Bless her, I agree absolutely. Go out on a street anywhere and ask someone what they think of the Weather Underground and they are likely to ask you to name one of the songs. That Obama was expected to know who Ayers was back in 95 when he was a political nobody is absurd. When he did find out much later, he condemned him and his actions. Up until last year I had no idea who he was and if he lived in my neighborhood would have been as gracious as I would have been to him as any other person. I don't vet my neighbors nor do I expect politicians to vet everyone of their constituents, especially when the infamy extends back into the comparative dark ages, ie the 60's and the hippy wars. Most people under the age of 50 find the aging baby boomers obsessiveness amusing and a little sad.

McCain is trapped in that period and, of course, this line of attack came from him and his cranky old crew.

Palin is a nitwit so I can't hold her stupidity against her. Palin being one heartbeat away is starting to be less scary than McCain being that heartbeat. He has thoroughly and utterly disgraced himself in this campaign. To think I once considered voting for him.

"This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America," says La Palin.

But with whom is she herself palling around? Her husband joined a political party that loves America so much it advocates secession from the union and formation of a separate nation. She spoke at their convention, and as governor congratulated the party for its "good work".

As a member of the Alaska Independence Party, Todd Palin is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America.

www.nytimes.com/.../04party.html

The folks in Hyde Park, the Upper West Side, Cambridge and San Francisco would feel very much in tune with each other.  Most Americans wouldn't.  The folks in Alaska are also  "different" from most of the rest of us too, albeit in a different way (re-read McPhee's book "Coming Into The Country").  My guess is that Montanans and West Texans  would be more their cup of tea than folks  in New Jersey or Missouri.   If pals are relevant, decide whose pals you like best.  Where is Elmer Fudd now that we need him?

peretz...

call me cautious but I am not totally convinced that this latest smear will fall flat. I still remember

Willie Horton, Gore's sighs, etc.

I do agree that the juju of the race has turned decidedly to Obama's favor and if the election were held today, I am confident that Obama would win.

I hope...make that really hope...that with issues like the nearly collapsing economy (are we just a few weeks away from the credit card collapse?), two wars, and tents going up in major cities a la Hoovervilles, that voters will not be swayed by such transparent gutter tactics, but as Tony says in West Side Story, who knows?

If credit cards collapse it won't make any difference whether we have an election or not - and the Chinese will be in charge next month.

"That Obama was expected to know who Ayers was back in 95 when he was a political nobody is absurd."

Oh please, Blackton, vote for Obama if you must but this is a pathetic and lame defense of the guys frienship with the erstwhile terrorist. If it were just Ayers one could let it go, but there is also his 20 years association with the Reverend Wright.

At what point does one question people's judgements instead of making excuses for them? But to say it doesn't matter because he was a "political nobody" doesn't cut much ice with me.

By your logic I could be friends with say  Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower Sniper.

and still run for high office because I was only 2 when he killed all those people. Give me a break.

jemerk said:  "If credit cards collapse it won't make any difference whether we have an election or not - and the Chinese will be in charge next month."

Exaclty.

Anyone read Friedman's column in the dreaded NY TImes today?

October 5, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

"Swedish Spoken Here "

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

www.nytimes.com/.../05friedman.html

Here is someone else who wants to shut Palin up:

"Sandra Bernhard on Palin: ‘You Whore in Your F***** …Cheap-A** Plastic Glasses’"

www.breitbart.tv

Any thoughts about this, Marty?

JD:  "At what point does one question people's judgements instead of making excuses for them?"

I'd say McCain is the one facing that question at the moment, more than Obama.  Obama's judgment is looking good at right now.

In any case, it's a little unclear why Obama shouldn't have engaged in perfectly legal and perfectly unobjectionable committee work in Chicago with a number of qualified and engaged people, including Ayers, an activity that (a) had valid social and educational goals that Obama approved of, and (b) does not in any way suggest support for Ayers' own violent politics of 35 years ago.

I'm getting really sick of this crap about Obama having had some responsibility to shun working for a legitimate purpose with someone who committed whatever crimes he's supposed to have committed (that he was never even indicted for, as far as I know) back in 19 fucking 70.  Do McCain and Palin have no other arguments left?

"I'd say McCain is the one facing that question at the moment, more than Obama.  Obama's judgment is looking good at right now."

