  Or are they just too dumb hen being told by the new power brokers to vote for whom they want?  

You know, the fellow does have two books out, one standard (albeit well-written) political stuff; the other a searingly brilliant look at race, memory and identity in America.  Niether by itself qualifies him for President; but combined they make any comments about him being a void or misty absurd.  If you don't know anything about the man, it is your fault, not his.

sure butchie, let Republicans run on flag lapel pins while people are spending $4 a gallon for gas, way to connect with the average voter. I am sure the voters will go into the booths in November saying "sure, things are going to hell, but I can't vote for someone who knew people who have nothing whatsoever to do with my own life, no, I better continue the failing policies of the past since that guy who is selling it is so nice and white."

They are called paragraphs, learn to use them. And question marks look like this: ? and they follow questions. I also got a headache after the third run on sentence. Please tell me English is your second language. Honestly, I have no idea if I agree with you or not since it seems to be the rantings of a schizophrenic mind.

Might I suggest a grammar book?

boneill, you actually read that? Whenever I see one long screed like that, without paragraph breaks, I skip over it. This is why I seldom read or comment on the main articles since they don't allow for paragraphs.

I'd like to present a counterpoint to the notion that Obama's appeal is all down to empty words and charisma.  I don't watch television, as a matter of failed habit (or perhaps as a result of a feeling of visceral disdain for the solipsist absurdity that modern television has become), and have taken avail of fewer than 5 opportunities to hear him or hear see him speak (and that's counting YouTube).  So personal charm and charisma are non-issues for me, and I have no association with focus groups, the democratic power base, or hovercraft (though I would accept a donation of one for personal use if anyone has an unused spare floating around).

My support for him is based on the fact that it's plainly obvious, to me at least, that the man is brilliant.  He is well informed, he thinks deeply about issues, and he is a true progressive in the sense of being a person who is coming up with new and creative ideas about how to make things better, for this country and for the world, and he is a brilliant writer (and a brilliant speaker as well, or so I've heard... : ).

A lot of people seem to have come to certain conclusions about Obama, on the basis of this fact alone:  A particular MSM newscaster who's either too stupid or too lazy to understand the difference between primary source and hearsay, asked some state senator from Texas, if he knew what Obama's legislative record was, and the man drew a blank.

Which proves nothing about Obama, and proves nothing about the state senator other than that he was not any better informed than some of the people posting to this blog.

Ahem...

But in fact,  he's sponsored, co-sponsored, or written, a lot of legislation in his short time in the Senate, almost any single piece of which is more interesting and important, than the grand sum of Hillary's accomplishments for her entire term thus far.

RAPProds said:

> It's difficult to locate something or even anything about Obama

I'm really not sure what to say to this except perhaps, have you tried looking?

Admittedly you do have to look, because even TNR appears to be addicted to gossip journalism, and succumbs repeatedly to the temptation to cover this election as though it were a sporting event.  (Or even worse, succumbs to the temptation to try and impress us with who's got the biggest and shiniest set of crystal balls).

Worst case scenario be your own investigative reporter and go straight to primary source, the library of congress register, as this blog suggests... :

www.dailykos.com/.../458633

RappRods -- please don't use Christopher Lasch to bolster your  reactionary arguments.  Lasch was often critical of liberals but he was a socialist turned 19th century Populist for God's sake!  Something tells me your not his kin...

It's probably not worth commenting on that RappRods's tirade, but I really hate seeing things that are simply outright falsehoods.  Ayers and Dohrn, despicable as their tactics may have been, never murdered anybody.  The only people killed as a result of the Weathermen's activities were three members of the group that died in an accidental explosion in Greenwich.  Unless RappRods is positing a conspiracy within a conspiracy, with Ayers and Dohrn plotting against their fellow Weathermen, they never murdered anybody.

According to CharlesKaneFoster we each and everyone of us henceforth had best say o anyone we run across on any occasion, social, political or otherwise  with whose opinions we are not in total agreement:  " I just want you to know and to understand, I hereby now and forever more reject and repudiate you."

Of course since we won't be able to prove it at some future date, we should also put it into writing.  Better still we should have it witnessed and notarized just like we do our wills and our health care power of attorneys.  Now that will stop them!

