Thanks for this correction, James.  Ayres and Dohrn are way, way beyond the pale.  They ought to be outcasts and anathema.  I thank you for trying to set the record straight.

James, you write, "...I don't believe that this loathsome couple's history or their equally loathsome pride in it necessarily should reflect poorly on Obama. At best, he was totally naive about them. At worst, he knew who they were and what they represented, but didn't see anything wrong in associating with them."

Hold it, hold it, hold it.  This guy is running for President of the United States.  His visit to the home of these people, seeking political assistance, was not when he was 18, it was in the mid-90s.  

The incident raise a lot of legitimate questions about Obama's judgement along with his moral and political beliefs.  Absolutely legitimate matters for inquiry.

One way or the other, Obama's hanging in the home of unrepentant Weathermen is going to come up again.  Democratic Party voters may not care in sufficient numbers.  But, we'll see if many among the rest of the electorate do.

Really Chan? You vet every person you meet? That's highly doubtful.

bsdespain, Obama went to the home of a couple of very notorious people, former terrorists for Gods sake, to seek their political help.

They haven't been on the lam for thirty years and living under assumed names.  Their backgrounds are well know.  It doesn't make Obama a terrorists, obviously.  

But, it's good reason to question the judgement, as well as the moral and political attitudes, of a candidate for our highest office.

"notorious"? I had no idea who these "very notorious" people were and I bet Obama didn't either before he met them.  So you had heard of them before this huge todo? They were well known?

Chan - you have a strange perspectative on meeting people. It's simply not possible to vet every single meeting and every single person - just not possible. I had dinner at my socialist extremely left leaning professors house when he had some former 60 activists who were fairly radical. Does this mean I am socialist? Not at all, just that you cannot vet everyone you meet. Furthermore Obama had always reached out to people. Wow one dinner party with the wrong people and you are scarred for life.

bsdespain, these people are not obscure in the Chicago neighborhood in which they live or in the political world in which they manage still to operate.  They were bomb makers.  They caused bombs to be set up in public places which were meant to blow up and kill people.  Some of their cohorts accidentally blew themselves to eternity in a townhouse in Greenwich Village in New York.

they weren't merely Ayres and Dohrn were not merely 60s activists or anti war "movement" people or yippies and window breakers.  They were terrorists.  And this is known in that part of Chicago and in the academic world in which Obama was partly operating at the time.

He sought these people out because they unaccountably have political influence and he wanted it.  He chose to ignore their backgrounds.  

He didn't break the law.  But he demonstrated breathtaking lack of judgement and an opportunistic moral outlook.  

Will this alone cost him the nomination or the presidency?  No, but it will raise eyebrows of many.  And cause a few to start digging harder to see what other lapses of judgement this man may be guilty of.  We will see if such digging leads anywhere.

We are not going to get to the bottom of this until Obama goes on record about it.  That being said ChanRobt you jump to a lot of conclusions as to what was know or to what extent it was known when Obama visited this couples home.

But regardless here are some important question that has not been raised in the quite the right manner:

Has George W. Bush received any political donations from individuals who at any time advocated bombing abortion clinics or advocated killing abortion doctors?

Did he ever attended events  where such people were also in attendance or such people were the organizers of the event?

Has any of the current Republican leadership or former presidential candidates or current front runner received these donations?

Has the Republican party actively courted such people and or groups for political support?

If one single party 12 years ago and a $200 contribution is relevant when considering Obama then certainly my questions are worth a reporters scrutiny.

Also, please if we are going to question Obama's judgement in visiting this couple's house then please can we also question the first Clinton presidency for its judgment in providing pardons for Weathermen terrorists?

If the above issue is relevant to Obama then certainly my qeustions are worth a reporters scrutany.

Also, please if we are going to qeustion Obama's judgement in visiting this couple's house then please can we also qeustion the firt Clinton presidancy's judgemnt in providing pardons for Weathermen terrorists?