His judgment, or that of this handlers?

The only Obama judgment I know is the one he made before he became a serious candidate and turned himself over to his campaign managers and advisors.

"In any case, it's a little unclear why Obama shouldn't have engaged in perfectly legal and perfectly unobjectionable committee work in Chicago with a number of qualified and engaged people, including Ayers, an activity that (a) had valid social and educational goals that Obama approved of, and (b) does not in any way suggest support for Ayers' own violent politics of 35 years ago."

This is nuts, Irony.

You make him sound like a reformer gone wrong:

Here is some of his history from wikipedia

"The group Ayers headed in Detroit, Michigan became one of the earliest gatherings of what became the Weatherman. Between the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the June 1969 SDS convention, Ayers became a prominent leader of the group, which arose as a result of a schism in SDS.[6]

"During that time his infatuation with street fighting grew and he developed a language of confrontational militancy that became more and more extreme over the year [1969]", former Weatherman member Cathy Wilkerson (who characterizes the Weathermen's activity as "craziness") wrote in 2001. Ayers had previously become a roommate of Terry Robbins, a fellow militant who was two years younger and "came to idolize him", Wilkerson wrote. Robbins would later be killed while making a bomb.[9]

In June 1969, the Weatherman took control of the SDS at its national convention, where Ayers was elected "Education Secretary".[6]

Later in 1969, Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot.[10] The blast broke almost 100 windows and blew pieces of the statue onto the nearby Kennedy Expressway.[11] (The statue was rebuilt and unveiled on May 4, 1970, and blown up again by other Weathermen on October 6, 1970.[12][11] Rebuilding it yet again, the city posted a 24-hour police guard to prevent another blast.[11]) Ayers participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago in October 1969, and in December was at the "War Council" meeting in Flint, Michigan.

Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant in the Weatherman group from the fall of 1969 to the spring of 1970, thought that Ayers, along with Bernardine Dohrn, were probably the two most authoritative people within the organization."

The rest of your post is not to the point either.

Jackson -- you know it's strange, but I don't see Obama's name anywhere in the paragraph about how he bombed a statue. Maybe it's because Obama was eight years old and in fact not even in the United States at the time.

You keep seeing nuttiness everywhere except at home, JD.  As Mayor Daley said, you can't just go back into the past and pounce on one segment, you have to take the whole life into account.  As far as I know -- and nobody's produced an iota of evidence to dispute this -- Ayers has been a hard-working researcher and author, a responsible teacher, and a law-abiding activist in social and educational issues for a couple of decades or longer.  He has never been convicted (or even indicted?) or any crime, and he served on a mayoral advisory group, and Chicago is not known as a particularly left-of-center city in terms of Democratic politics.  That was the person that Obama cooperated with, along with others.

I find my getting sick to the back teeth of this crap very much to the point, JD, and I've zero interest in refighting the 1960s, when I was a young kid in any case.  I'd like to make that understood, and what some FBI stooge said in 1969 to earn his fee is irrelevant in 2008 as far as I'm concerned.

rozenson said:  "Jackson -- you know it's strange, but I don't see Obama's name anywhere in the paragraph about how he bombed a statue. Maybe it's because Obama was eight years old and in fact not even in the United States at the time."

So it's ok for him so associate with terrorists who committed their dastardly acts long time ago, right?

Thanks for sharing.

"you have to take the whole life into account.  As far as I know -- and nobody's produced an iota of evidence to dispute this -- Ayers has been a hard-working researcher and author, a responsible teacher, and a law-abiding activist in social and educational issues for a couple of decades or longer."

This too is part of his life, make of it what you will:

"Statements made in 2001

Chicago Magazine reported that "just before the September 11th attacks," Richard Elrod, a city lawyer injured in the Weathermen's Chicago "Days of Rage," received an apology from Ayers and Dohrn for their part in the violence. "[T]hey were remorseful," Elrod says. "They said, 'We're sorry that things turned out this way.'" [1]

In the months before Ayers' memoir was published on September 10, 2001, the author gave numerous interviews with newspaper and magazine writers in which he defended his overall history of radical words and actions. Some of the resulting articles were written just before the September 11 terrorist attacks and appeared immediately after, including one often-noted article in The New York Times, and another in the Chicago Tribune. Numerous observations were made in the media comparing the statements Ayers was making about his own past just as a dramatic new terrorist incident shocked the public.