Need I say?  We've all gone quite certifiably NUTS.  It's no longer the Silly Season.  It is the Bonkers Season.

RAPPRODS... tell me do you have a shred of Curiosity?

Wright curiously enough happens to have one of the largest congregations on the South Side, having grown it from 100 to 8,000.  So what you may say.  Numbers don't change the facts.  True enough.  But it also has the broadest and most successful ministries which help the people on the South Side.  So what... Hitler made the trains run on time...Hate White people?  Where did you get that?  Some 20 second sound bite?  One of his parishioners is a very prominent WHITE lawyer married to a Black woman, thanks to Wright  who called her in when she broke her engagement because he was White and she was an up and coming Black leader in the Black community and told her look we can't have that.  That's racism.

I am Jewish and don't like Wright's association with Farrakhan or his Israel bashing any more than most of my co-religionists... but do go and hear the speeches in more than a 15 second sound bite.  They sound very different indeed.  You can find them on YouTube... they are the longer segments.  I'll let you do the research for yourself.

For goodness sakes... don't let your mind be taken over by someone else.  Don't accept what they want you to believe.  That is known as brain washing.  You may reach the same conclusions, but do inform yourself before you do.

Wright is bar none one of the most masterful ministers of the cloth I have heard and extremely well regarded in the United Churches of Christ, vouched for by no lessser an authority than Clinton's own pastor.

So, as is so often the case, the truth is not, pardon the double entendre, simply Black or White.

If the Democrats, the Left, and the University of Chicago were not so morally obtuse, then Bill Ayers would be pariah.  

He would not be on the faculty of the University with tenure.  His support would be sought by no Democratic politician.  They would run as fast as they can away from him.  Not have fund raisers in his home and accept his support.

That Bill Ayers is not shunned as the terrorist he was and is and gloated about as recently as 11 September 2001, is as much testimony to the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party as one needs.  Not that there is not far more evidence.

Obama ought to have repudiated Ayers in no uncertain terms.  His campaign ought not have said that Obama and Ayers "were friendly".  It ought to have said that Obama regrets that he ever had the least association with the man.

We all know, Cass, that if Ayers had been a former Nazi or David Duke, he would be anathema.  No tenure, no parties, no taking funds from him.

How is a man who tried to kill and maim with bombs, and whose cadres succeeded in same, tolerated for one moment?

You are all reprehensible in your tolerance of such a lowlife.

Pertaining to Lasch, again, it should be noted that Lasch's penultimate book was "The True and Only Heaven:  Progress and its critics."  Republicans, of course, assailed the book because it took aim at one of their most cherished ideals: modern (finance) capitalism.  Liberals didn't like it either.

ChanRobt is so passionate about exposing the truth about this story that he can't even get it straight where Ayers teaches: not the University of Chicago, but the University of Illinois's Chicago branch, commonly  known as UIC.  A state university, in other words -- serving almost exclusively in-state students (96%), with an average full-time faculty salary of $77K.  (Granted, since Ayres is a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar, he must earn more than the average.) (See www.stateuniversity.com/.../University_of_Illinois_at_Chicago.html).  He's spent the last thirty years doing good things for disadvantaged people -- children! -- for not a huge amount of money.  (Would people be happier if he'd become a hedge fund manager or something?)  So no, he shouldn't be shunned and ostracized -- THAT would be the morally obtuse response.  This is America, remember?  The land of second chances?

Hey Channy, I thought you were a Christian. Or are you a cafeteria Christian, the kind that changes Christ's words to say, "Money is the root of all goodness." or "the rich shall inherit the earth" or "hate thy neighbor?"

I wonder could we ever get away from this insane cycle of repudiation, pariah-making, and claiming that because candidate X came into contact in perfectly normal circumstances with Y, that Y's purported crimes (for which he was never convicted) have something to to with X's political campaign -- especially when the key period was when X was a child?

There's an implication going on here that it's the fact that Ayers never served any time for WU activities that bothers people -- he didn't pay for his offenses.  What bothers me, however, is this sneaky feeling I have that, if Ayers had been tried for an actual crime and gone to jail, the same people who are attacking Ayers for not having "repented" or not being "rehabilitated" would still be haranguing Obama for knowing "a convicted criminal."