If this q

We are not going to get to the bottom of this until Obama goes on record about it.  That being said, ChanRobt you jump to a lot of conclusions as to what was know, or to what extent it was known, when Obama visited this couple's home.

But regardless here are some important questions that have not been raised in the quite the right manner:

Has George W. Bush received any political donations from individuals who at any time advocated bombing abortion clinics or advocated killing abortion doctors?

Did he ever attended events  where such people were also in attendance or such people were the organizers of the event?

Has any of the current Republican leadership or former presidential candidates or current front runner received these donations?

Has the Republican party actively courted such people and or groups for political support?

So if one single party 12 years ago and a $200 contribution is relevant when considering Obama, then certainly my questions are worth a reporters scrutiny, no?

Also, please if we are going to question Obama's judgement in visiting this couple's house then please can we also question the first Clinton presidency for its judgment in providing pardons for Weathermen terrorists?

The violent character of the Weather Underground was notorious to any sentient reader of the New York Times in the early 1980's.  In October 1981, members of the Weather Underground, together with members of the Black Liberation Army, staged a million-dollar armed robbery of a Brinks armored car in Nyack, New York, killing a Brinks guard and two policemen in the process (including a black police officer).  The robbery and murders and the resulting federal and state trials were front page news.  

In its earlier history, the Weather Underground also bombed the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, police stations in California, the New York City police headquarters, and a host of other public buildings.

The leadership role of Bernadine Dohrn was also notorious -- in organizing the violent "Days of Rage" in Chicago in autumn 1969, as well as the issuance of a "Declaration of a State of War" in 1970. She refused to testify about Weather activities after the Brinks events.  In their various interviews with the media, including a PBS News Hour interview aired on August 22, 1996,  neither she nor her Weather colleague Bill Ayers have ever expressed regret for the havoc and violence.  

Smells a lot like "Bill Clinton got his marching orders from the Kremlin on his visit to Moscow."

There can be hypothetical reasonings put forth for the best and worst scenarios of Obama's visit. I'm not sure what usefulness it has to play these guessing games here. I understand wanting to consider how political opponents might use this and what tactics could be used to preempt their use of it, such as finding nefarious connections that opponents made, if only to create a stand off. But really, arguing over what Obama knew? And what his motivations were for having any associations at all? Only he can know that. And perhaps someone he knew at the time talked to him about it. But the rest of us just have to wait and see what we can learn.

I do agree with James that it is important to remember the history. Especially given the lack of repentance. I lived in NYC when the Nyack robbery occurred. It was horrifying.

There is a very good documentary about them called 'The Weather Underground'.

Just for perspective, it seems the primary evidence of just how unrepentant Ayers is was an interview he gave in 2001, six years AFTER Obama was taken to their home and introduced to them by a political mentor. They clearly had been released from jail and were living productive lives at that point. If they were not repentant, there's no evidence that they were so vocally unrepentant at that time. If they were, I take it back, but all of the evidence presented so far is based on an interview he gave on 9-11, six years after the meeting.

I agree that Obama should say something about this. He'll have to at some point, so he should probably get ahead of it. But, if Democratic voters aren't going to make an issue of it, he's probably wise to wait until he has the nomination wrapped up (assuming present trends continue) and THEN address it before the Republican attack machine gets into full dudgeon about it.

You know, I'm wondering about all the tizzy about a visit with Bill Clinton without so much as a wimper from you folks PARDONED convicted terrorists...

To put this in a bit if perspective, most U.S. presidents, meet, dine, and parley with people more despicable than the pair in question. Mao Zedong, anyone?

Dan

Hat-tip to the much maligned James for a great post.

I agree with his take that this is nothing for Obama to be defensive about.  That said, could you imagine the conversation with B.O. alleged pro-Israel stance?

BD:  "We'll never have peace as long as the U.S. keeps enabling Israel's illegal occupation."

BA: "One person's terroist is another person's freedom fighter!"

