"P.S. Hillary did take the low road in her answer in at least one way: She noted that Ayers had said unrepentant things about his bombings in a newspaper article published on September 11. Needless to say, though, that means the interview was given prior to 9/11. So the actual date of publication is totally a totally irrelevant point and she's just demagoging 9/11 here in a way that would make Rudy Giuliani blush."

I knew you'd say that.

Not low road at all. It's called politics. Obama did the same while trying to sound high-minded and conciliatory.  

One example out of many:

He kept said while looking at Hillary: "we have tried not to run a divisive campaign," etc.

This is called hypocrisy.

ooohhh nnnnooooo!  Somebody asked itsy bitsy baby barak a mean question!   Waahhhh!  Waaahh!

The New Obama Republic and he ObamaPost are appalled at the ABC inquisitors' biased moderating of tonight's debate, which I did not watch. From the sound of things, and damage control the pro-obama seems to be in, I suspect that it was not their boy's night. Two thoughts come to mind: (1) Shouldn't they have expected Obama, as the frontrunner, to come under fire, especially during a week that has been dominated by 'buttergate'? (2) Where was the outrage when the media constantly pilloried Hillary while giving Obama a free pass, a biased treatment that transformed Obama from a sure also-ran to an almost inevitable nominee?

BTW, I had the prophetic exchange below less than 24 hours ago with an irrationally exuberant commenter "blackton", who had suggested that Obama would be a better Dem nominee because, he, unlike Hillary, is the media's darling, which would be an advantage aganst McCain...In politics, 24 hours is a life time:

blackton  said:

"dcshungu, yeah, God forbid the Democratic candidate be the favorite of the largest delivery of free media in the world, the press. Better one who is detested by the media to be nominated.

Honestly, how do you square the circle: Hillary is not given good coverage by the media. With. Hillary should be the nominee?"

To which

dcshungu  said:

I am not sure you realize how utterly pathetic those two statements are. What you are saying is that we should nominate someone because the press tells us to or because s/he is the media's darling. In your world the media and not the people would be the 'King makers.'  

You are loving the press now, but wait until they start hammering at your boy's inexperience vis-a-vis McCain in the Fall... In fact, it will be interesting to see who the press would anoint this time, considering their long love affair with McCain.

The media made Gore into a serial fabricator (remember "Love Canal"?), weakening him against the Village Idiot; what makes you think that their lovefest with Obama would be long-lived, especially in view of the their long love affair with the other guy?

Beware what you wish on your enemy, for you might some day become the 'enemy'...

[that "some day" apparently came during tonight's debate that the ObamaPost has declared the Worst. Debate. Ever...Sounds like their boy had a tough night]

Obama never should have stayed in the same room with an admitted and proud terrorist.

And what the hell is Ayres doing as a tenured professor in any American university?  That, too, is a vile liberal scandal.

well I'm glad you all got your ya yas out in one thread.  Have fun losing the primary.  This is so... cute!

On that stage were two people:  A President and a bumbling know-nothing from Illinois who may have been briefed for his answers, but who didn't have a damn clue what he was talking about.

Oh yeah...  And is the democratic party actually going to run a half-term senator who looks down on people of faith, condescends to people who wear flag pins, associates with racists and TERRORISTS?

Despite all that, he seems, unlike his oppoent(s), to be able to get people to believe in their better selves -- Obama can inspire people to bring intelligence and passion to bear on the problems we are going to face in the 21st century.

McCain is a pre-programmed failure.  Clinton has already shown her real destructive self by suggesting that only she or the Republican nominee-to-be McCain is entitled to be president, and not her Democratic co-contestant.

Clinton vs. McCain will be an embarrassment.  Obama vs. McCain will be a real competition between the comfort blanket of the past and an American willingness to face the future in all its complexity.

Incidentally, I might be wrong, but I don't think Ayers has any criminal conviction on any kind on his record.  Last time I looked, this is the United States, and we don't convict people on their opinions or even their milieu, and certainly not for their individual free speech.  If they fulfill the requirements they are entitled to be professors, cab drivers, accountants, or any other damn thing.

Whether or not this will be a useful tool of attack for the Republicans in the fall, remains to be seen.  I suspect a lot less people across the board are willing to go along with swift-boat attacks this time around.

6 months ago or so the media committed an atrocious auto da fe against Hillary Clinton.

Tonight, they did the same thing to Barack Obama.

Are any of you assholes at all concerned that our national press corps is entirely non-functional? It's clear all they care about is elite wealthy values (Charles Gibson? jesus) and, in most cases, building up GOP candidates and tearing down major Dems over issues of 'character.'

dschungu (who sounds intelligent) and pccostello (who sounds like a fucking dolt), don't either of you care about this?