In fact, even if Ayers had publicly repented or some such bs, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't stop the New Swift Boaters from trying to smear Obama.

AlanSp:  Although this is a complete non-issue for me, the fact that during the commission of a felony Ayers caused the deaths of individuals, regardless of who they were, he committed murder. That's the law.  Should this matter to BO being elected president?  no.  Will it get coverage in the general election by 527's? yes.  Hopefully, the American electorate can see past this, but then again GWB was releceted in 2004, so I have my doubts.

Richard Epstein plays basketball?!?  Sunstein buried the lede.

"Although this is a complete non-issue for me, the fact that during the commission of a felony Ayers caused the deaths of individuals, regardless of who they were, he committed murder. That's the law."

Sorry, but that's you.  The law has not convicted Ayers of anything.  People are convicted of murder on the preponderance of the evidence, not on the casual opinions of one individual or another posting on a discussion board.

You may personally believe Ayers to be guilty of murder or manslaughter or whatever, but that's of no legal consequence.

Here may be one futility with discussing whether Ayers should be a non-issue--not that that discussion is not worthwhile--reality is it is going to be a general election issue for all the "clingers" and others regardless of what high minded people think.  Hillary, whose candidacy is pretty well doomed, is rightfully making that argument to the supers for all the lack of good  that that is doing.  I suspect Obama is setting up his counter-to-it  talking points as we speak (like the last one in his bad last debate concerning Hillary being tainted by Bill's pardoning of terrorists.)

True enough, Irony, but it simply can't play well for the Chosen One if an unrepentent Bill Ayers is tied to him.

Mr. Ayers, by his own admission, intended to kill innocent Americans at Ft. Dix, NJ.  He is unrepentent to this day, and is only sorry taht he could carry out his heinous mission.  I've never run for anything, but if I knew that such a man was hosting a fund-raiser for me, well, I would not allow it.  You and others hereabouts may think the issue unworthy of discussion, but our slime machine will convince many voters otherwise.

A man who consorts with terrorists or a decorated former POW?  The ads write themselves.

come on butchie, don't you know that you go to church with a guy who spent time in jail? how could you? or that you knew about your friends cheating on his girlfriend, but you did nothing about it? Shame on you. Just don't ever run for anything.

Keep dreaming about this narrative, I hope the Republicans write it because they will get whipped doing it. When people start paying $4 a gallon and McCain pitches lame ideas like a temporary gas tax cut (which will go into the pockets of the oil companies, since it in no ways effects supply and demand) which is both pandering and counterproductive (where are the highway revenues going to come from then? more tolls?) All of McCains decorations isn't going to put food on my families table or lower the cost of gas. His decorations help, but are not that important, see Bush vs. McCain 2000 (coke snorting naerdowell son of former Pres. vs. superpatriot)

I have said it before, McCain will run this fall as a DEINO (Democrat except in name only) albeit a conservative one. He in not going to get involved with a cultural flamewar, not with the economic situation as it is. He is going to sound like a white Obama come this fall, just watch.

You are 33 years old.  You have an interest in politics.  You've got no money at all; in fact you're in debt up to your very large ears.  You have no connections.  You are not the spouse of an ex-President or a governor.  You are entirely self made.  A guy who committed despicable acts 30 years ago but long has been accepted into the community along with his wife and kids, and who seems more than pleasant, contributes $200 to your state senate campaign and gets others together who are prominent in the community so you can meet them.

Be serious.  How many of you would tell this person you don't want his stinking money or his stinking connections?  None.  It's easy from the perch of our laptops to condemn this, but truly it is absurd.  

And Obama did not appoint this guy to the Woods Foundation.  Some third party appointed them separately.  Do you spit on him?  Do you avoid eye contact?  I mean come on.  I am not a lefty; I hate the romanticization of shallow and violent 60's radicals, but I also know that not every personal contact in my life has to be a weighty political judgment.  Sometimes I cannot help but like or even love a right wing nut, and sometimes I personally despise at a deep level a liberal with views almost identical to mine.  Life is complicated, which is what makes it interesting.

Obama obviously is open to meeting a wide variety of people, and he is confident enough in own values that he does not fear associating with people who might not reflect well on him.  There is a word for people like Obama -- likable.  And there is a word for those people we all knew in high school who did fear associating with people solely because others might not think the association would be advantageous:  Clintonian.  Mondalean.  TracyFlickian.