Much of the controversy about Ayers during the decade since the year 2000 stems from an interview he gave to the New York Times on the occasion of the memoir's publication.[19] The reporter quoted him as saying "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all again" as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility."[15] Ayers has not denied the quotes, but he protested the interviewer's characterizations in a Letter to the Editor published September 15, 2001: "This is not a question of being misunderstood or 'taken out of context', but of deliberate distortion."[20] In the ensuing years, Ayers has repeatedly avowed that when he said he had "no regrets" and that "we didn't do enough" he was speaking only in reference to his efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War, efforts which he has described as ". . . inadequate [as] the war dragged on for a decade."[21] Ayers has maintained that the two statements were not intended to imply a wish they had set more bombs.[21][22] The interviewer also quoted some of Ayers' own criticism of Weatherman in the foreword to the memoir, whereby Ayers reacts to having watched Emile de Antonio's 1976 documentary film about Weatherman, Underground: "[Ayers] was 'embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.' "[15]"

From wiikipedia

OK, I'm convinced. Bill Ayers should not be elected to any national office. Now is there a convincing reason that everyone who lives on his street is disqualified? Or that everyone who has ever dealt with him is disqualified?

On a separate note, jacksondyer's last quote from Wikipedia does make me curious about how the 9/11 attacks did or did not affect Ayers' view of his own past. The wikipedia piece does not really deal with that. Does anyone know if there is something solid in writing about this?

Wait.  What's this about Track joining the National Guard to avoid jail for drugs.  Haven't heard that one before.

As far as the second para of the Wikipedia quote goes, Ayers does seem to have shown a certain willingness to look long and hard at his own past -- I don't think I particularly like Ayers (in as much as minor personal impressions are of any iimportance) but he doesn't seem to be a fraud, he doesn't pretend he was brainwashed, and perhaps there are some qualities discernible that make him a good teacher and a commited social activist/reformer.

In any case, Obama's relationship, such as it was, was not with the violent militant but with the foundation board member.

JEFF FREY said:  "OK, I'm convinced. Bill Ayers should not be elected to any national office. Now is there a convincing reason that everyone who lives on his street is disqualified? Or that everyone who has ever dealt with him is disqualified?"

Cute, Jeff. Obama did more than just live on his street.

In any case, I know most people here will vote for him. I may or may not vote for McCain. I still haven't decided on that. I do know that I will not vote for Obama.

As to you second question, I don't have any first hand knowledge about it and I am not interested in posting gossip. Ayers crimes in the 60's are bad enough.

Sarah Palin may not know as much about the world, but at least most of what she knows is true.In the popular media wisdom, Sarah Palin is the neophyte who knows nothing about foreign policy while Joe Biden is the savvy diplomatic pro. Then what are we to make of Mr. Biden's fantastic debate voyage last week when he made factual claims that would have got Mrs. Palin mocked from New York to Los Angeles?

Start with Lebanon, where Mr. Biden asserted that "When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it.' Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."

The U.S. never kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, and no one else has either. Perhaps Mr. Biden meant to say Syria, except that the U.S. also didn't do that. The Lebanese ousted Syria's military in 2005. As for NATO, Messrs. Biden and Obama may have proposed sending alliance troops in, but if they did that was also a fantasy. The U.S. has had all it can handle trying to convince NATO countries to deploy to Afghanistan.

Speaking of which, Mr. Biden also averred that "Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan." In trying to correct him, Mrs. Palin mispronounced the general's name -- saying "General McClellan" instead of General David McKiernan. But Mr. Biden's claim was the bigger error, because General McKiernan said that while "Afghanistan is not Iraq," he also said a "sustained commitment" to counterinsurgency would be required. That is consistent with Mr. McCain's point that the "surge principles" of Iraq could work in Afghanistan.

Then there's the Senator's astonishing claim that Mr. Obama "did not say he'd sit down with Ahmadinejad" without preconditions. Yet Mr. Biden himself criticized Mr. Obama on this point in 2007 at the National Press Club: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected President? Absolutely, positively no."