Ironyroad,

Ayers is an admitted terrorist.  Whether or not the state has been able to prove that fact beyond a "reasonable doubt" in a court of law is wholly irrelevant to the historical and undisputed fact that this man and his organization have committed acts of violent terrorism.    

There is, and should be, a far lower standard of proof when it comes to judging the character of our Presidential nominees.  This is not a court of law!  There are only two facts here that matter;

1.) Ayers is a terrorist.

2.) Obama is his friend.

You can deal with that information however you choose.  For me, that alone is a deal-breaker!  

Obama and Ayers? That's not the coupling I'll remember.

I'll remember Clinton and Ayers. Her use of Ayers is the lowest thing I've seen since the attacks on Max Cleland's patriotism.

Hillary Clinton worked on the defense of two Black Panthers. The Clintons have rubbed shoulders with the lowest of the low, starting in their Arkansas days right up to Kazakhstan.

And read Stephanopoulos' bio, if you can stomach it. After each bimbo eruption he actually emerged more loyal to the Clintons. His disdain for Obama and fealty to Clinton is an open secret to Washington insiders.

What a night, watching three very rich white Boomers gang tackle the uppity young black man.

Way to go, America!

Oh, I see, Mr. Crowley, only obsessed right wing nuts would care to inquire about a presidential candidate's relationship with an admitted left wing terrorist?

What associations are relevant in a president?  What makes the Ayers question off bounds?

irony, Ayers has not been convicted of anything.  But, he freely and openly admits his terrorist activities.  

A university is not obligated to hire people who admit they set bombs in government buildings.  

But, then, you're a Democrat.  Your standards re honesty and criminal activity are pretty low.

ChanRobt said

"And what the hell is Ayres doing as a tenured professor in any American university?  That, too, is a vile liberal scandal."

Channy, you can have the answer when you tell me what the hell Douglas Feith and John Yoo are doing teaching at Georgetown and Berkeley Law, respectively.

Chan writes:  "But, then, you're a Democrat.  Your standards re honesty and criminal activity are pretty low."

Chan, I like the way you always keep the debate from descending into personal abuse.  Much appreciated.  But just incidentally, any evidence for the above statement re my standards?  Or do you just take the political label and work backwards?

to paraphrase a song of James McMurtry, "I didn't mean to say it/but I meant what I said"  -- so Bill Ayers wouldn't have been so flip defending his terrorism if he had given that interview before 9/11, so what?  Did he ever take it back?  No, in fact, there was a similar controversey in the Chicago Tribune involving an interview he did with his weathergirl wife Bernandin Dohrn.  

How did we become so unhinged that we're trying to rehabilitate friggin Bill Ayers?  If Obama didn't have anything substantive to do with him once learning who he and Dohrn were, that's the end of it.  If not, it's a valid character issue.  Go try to tell a victim of terrorism anything to the contrary.  

For all their faults, Doug Feith and John Yoo are not admitted terrorists, and have not tried to murder innocent people.  Yes, yes, I know you and most others here oppose the war in Iraq.  And I do not,but none of that says anything about Feith and Yoo.

And, Channy, the GOP hasn't exactly been covering itself with glory recently either, much as it pains me to admit it.  Does the name Duke Cunningham mean anything to you?

I've never met Ayers and I never knew of his existence in Chicago until recently, but it seems to me that if somebody lives a normal life for several decades, does good work as a teacher and scholar, and takes an active role in politics (e.g. advising the not-very-radical mayor of Chicago on policy issues) then he or she has "rehabilitated" themselves to a significant degree, if such rehabiliation is necessary.

If there is evidence to charge Ayers with a crime, then it should be done.  If not, he's a citizen and entitled to the same rights as everyone else.  In this country, we try not to manage things on the basis of assumed guilt.  In general, it's a sign of desperation to try to smear Obama with a minor relationship with someone whose offenses, of whatever status, took place in a different era and when Obama was a child.

dcshungu, first you made the claim that the press loves Obama, I asked if that were not a bad thing in itself, and then when 2, in actuality 1 real member Stephy is not really a journalist, of the press asks bullshit questions (tough questions relate to what he would do about the housing crisis) you take as evidence that the world has come to an end for him. Keep grasping at straws. Obama's negatives are going up, but so is Hillary's, the only winner is the Republicans. If you are a Democrat, then that is just idiocy. If you like McCain, then sit back and enjoy the ride.

I don't care if Obama loses in November to be honest. I think Roe V. Wade was a bad decision, and beyond that, another 4 years of Republican cluelessness should bury them for a generation. And someone like Mark Warmer will win in a landslide in 2012. Hillary will not even win a single state primary in 2012, too many people will blame her too. 2nd place finishers have never gotten a second chance for Democrats for years. The only one who got any was Gore, and he was VP in the interim.