A smart politician makes minor use of a loathsome, but spayed, radical.  Yes, if there were some justice, Ayers and his wife would be working the night-shift in a road-side 7-11, but the world has survived their academic career and has, let's be honest, passed them by for the most part.  They gave Obama a small contribution and threw a small cocktail party in their continuing effort to pretend they matter.  He was smart enough not to spit in their faces.  Any more than Bush and Cheney spat in the face of defense contractors, multi-national corporations, or their oil-business buddies.  In fact, they gave them tax breaks and defense contracts.  Which has caused more trouble in the larger scheme of things?

I think this piece on the Hyde Park social scene should at least provide some context.  (Did I just type "Hyde Park social scene"?)

ChanRobert... Ayers does not have tenure at the University of Chicago.  He is a tenured professor not of English, as Obama said on the ABC debate... show you just how well he knows Ayers ... but at the University of Illinois.

Look I have no brief for what Dohrn and Ayers did as Weather Underground People.  In fact in many ways I think it was self absorbed, spoiled rich kids acting at "revolution" all part of the self absorbed '60s.  BUT, they both have led exemplary lives since resurfacing in the late 70's or 80's... I forget which.  And you Chan are usually refreshingly clear headed and open minded about these things.

Ayers as a Professor of Education and as a member of the Woods Foundation Board (of which Obama was a member until the mid 90's and on which Ayers still sits along with the likes of top officers of UBS and BP.  The foundation gives grants, many of them to worthy education projects.

Dohrn heads up a Child Law Clinic affiliated with Northwestern University Law School.  They have raised two children and adopted one of Cathy Boudine (sp>) another Weather person who I believe is still doing time.  All three children are a credit to them.

It is hard to imagine a more dedicated 'expiation" for their youthful sins.  

By the way Ayers' father was the CEO of Commonwealth Edison and hence very prominent in Chicago.  The very establishment law firm of Sidley & Austin gave Dohrn a job as a paralegal when she emerged from underground and supported her futile attempts to be admitted to the NY and Illinois (i believe but no longer recall that with any accuracy).  They did so because of corporate connections.  Commonwealth Edison was a firm client.  So are all the partners of Sidley & Austin equally culpable or are we only going to hold Obama to that standard?

There is something so utterly daft about all of this, I'm not even sure how to get my head around it.  Are we looking at every other candidate's "connections" in the same way or only Obama's?

The lack of proportion in all of this boggles the mind.  Did you who are so outraged by this read today's NYTimes article on the continuation of the selling of the war by pimping former military brass as supposed "objective" analysts to the cable news and mainstream media.  And we are talking about Obama letting Ayers throw a fund raiser for him, give him $200 and agreeing to serve on a board that Ayers served on?  Who even knows if Obama knew that Ayers was a former Weather Underground person.  After all he was only 8 years old at the time.  It is not as if everyone goes around pointing at Ayers and says:  There goes that former terrorist."

What's even the point of my dismay?  The disproportionality of this discussion.  It is pointless.  Just pointless.  We may as well let the military Industriall complex that Eisenhower warned us all of take over and be done with it.  If even the pages of TNR are filled with this type of echo chamber there really is no hope is there for the sanity of the rest of the country.  Our poor country.  Doers no one stop to consider that Obama, whatever his strengths or weaknesses might be, is obviously decent, intelligent and a man of known integrity,  is putting his life on the line (Yes his life... and therefore the future of his wife and his two children ... remember Bobby Kennedy?  Remember MLK?  Remember JFK?  Remember Lincoln?)... merely to serve his country at a time of need and this is done to him... this McCarthyite garbage...  No wonder Clin Powell's wife refused to countenance his running for the office.    I wonder if sometimes Obama and Michelle wonder if they really needed this despite the amazing fashion this campaign has gone.  Truly, I despair.  Please a bit more light and a bit less heat.

Jacob you say: "He claims that the last 25 years of American life were unmitigated disaster  and he is last greatest hope to save this country He can do it because of his unique abilities to produce miracles. Can you point to any such miracle?"

Where in the world do you get the information that Obama made any such claims?  He does say that America hasn't done too well under the Bush presidency.  Do you dispute that contention?