Or how about his rewriting of Bosnia history to assert that John McCain didn't support President Clinton in the 1990s. "My recommendations on Bosnia, I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives. And initially John McCain opposed it along with a lot of other people. But the end result was it worked." Mr. Biden's immodesty aside, Mr. McCain supported Mr. Clinton on Bosnia, as did Bob Dole even as he was running against him for President in 1996 -- in contrast to the way Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders have tried to undermine President Bush on Iraq.

Closer to home, the Delaware blarney stone also invited Americans to join him at "Katie's restaurant" in Wilmington to witness middle-class struggles. Just one problem: Katie's closed in the 1980s. The mistake is more than a memory lapse because it exposes how phony is Mr. Biden's attempt to pose for this campaign as Lunchbucket Joe.

We think the word "lie" is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won't say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.

online.wsj.com/.../SB122325448093406451.html

"It would have far more factual validity for Obama, or a surrogate, to publicize the fact that Track, the kid who joined the Army, did so because a judge told him it was that or jail due to his dealing drugs."

I have a strong hunch, however, the Obama people don't want to talk about Obama dealing drugs."

Jacksonsyer, I'm not interested in gossip on the topic either, but if someone has a link to solid information (something he wrote or said publicly), I'd be interested in seeing it.

I know Obama did more than live on the same street, but it wasn't a close association, and "palling around with terrorists" is a gross distortion. "Palin was sleeping with a secessionist" is actually true, but about equally irrelevant.

Marty.

You are f-king idiot, an embarrassment to Jews.

I remember your hateful unforgiving comments a few months ago about Hillary Clinton summer internship in a lefty law firm  when he was 22.

Obama effect on supposedly reasonable people is devastating. People are losing their mind, sense of decency, professionalism, ability to think

is it over yet?

JEFF FREY said:

"palling around with terrorists" is a gross distortion"

So what?

As Lenin is said to have said: “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” And as this lie passes into truth, the Democrats are ready to deploy it “as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain’s national security credentials against him,” reports David Paul Kuhn of the Politico.

Hence: A Howard Dean fundraising letter charging McCain with seeking “an endless war in Iraq.” And a Democratic National Committee press release in which Dean asserts: “McCain’s strategy is a war without end. . . . Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq.”

It’s a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage ‘endless war’ based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea.

The Democrats are undeterred. “It’s seldom you get such a clean shot,” a senior Obama adviser told the Politico. It’s seldom that you see such a dirty lie.

article.nationalreview.com

jacob, f off you racist and anti-semitic troll. How dare you mention Marty's judaism as though all jews must act and think alike. I have never heard anyone say, you are an embarrassment to Dutch, or English, or Chinese. You are a sick demented little troll and I have called you out more than once but you are frankly a coward. You are a racist, anti-semitic little piece of shit.

Yay, guilt by association.

Lame, lame, lame.

I never thought I would be defending marty peretz but how DARE jacob bring his anti semitic hate into the conversation? Why? Simply because peretz supports a different candidate than you? Why, you are a disgusting troll and I sure wish this election would finish up so we won't have to endure your increasingly unhinged, hate filled rants. Everyday it gets worse...

blackie is right on...you are a sick individual who, in a just world, would pay the consequences for such a despicable act...

I don't mind Marty supporting Obama. I don't want him to support Israel. He is an embarrassment to any cause he supports.

Election's over, folks. Focus on the future now.

"blackton said:  "jacob, f off you racist and anti-semitic troll. How dare you mention Marty's judaism as though all jews must act and think alike."

True, but one couldn't call what jacob1 does, thinking. He just recycles cliches he picks up on right wing websites.

teplukhin2you said:  "Election's over, folks. Focus on the future now."

Really?   Who won?

Jacobt says:

"I don't mind Marty supporting Obama. I don't want him to support Israel. He is an embarrassment to any cause he supports. "

I can easily think of a few supporters of Israel who might be called "embarrassing". I don't mind the embarrassment as long as: 1. the support is steadfast and genuine 2. the supporter is not a Nazi.

Embarrassing politics are a matter of fashion. For many on the Left, usually the Rabid Rancid Rococo Left, who believe themselves on the cutting edge of political fashion, Zionism is an embarrassing position to support. Marty Peretz is doing a fine, more than a fine,  job holding a mirror to their moral illiteracy. I want him on Israel's side.  

Obama is not a menace to Israel's future. Ahmadinejad is. Obama has re-considered some of his positions about Israel, a result I attribute to his journey away from the circles of the likes of Said and Khalidi and to a closer proximity with Zionist Jews and maybe an Israeli or two.