BO: "I'm offended!  The Palestinians are to blame, they even teach their kids to be terrorists in the name of God, how sick!   Israel has every right to defend themselves and we must help them with billions of dollars in aid.  Until the Arabs recognize the Jewish state has a right to exist with secure borders, Israel will do whatever it takes to survive."

BD: "Have you tried the veggie spring rolls?"

Again:

Has George W. Bush received any political donations from individuals who at any time advocated bombing abortion clinics or advocated killing abortion doctors?

Did he ever attended events  where such people were also in attendance or such people were the organizers of the event?

Has any of the current Republican leadership or former presidential candidates or current front runner received these donations?

Has the Republican party actively courted such people and or groups for political support?

So if one single party 12 years ago and a $200 contribution is relevant when considering Obama, then certainly my questions are worth a reporters scrutiny, no?

If James really runs in the circles one assumes he does as a Peretz water-carrier, then he has almost certainly spent time in the company of people who were or are affiliated with the JDL. (I share an institutional affiliation with Peretz, and I know I've been seated at the same table with the odd JDL true believer.) So:

Has Kirchick publicly identified and denounced the once-or-formerly-JDL-affiliated persons he's come into contact with? I mean, if one is going to lecture others about moral standards for acquaintance-denouncing in the course of a public career ...

Also, the tone of Kirchick's post here -- even granting that one ought to agree with his conclusions about the Ayers and Dohrn being bad bad people -- suggests either that he knows nothing about how local politics actually works or that he does but assumes his readers are idiots. In local politics, house parties are the norm. A relatively small number of party and community activists, who also happen to own nice houses, tend to host numerous events. You choose your hosts based on their willingness to host gatherings and the neatness of their homes, not on the basis of an FBI background check. It would simply be absurd to expect a candidate for state senate to do due diligence on the hosts of someone else's house party to which he's been invited. That's just not how that level of politics works. You show up, you say your piece, you shake hands all around and smile, and that's that. To characterize attendance at such an event as an "affiliation" with the host is at least foolish, and more likely dishonest.

Kirchuck's post states, "At best, [Obama] was totally naive about them. At worst, he knew who they were..." I don't see how the facts support either conclusion. It's not at all clear who set up the meeting. The original Politico.com story says:

“I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,” said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. “[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor.”

It would be a perfectly normal inference that Palmer set up the meeting. In any case, the politico.com article clearly states that the main point of meeting was a kick-off by Palmer of her Congressional campaign, and that influential constituents other than Dohrn/Ayers (such as Dr. Young) were present. The introduction of Obama was a side-show.

This should be a non-issue among people who are seriously evaluating Obama's qualifications to be, and potential performance as U.S. President. It's on a par with the complaint by a Georgia Congressman on Bill Maher's show that Obama allegedly doesn't put his hand over his heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

BTW, the main point of the "fawning" interview with Rudd cited is the post is that "[t[oday, Rudd is unsparing in his critique of the organization he helped found."

Rhubs, sorry to pile on, but this struck a nerve:

"Also, the tone of Kirchick's post here -- even granting that one ought to agree with his conclusions about the Ayers and Dohrn being bad bad people -- suggests either that he knows nothing about how local politics actually works or that he does but assumes his readers are idiots. In local politics, house parties are the norm."

Alas, local politics is a real Obama failing.  In Illinois, it's not just Dem v. GOP, it's "The Combine" as it's called versus reformers. It totally crosses party lines -- Peter Fitzgerald had more in common with Paul Vallas than anyone in the state GOP -- governor, congressmen, you name it, he was despised.  Richard Daley all but admitted to voting for George W. Bush and joined with Dennis Hassert in fighting Fitzgerald's reforms, esp. Patrick Fitzgerald.

And Obama?  Utter complicity with the Chicago machine both before and after his election in 2004.  One election that was particularly heartbreaking was the very powerful cook county commissioner race in 2007.  Obama wouldn't support the challenger, he lost by less than 2%, mostly because of African-American support for the incumbant.  Oh, Bill Clinton -- he ran radio ads for the same incumbant!  