Where in the world do you get the notion that he is the "last greatest hope to save this country?"  It is true that he wants to change the way things are done, mainly not from the top down, but from the bottom up and in a sense he is showing how by the way he is running his campaign. Good for him that he has the drawing power of a rock star.  It is a curious phenomenon particularly considering that he is a law professor at heart and in reality (in fact that was his problem in the ABC "debate") in fact had he been a good trial lawyer or a more jaded politician, he might have handled it just fine instead of being amazed.

He doesn't claim any unique abilities to produce any miracles, other than getting people involved in trying to take their government back from the corporate interests.

I hate to inform you but he is not running for the messiah and it is not his fault that you have a long historic memory and for some bizarre reason seem to be conflating him with Zbatai Tzviv , the false Polish Jewish messiah who led his gullible followers East  into the Ottoman Empire and when given the choice between death or apostasy, chose the latter, leading his followers into the Muslim religion.  But hey, Jacob, that's your problem, not Obama's.  But you ought to be aware of where you are coming from because it does explain your hyperbolic dislike, in part.  But the things you are attributing to Obama, he has never attributed to himself.

Oh how I do wish we could all be a touch more rational for starters.  Albeit no less emotionally intelligent.  But all this bizarre projection of one kind or another so gets in the way of any clarity.

There is an unstated assumption in these arguments that William Ayers has committed immoral acts by bombing US targets.  I beg to disagree.

I first assume that Pastor Bonhoeffer’s question: “What should a good German do to oppose Hitler’s unmitigated evil when Hitler is supported by a majority of German’s?” is pertinent to the moral argument, as is Thoreau’s “Majority of One” argument.  Then:

1. All the major religious organizations and most philosophical systems hold the “just war” principle: that war must be justified.

2.  The War against Vietnam was an unjust, unmitigated evil supported by a majority.

     Proof: Ex-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s book, “In Retrospect”, 1995, in which he finally concedes that the war was “wrong, terribly wrong”.  He was the architect of the war.  He managed the war for seven years under both President Kennedy and President Johnson.  He knew everything that can be known about that war and he found it to be unjust.  Three million Vietnamese were unjustly murdered - a semi-holocaust - by the acts of several US Presidents with the support of a majority of its citizens and by all of its taxpayers.

3.  Normal, prudent men are emotionally driven to action when subjected to the cries of innocent children and the smell of their burning flesh when they are bombed with napalm by John McCain and his cohorts.  It may be argued that Ayers did not really hear the cries and smell the burning flesh, but this is a subjective argument.  Individuals vary in sensitivity.  Can we really blame him for being endowed by Nature with exceptional senses?

4.  Moral individuals are required by Kant’s imperative to act in such a manner that, if everyone acted in that manner, the result would lead to Good rather than to Evil.

If only one million US citizens had bombed important domestic targets during the war, it is probable and certainly possible that millions of Vietnamese lives could have been saved.  Certainly, many of John McCain’s burn victims may have survived.  One can only do one’s best.  Ayers may not have done his best, but can we blame him for trying?

On the basis of the above arguments, I find William Ayers to be of excellent moral character and approve of all individuals who engage in normal discourse with him.

Yes, I am a combat veteran.  (See pages.cthome.net/.../WorldWarII.html)

Mr. sunsetin, Obama did not just wheel a cart around the same supermarket as the Ayers couple, both admitted and proud terrorists.

He sought out their political support.  Consented to a fundraiser in their home, and serves on a board with him.

That is closer than many Americans want to see the president being to a Weatherman.

I know that blowing up cops and young Army recruits at a Fort Dix dance would not be considered a crime by many in academia.  But we Yahoos without an education think it's an unseemly pursuit.

Annabella2, thanks for the correction.  I did see in googling Ayers that I had made a mistake.  Certainly the University of Chicago does not deserve to be libeled for any connection to Ayers.

I note that the mistake continues to be made in the media at regular intervals.

Oh, and yes, Annabella, I had come to learn that Ayers' father was a prominent corporate establishment type.

Which makes it all the more a scandal  Ayers ought to have served time, and certainly never have been allowed to teach in any university.  His father and cronies are to be condemned as well.

akb1, I appreciate the correction, although I did discover my mistake on my own and have not repeated it.