Surely this discussion about Sarah Palin can evolve without dragging Israel into it. What's israel got to do with Palin, anyway? And why is any discussion of election issues nearly always seems to be frought with an undercurrent of anti-Jewish resentment, whether it's the Obamists or Mccainists who opine? Why can't an American Jew support Obama out of longstanding loyalty of the Democratic party? Why can't another American Jew support McCain because he/she favours his policies, and because of lingering doubts about Obama, without being villified as a traitor to the Democratic party?

noga1  said:

"Obama is not a menace to Israel's future. "

While I do believe that Obama is a genuine supporter of Israel (and if there’s any reason to question him on this, it’s because of policies, not bad intentions), the notion behind those clips is laughable.

I wrote about it last week, at the request of France-24’s “The Observers”: “finding five or six or even 20 Israelis supporting Obama is easy, but the truth of the matter is quite simple - those are mostly left-wing Israelis, representing a small minority of the Jewish population.”

www.commentarymagazine.com/.../35642

"I can easily think of a few supporters of Israel who might be called "embarrassing". I don't mind the embarrassment as long as: 1. the support is steadfast and genuine"

I know that Marty's support is steadfast and genuine. However, I doubt that the tone of his comments helps increase the support for Israel.

jacobt1 said:  "While I do believe that Obama is a genuine supporter of Israel (and if there’s any reason to question him on this, it’s because of policies, not bad intentions), the notion behind those clips is laughable."

I have no problem with Obama's intentions nor his policies as stated thus far.

My problem with Obama and the reason I will not be voting for him is that his lack of experience with international politics will force him to rely on advisers.  We saw what happened with Bush who also lacked the experience and couldn't bring himself to change bad policies.

All policies no matter how brilliantly they look in the abstract hit snags when applied to real world conditions.

The Iraqi led to the unintended consequence of empowering a Shiite government with links to Iran. Bush was a strong supporter of Israel but the outcome of the Iraq war has left Israel more vulnerable than before.

If you liked the dynamic of the Bush Presidency were the commander in chief needed to rely on his advisors for every decision he made no matter how elementary you will love and Obama administration.

"but the outcome of the Iraq war has left Israel more vulnerable than before."

The outcome of the Iraq war depends on the next President.

"but the outcome of the Iraq war has left Israel more vulnerable than before."

What're his policies related to Israel?

Well stated Jackson, if McCain had chosen a Christie Todd Whitman and ran a more honorable campaign I would have been fine with him winning. Palin though is just off her rocker.

"The outcome of the Iraq war depends on the next President. "

No, the outcome of the Iraq war depends on the Iraqis.

Irony & others, I have to say Ayers doesn't deserve your apologies. Compared to other, more repentent ex-Weathermen, he and his wife are still the arrogant rock stars-posing-as-revolutionaries (or vice versa) they were 40 years ago. That said, Obama is clearly a go-along, get-along guy. He would associate with anyone, left, right, whatever, if they shared a similar goal and his association would go no further than the furtherance of said goal. I don't have a problem with this; to me it marks him as truly non-ideological, a quality I admire. But it has certainly gotten him into some political hot water.

Anyway, that's not the most interesting part of this post. Dear Prudence just outed Track Palin as a drug dealer. Come again? Why haven't I heard this before (even Olbermann didn't go there tonight) and is it actually true? Wouldn't we have heard SOMETHING about this in the supposedly rabid-to-drink-Palin's-blood media?!?

A quick google would seem to place the Track = drug dealer story in the scurrilous rumor bin (even the National Enquirer has him pegged as a user, not dealer). So Marty, I think you or someone else at TNR should put up a disclaimer on this post. Even in the heat of the election season, I don't think TNR wants to get in the business of slinging mud, at least not unsubstantiated mud.

Hey, let's keep the unsubstantiated mud in reserve to counter unsubstantiated mud from the other camp.

CFK:  I agree with you, broadly speaking -- that's my impression too of Ayers, at least in part -- but I wasn't apologizing.  I was just putting it in the context I think it needs.

ironyroad said:

"No, the outcome of the Iraq war depends on the Iraqis."

The outcome of the Afghanistan war depends on the Afghanis.

So  what? The outcome of the Iraq war also depends on the next President.