Even 3000 miles from Right Coast media, I clearly remember the activities of Dohrn, Ayers et al. and recall how they not only committed violent crimes in their attempts to circumvent the democratic process in the service of their mishmash of totalitarian belief systems, but that they also undermined the valid and solely needed efforts of the greater progressive movement, which realized many valuable objectives during the sixties and seventies but which lost political support, positive media attention, and many rank-and-file adherents (including, for a time, yours truly) when the WU and similar whackos usurped a sizeable chunk of "the Movement."  As far as I'm concerned, they know where they can stuff their dialectic.

Obama was foolish to associate with them or ignorant not to know who they were.  No biggee in my book; I forgive candidates being ignorant fools because, to some extent, they all are. Just as they're all, in some way, on the take, as McCain and Clinton have both reminded us on multiple occasions and, should we care to pay attention, Obama no doubt will, too. Meanwhile, as we play our Election Monopoly candidates around the board like the Top Hat, the Thimble, and the Wheelbarrow, we'd best remember that they're all holding a Get Out of Sanctimony-Laden Scandals Free card.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. I know I got 'em. Anybody who don't, well then, they don't get around much, I guess. Is that who you want to lock horns with the rest of the planet--not to mention FOX News? Would you trust a candidate who wasn't, to some extent, occasionally ignorant, foolish, and craven? I wouldn't--he or she comes in the room, I'll sit in a corner, near the door, my back to the wall.

I haven't read every thread so not sure if this point was made, but Obama is only 46. The weather underground is just some remnant from the barely learned hippy sixties. People of his generation have no first hand knowledge of them. He was a child living in Indonesia at the time, right? And he is supposed to be up on all the players? Until these postings came up I would have had no idea who these people are, nor would I have cared.

If the Republicans bring it up, he can truthfully say it was way before his time, that to the extent he heard of it he just thought it was some obscure hippy radical group, and he did not spend much time studying obscure hippy radical groups from the sixties, nor does he have any desire to now. And finally, he had no idea he was a terrorist, because presumably he would have imagined terrorists would have been behind bars or hiding out in cuba.

Essentially, get over it aging baby boomers, your history is not our history, so don't saddle us with your mistakes.

williamyard: I clearly remember the activities of Dohrn, Ayers.

My earliest political memories was being annoyed that the watergate hearing pre-empted my favorite cartoons. How can you say he was ignorant, he was a child, by nature they are meant to be ignorant of such things.

lymon, give it up with this Chicago politics line, Nobody cares outside of Chicago, way too inside baseball. Can you honestly imagine Arkansas politics is more pristine than Chicago. I think the only difference between the two is the thickness of the envelopes.

And this has always been so. Harry Truman was known as the Senator from Pendergast (a very corrupt Missouri pol.) because he was considered to be totally in his pocket, and Harry turned out fine, don't you think?

I'm with Blackton on this one. If you are under 40, you are at least as likely to identify the "Weather Underground" as a website that offers weather forecasts (www.wunderground.com) as with a 60s domestic (and incompetent) terrorist group. I'm 44, and I doubt most of my contemporaries know anything about the Weather Underground, and very few could actually name someone involved.

This and other related threads do bring up an interesting point. There is no doubt a segment of the populace who are looking for an excuse not to vote for Obama that doesn't relate to the fact that he's black. For someone who is uncomfortable with voting for a black man, an insignificant meeting with an aging radical, or having lived in a (gasp!) muslim country for a few years as a child, or a lack of a lapel pin or a hand over his heart, or a hyperbolic statement from his wife might be just the ticket. But I see no point in worrying about anyone whose vote would be affected by such things -- they were almost certainly going to vote the other way no matter what.

Man I've been dying for this to come out, it's the only question I personally would've asked Obama.