Frankly, it is even worse that Ayers is receiving a salary paid for by Illinois taxpayers.  this is so totally beyond the pale that it is fantastic so many of you defend his teaching in a university.  And teaching teachers, for God's sake.

We still have not recovered from the moral turpitude of the 60s.

blackie, the answer is, I am a cultural Christian.  Not a very observant one.  But, the general rule is that you earn redemption through repentance.

Ayers is not the least bit contrite.  He brags about his crimes and is only sorry that he wasn't able have more successfully committed terrorist acts and murder.

Did you know that Profumo, in the wake of what was only a sex scandal not terrorism, essentially served penance for the rest of his life, working in humble jobs for charities and hospitals in the London slums.

After about thirty years of this, he was honored and died a respected man.  Much more repentance paid for a scandal, not a crime.

Annabella2, I would have no trouble agreeing with virtually all of what you say in terms of allowing a man to make good on his life.  Except that opposite of repenting his crimes, Ayers brags about them.  How can that be tolerable?  How do you let light in on that?

And, I agree, Obama is to be praised for the rigors and the dangers, certainly, that he is subjecting himself to.  But every president and every candidate faces those dangers.  

Even the unoffending Gerald Ford was shot at twice.  Reagan was shot and nearly died.  And look at all the hate abroad against George Bush.

Still, I doubt that anyone seeks the presidency only to serve his fellow man.  There is something called ambition and the desire for power.  It is not totally selfless.  The adoration and applause of immense crowds has been described as a nearly sexual rush.

Atrooper4, you make an excellent argument against the Veitnam War.

You make an excellent argument for citizens to take action against unjust wars waged by their country.

You do not make a good argument for indiscriminate terrorism, along with out and out criminal activity, which is what the Weathermen did or conspired to do.

Ayers' confederates were convicted of an armored robbery of a Brinks truck in which a guard was killed.  What complicity did that guard have in the war?

Ayers conspired to set off a bomb at a dance for recruits and civilians at Fort Dix.  These were just kids, most of whom were draftees.  What guilt did they have in the Vietnam War?  Not to mention the girls who attended the dance?

Yes, the Weathermen were young fools and zealots, besotted with their own sense of morality.  You can argue that their cause (to end the war) was just.  You can't argue that their means were.  

Some of their number are still in prison.  Ayers, as a co-conspirator probably deserves to be in prison with them.  As an unrepentant terrorist, he certainly doesn't deserve forgiveness he has not asked for.  Nor a prestigious job the salary of which is paid for by taxpayers.

If liberals, Leftists, and academics of Hyde Park think Ayers is fit company, that's there business, and there is no law against it.

If one of those Leftists or liberals also wants to be president of the United States, he has no constitutional right to that office-- he has to win it.  And the voters are entitled to judge that he either has poor judgement, he is frighteningly naive, or perhaps he sympathizes with Ayers, and his former activities.

The question has not been fully answered.  It is a wholly legitimate question.

AlanSP, you are wrong. Weathermen at the very least murdered a Brinks guard.  And are serving prison time for it.

They clearly conspired to commit terrorists acts.  Weathermen were in the midst of acting on that conspiracy when they blew themselves up and an expensive townhouse with it in Manhattan.  

It is only luck that they killed no one in the adjoining houses.

Conspiracy to commit murder or terrorism is a crime.  Men are on trial for same in England as we speak.

It amuses me that Liberals who punish people on campus for "hate speech" do not see why a professor ought to be punished for hate action.  

And hate speech against the country, which he gladly repeated to the New York Times, and most inauspiciously was quoted 11 September 2001.

How can it be "silly" for people to be concerned that Sen. Obama enjoys a friendly relationship with  terrorists? Ayers and Dohrn placed bombs at the Pentagon, and with the Weathermen bombed the U.S. Capitol, the State Department,banks, police stations and courthouses. Ayers is unapologetic about it, and launched Obama's political career at his home in 1995. This is hardly the same as shooting hoops with someone with whom you might have political differences. Obama and Ayers have not only served on committees, but have spoken on panels on such issues as juvenile justice. Obama must have known who Ayers is and cannot possibly forget their close associations. Yet it is silly for the electorate to be worried about this regarding a newly minted candidate on the verge of making a powerful run for the White House? Knowing what we presume Obama has known about Ayers and Dohrn, isn't a bit creepy that Obama has refused to explicitly state his complete rejection of Ayers?