Feith was one of the primary architects of the neocon scam to mislead America into a bloody senseless war that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

Yoo was a willing enabler of the Bush regime's adoption of torture as an official instrument of American policy.

If Ayers is unfit to hold his position, so are they.

iron -- you leave a big point out: as late as 2001 he was promoting his terrorist past and wishing they had done more bombing.  There's a WORLD of difference between what is legal (Ayers walking around free to do what he wants) and who you chose to be friends with.  If it's a young Obama not knowing who Ayers was, that's the end of it.  If it's an Obama knowing what Ayers has done, his public statement of pride, and that's not a turn-off to the point that you don't go around making public appearances with him, it says something about Obama.  

Maybe Ayer's record in the 28 years since he voluntarily surrendered to the authorities says something about him too, no?  When do we draw the line on past history?  If Ayers holds a fundraiser for Obama, it seems to me like a contribution to peaceful law-abiding politics -- soimething that one might be encouraged by.

Look, if the average Democratic or Independent voter wants to use this issue as a criterion for supporting Obama or not, he or she is free to do that.  However, in a world where we need good and imaginative ideas for dealing with the problems this country and the world face, Obama is a candidate with good and imaginative ideas.  So I really hope that the potential of his presidency will outweigh a minor relationship with someone whose crimes, whatever they were, took place three decades ago in a different time.

Wayne, as I noted above, if you believe that the Iraq war is a "neocon scam" then you naturally believe that Feith is as bad as Ayers.

Likewise, if you believe that waterboarding is torture, then Yoo is like Ayers, too, although I am not aware that the US has killed anyone in its custody.

Oh, and neither man is in the administration at present.

But you must believe those things AND gloss over the fact that Ayers tried to kill innocent Americans.  And is proud of that fact TO THIS DAY.

I simply reject this tortured (ha!) moral equivalence argument.

Irony, what are they?  Meeting with the President of Iran w/o preconditions?  Seriously, this guy has ideas?  He's sure kept them a secret so far.

His biggest plus is that he's not G.W. Bush, which in the end may be enough, but I sure haven't heard too many imaginative ideas from ANY of the candidates.

Ideas aren't just policy options.  They are also involve an imaginative understanding of the path we have to take in order to deal with our major problems, some of which are the world's problems too.

As has been said by others here many times, presidents are meant to provide vigor and vision and leadership, not lay out section 3 paragraph A of the future energy research and security act 2010.  

Obama has a real grasp of how urgently we need to restore our diplomatic credibility in order to deal with Al-Queda as a global terror organization, rather than charging around Iraq; how we need to get to grips with energy sources and supply without just buying into the "pass go, collect $200m" cycle of kicking the can down the road while the oil companies rake it in; and most of all how to reconstruct the reality and perception of government as a body that can operate usefully and efficiently in the service of individuals and communities.

Those are ok for me, for starters.  In fact, I think that some of Clinton's better policy detail will start to filter into Obama's campaign once things are sorted out, and in contrast to McCain's embarrassing mish-mash of Republican boilerplate and subjective mind-wandering, both HRC and BHO sound like they have something going on.

come on butchie, even you know that Feith aka the dumbest f in the world, was hired by Bush, Ayers simply lives in Obama's neighborhood. This Ayers line is really pathetic since everyone knows someone who has done something nefarious in the past. The question is: did Obama know it, and does he condone it? Since the answer is no to both then it will never get traction.

Oh, and butchie, Cheneys lawyer (Addington) is now his chief of staff, so he is still around (he wrote a lot of the torture briefs as well). Watch Bush's War on Frontline. Colin Powell has come off really sympathetically, he got totally snowballed by Tenet (a man he trusted as a friend). even Tenet comes across as someone who simply was crushed by the administration.

I am starting to hope that McCain chooses Powell as his VP. If the real facts came out then he can be vindicated, and besides that, McCain has to choose something special, a generic white guy will win him nothing.

Oh, and nobody wants McCain to have an imagination. I sure as hell don't. He is President "Don't rock the boat as we ride out the storm"

If it were the Ayers/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 exploited by Republicans this fall.  When the GOP slime machine is done with Obama, Dukakis will look like a rough-and-ready, God-fearing U.S. Marine by comparison.  Obama premises his candidacy on his ability to transcend politics-as-usual.  I think that's just one more example of his arrogance.  

porterm, please, tell me you are going to be thinking about Ayers when you pay $4 a gallon at the pump?

The Democrats can nominate anybody short of a Tojo Stalin McHitler and still win.