Before overdoing the self-flagellation on who was or wasn't in the same room in Chicago for 90 minutes with a couple of clapped-out ultraleft extremists from 35 years ago, we should remember the Republican Party -- the people whose "political" campaign against Max Cleland in Georgia, for example, a war veteran who had given three of his four limbs in the service of his country, consisted of suggesting that he was a cowardly anti-American appeaser in league with Bin Laden.

As JEFFREY says, I think it is very unlikely that a significant number of the people who would would actually vote for Obama in November are going to change their minds as a result of this story.

I visited Ayers/Dohrn home in 1996 for a fundraiser they held, not because I was in support of their views in the 1960's and 1970's, but because I was curious about them.  I don't consider that visit to reflect who I am as a person anymore than I believe it is reflective of who Obama is as a person--certainly there is no reason to believe that he is sympathetic to their views of 35 years ago,  or even sympathetic to their views now, whatever they are.  I personally don't want a president who has lived in a bubble of political correctness, and I find it hard to believe anyone reading The New Republic does, either.

blackton -- I agree, I made that point too in another thread.  In Chicago they became "re-famous" in 2001 after an interview that was even worse than the NY Times piece (in the Chicago Tribune -- the two joked about their terrorist past).  If he had visited them after that, I'd find it relevant.  

As a sixties leftover I don't think Ayers/Dohrn were as bad in spreading subversion and terror as LBJ, Nixon, Kissinger, the Chicago Police Dept, and the Justice Dept. or even me who was in the Army at the time.                                                                                                

Although I'm not happy to see revelations of a past association between Barack Obama and Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers in the New Republic, I suppose it's better to face them now rather than when they emerge in attack pieces by desperate Republicans in October.  Unfortunately, the Dohrn/Ayers quotes in the current set of articles and comments are not as bad as it gets.  You can find worse in a half hour of trolling on the Internet.

A more important issue is what his limited association with members of the Sixties Weather Underground says about Obama.  Well really, not very much.  Like all aspiring politicians, he began his career by developing contacts with influential people around him.  Dohrn and Ayers were among them, not because of their terrorist activities but due to their involvement decades later in Hyde Park community politics.

If Obama becomes the Democratic candidate for president, this early revelation can be useful in deciding how to respond to the expected attacks.  Snide comments on Obama’s middle name haven’t worked and plenty of distortions and dirty tricks can be expected.

johnpeters, that Obama's neighbors chose to overlook the sordid terrorist past of the does not excuse his choosing to seek their help.  If he is as brilliant and knowledgeable and of the high moral calibre he is held out to be, he ought to have avoided such people assiduously.

It is possible Obama did not know of their backgrounds.  If not, it would seem he was the least aware and observant person in that part of Chicago.

well, it's nice to know we have have some Republicans on this board--it will help to see what the Republicans think will stick or not.

I imagine some will be reporting back to the RNC, "uh, nope, this one ain't gonna fly...on TNR, nobody's getting disturbed".

I can't decide which criticism of Obama is the more silly - the plagiarism charge or this attempt to make him out to be soft-on-terrorism.  James just likes to beat up old lefties - that's all this post is about.  Move along folks.

Neil

Considering that they dug out a really old photo of John Kerry with Jane Fonda, it makes sense for Obama to make some kind of statement about this meeting and be done with it.  If there's one thing we should have learned from the 2004 election, it's that everything that's thrown at you needs to be addressed pronto, before it takes on a life of its own.  I don't know why Obama chose to associate with these two, and doubtless the man doesn't support the methods by which they (ineptly) tried to change the face of American society back in the day.  That being said, they are clearly reprehensible people, and he has an obligation to address this issue, and move on.

lesserliz, you raise an interesting point. Kissinger encouraged and facilitated the overthrow of a democratic regime by a murderous fascist (in Chile). He's not considered toxic.

I'm more interested in how Obama handles q's on this than in the meeting itself. If he says, Hey, I f***ed up, wouldn't do it over again", np.

If he gets defensive or testy and complains that he's being persecuted or otherwise plays a victim card, OTOH...