Chan... Other than Atrooper4 posting here with an argument that gives one pause, until one realizes that the US during the Vietnam War was not Nazi Germany and that many were able to show their disapproval in a fashion that forced Johnson to conclude he could not run again on his record of prosecuting that war... without much good in the immediate term I might add in light of the '68 convention and Nixon's election and continuation of the war for some time...no one would suggest that the way Ayers went about things was commendable...And Bonhoffer, I did not think the answer to his opposition was setting bombs...or was it?  Was he part of the July bomb attack in Hitler's headquarters?

BUT what I don't buy is your laying that condemnation at Obama's feet.  It is not exactly as if people who are as much younger than Ayers as Obama is, almost a generation, necessarily knew who Ayers was in his "past" life.  It's not exactly as if Ayers or Dohrn walk around with signs on their foreheads (shades of the Cultural Revolution) that say:  "I was a former Weatherman/woman."  I would venture to say that most people who are as as young as Obama might not have had any idea about their past.  They present themselves as a perfectly normal couple, living a perfectly normal life... both professors in reputable institutions, both highly regarded (however you might find that deplorable, but it is a reality) in the greater Chicago community and in their respective professional domains.  There you have it.  That is the reality.  Should it be according to your moral lights?  Perhaps not.  But it is.  And to blame Obama for "associating" with formerleft wing "terrorists" based on the fairly minimal contact he had with them...sitting on a board on which other respectable civic and corporate leaders sit and accepting an invitation to a "neighborhood" fundraiser and accepting a $200 contribution while running for the Illinois Senate... does seem to put Obama to a test that strikes me for one as a stretch and half.  

It also implies an odd sort of double standard ... do you require such purity of Clinton say?  The list of her contributors have contained some doozies, including agents of foreign powers, which is downright illegal.  What was that guy's name?  Huang?

And McCain, for all that he strikes one as an honorable man, has siddled up to a fairly unsavory character in Hagge, knowing full well of the unsavoriness... OK no bomb making...

What in your mind ChanRobert should Ayers and Dohrn done to have made "restitution"?  How should they have lived their lives?  Like Profumo?  is that the only way?  Somehow the tone of your position on this  strikes me as "over the top.."mind, like you I too found Ayers' statement in his memoirs deplorable.  But if one really believed that war to have been evil and unjustifiable... then what?

Annabella2, first of all, let's make it clear, I don't support Hillary Clinton for president.  She, too has far too multitudinous collection of bad connections.

You speak of Obama as if he is 28, not 48 and a Harvard Law grad.  We are to believe he lived in Chicago and Hyde Park all these years and didn't have a clue about the Ayers couple and their background?  

They are notorious to most, and apparently somewhat laudable in Hyde Park.  But, I doubt that they are as obscure locally as you make out.

In any event, when the campaign was questioned, they said Obama was "friendly" with the couple.  One would have hoped that upon learning of their atrocious history he would have said he had in his ignorance been friendly with them.  But, on learning who they were he is appalled and regretful.

His campaign did not say that.  Apparently, he is neither appalled nor regretful.  Or, he was never ignorant of their background and never bothered by it.

Which puts him at one with the Democratic establishment of Chicago (Daly et al) and with a some portion of academia that gave Ayers a job on the public payroll in a university where he currently indoctrinates teachers to be in his excerable philosophy.

Which is why I have a large distaste for many elements in the modern Democratic party and in contemporary academia.  They constantly defend the indefensible.

As to what the Ayers couple ought to have done with their lives.  Well, yes, the Profumo example is a good one.  They ought to have spent their lives in prison, but that didn't happen.  

They ought not have been given teaching jobs in any American university.  But since it was given, of course they took it.

The entire Ayers affair is more of an indictment of Democrats and of Academia than of the Ayers themselves.  Because, you're right, we can't expect criminals to punish themselves.

Look Chan... I find what Ayers and Dohrn did as reprehensible as you do... there are alternative modes of showing one's opposition in this country, happily, even if not always as effectively as one would wish.  I find it particularly reprehensible because it always struck me as too rich kids being self indulgent in the worst ways.

And I too was surprised that they were not prosecuted.  I do not know the reason... perhaps the evidence for their involvement was insufficient although one would have thought conspiracy theories would have reached... maybe it was a statute of liminations which had run.  I simply don't know.

They got their start at rehabilitation not by the Liberals or Academics but by the corporate world and legal establishment because of who Papa Ayers was...I don't know how the Ayers appointment at UIC came about but the Dohrn appointment at Northwestern was greased by 2 trustees who were lawyers for Commonwealth Edison, headed by Tom Ayers, Bill's father.

By the time Obama served on the same board with Ayers in the mid 90s, folks from UBS and BP and lots of others who have nothing to do with either the Democratic Party or Academia were on the board also.

I'm not clear when Ayers had a fund raiser and gave Obama $200 but let's say it was 1992 which I think was the first time he ran for public office.  By then both were respected academics and respected members of the greater Chicago community, not just their respective academic communities... Dohrn was an active presence in the American Bar Association.  And a quarter of a century had passed... If you are going to blame Obama for his connection, I can't tell you how many other people in Chicago and indeed nationally will therefore be considered equally culpable in your eye.  Because a great many, if they were honest, would have to say that they too were "friendly" with one or the other either in their respective professional or domiciliary communities.

I truly understand where you are coming from and I share some of your distaste. But I guess what bothers me is that we don't know how much Obama knew or felt about the two... "friendly" can cover an awful lot or an awful little when one lives in the same neighborhood with someone and Hyde Park particularly is very much like a small town in those respects... people don't necessarily socialize, but they do "know" each other.  Many have lived here for years.  They do run into each other at the grocery store and in the parks and they do attend fund raisers for local politicians in each other's houses... their children attended the same schools and sometimes they have known each other for a quarter or half a century.  

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the connection of people at least as conservative as you are Chan... have the very same type of "friendly" connection with Ayers and Dohrn as Obama had.  The kind of guilt by association that this bespeaks makes me for one exceedingly uncomfortable.  And because I find I often agree with you on many things,  I find your adamant stance on this issue perplexing.

Ayers had the misfortune of publishing a book of memoirs just around 9/11.  I have never read it.  I do recall it being said...he was sorry they hadn't done enough [to stop the war]... I am not sure if he said had not bombed enough or whether that is the conclusion people reached.  It certainly was tasteless to say the least...in light of their past, silence would in all events have been the more prudent course... but there always is something so self promoting about that type of radical, is there not?  Nonetheless, I come back to the fact that the way they have lived their lives is exemplary... so... well... I suppose we have run this argument ragged and are just repeating ourselves.

"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.

For some reason, I found this ironic.

Annabella2, as I have read it, the Ayers couple were not prosecuted because of improprieties on the part of the FBI in investigating them.  Because of this, the evidence obtained improperly was thrown out.  Just like on Law and Order.

So, in the old days you would say, they escaped long prison terms on a technicality.

I fully accept your account that daddy's money and influence had a lot to do with they Ayers' rehabilitation.  I'm glad to condemn the monied elements responsible as well as the Left.

We live in an age where the entire concept of guilt, shame, or making value judgements about evil acts seems to have gone by the board.  The Left has most openly promulgated the destruction of this concept of morality.  But, if monied interests are complicit in this amorality, you won't find me defending them.  

Whether corporate interests are necessarily the Right, is another discussion.  But, I have condemned here many times corporatism for being more guilty of tolerating illegal immigration and destroying our borders even than the Left.  Because multi-nationals are often a-patriotic.  they have no country.  They just like very cheap labor, the true cost of which is born by ordinary taxpayers and the middle class in destroyed school systems, destroyed hospitals and emergency rooms.

but going back to the Ayers couple, whoever in Chicago was content to accept them and be in their presence and hire them for the public payroll, etc, is in that regard, unworthy.  But, none of those people are running for president of the United States.

Obama is running for president of the United States.  That puts his judgement and morality in question for that office.  

I would be very surprised if John McCain would ever have gone to people like Ayers for political support, attended fundraisers for his campaign in their home, or been on "friendly" terms with such people.  That is why I can more easily trust a McCain than an Obama.  Even though I much disagree with McCain on the illegal immigrant question.