As another Clinton said: It's the economy, stupid (and the endless war in Iraq)

McCain can win, but only as a Conservative Democrat. (get used to hearing how independent he is) The Republican slime machine doesn't stand a chance.

waynejm writes, "Channy, you can have the answer when you tell me what the hell Douglas Feith and John Yoo are doing teaching at Georgetown and Berkeley Law, respectively."

waynejm, as far as I know, neither Feith nor Yoo ever set out to kill innocent people.  Nor have they ever bragged to the New York Times about trying to.

Apparently you equate differences on points of Constitutional law with killing and maiming people.  And gloating over it.

ironyroad, I concede my speech was intemperate.  And, because I enjoy my encounters with you here, I apologize.

But, I'm astonished that anyone on these pages, the majority avowed Democrats, would defend in the slightest Mr. Ayer's being allowed in polite society.  Let alone teaching at ostensibly respectable and prestigious universities.

It's an outrage that apparently many Democrats do not find the least outrageous.

But, obviously, I do not know for certain that you are a Democrat.  But, given you general civility, I'm surprised we don't share the outrage.

butchie, I'm with you, Cunningham is a lowlife.  But, he's sitting in a prison isn't he?  He's not a tenured professor at a prestige university.

irony, Ayers is not "rehabilitated" if he didn't do time and he brags about his crime.

He never recanted.  Why ought he be forgiven?  Why ought he be able to hold a job as a tenured professor at a major university?

In any decent society he would be ostracized and blackballed by all.  And any work he did would be menial, not respected and prestigious and well paying and guaranteed secure.  

How many honest people who never tried to kill anyone are guaranteed a job for life?

Blackie, writes, "...As another Clinton said: It's the economy, stupid."

For the record, it was James Carville who said that.  He may suck up to the Clintons bigtime, but he ain't one.

Frankly, the Clinton campaign represents another era of politics that is irrelevant to the current political scene. Were Hillary to capture the nomination of the Democratic Party it would be a race between two irrelevant candidates in which the person with the least negatives and the highest appeal to swing voters, John McCain, would win. McCain, after all, is likeable enough and seems to be a decent man. Although rooted in the past, he has so far decided to pass on invitations to resort to the tactics that characterize the current Clinton campaign.

But if Barack Obama captures the Democratic nomination it will be a different ballgame altogether. The contrast between the old politics of John McCain will not be able to stand up against the transcendent politics that Obama embodies. People like McCain and Clinton frequently mock Obama’s campaign as being all about the personality and symbolism of Barack Obama. They say that Obama thinks he is the political messiah to save the country from the course it is on.

But the strength of the Obama campaign has less to do with messianic politics than it has to do with a transcendent message that is, yes, embodied in the person of the candidate. That, my friends, in the nature of politics. It is not just Obama who embodies a brand of politics; McCain and Clinton embody politics also. Unfortunately for them, and for any party that chooses to nominate them, the politics they embody is a politics that growing numbers of Americans have concluded are impediments to solving today’s problems.

Chan, no problem, that's ok -- I've said a few things myself here and elsewhere that sort of go over the edge.  But you know, I was worried -- maybe you really had something on me that would reveal my true standards!!!  Lord knows what's out there.  You never can tell.

Outrage.  Yes, I know what you mean.  And there's something -- at least from the printed word -- unlikeable and arrogant about Ayers.  At the same time, I have this stupid belief that here in the United States we do things by the law.  If someone commits a crime, we prosecute them and, if convicted, they are punished.  If they are found not guilty, then they leave the courtroom have the same rights as other people and can carry out their normal lives.  There's no such thing as condemnation for opinions held and the presence of arrogance in the personality.  If required, their own conscience should do that job.

My father was a cop, who strongly believed in not making extra criminals where one didn't need to.  There were enough out there anyhow.  28 years of a normal professional life is worth something.

I happen to think that one should sometimes draw a line across the past, and that we as a nation badly need to do that about the 1960s and 1970s, and I mean across the board.  A lot of people did bad things, and a lot of people did stupid things -- but the nation didn't cover itself with glory in Viet Nam either.  But to deny people the possibility of normal political involvement thirty plus years after they did their bad stuff is really to go from a modern conception of law and civic identity back to a primitive witch-hunt.  Indeed, it sounds as if you want to deny them the possibility of career and achievement also.

But that's not the real issue.  I am much more deeply cynical about this "rehabilitation" thing.  This country has a surfeit of a-holes who apologize for and distance themselves from stuff that they said and did a week ago.  I don't trust this culture of personal repentance, of fake cheesy confessions.  It sounds to me mostly like bullshit.  Ayers won't "repent" but he's also lived half a lifetime in which he's done useful stuff, and for me that counts for a lot.

Let me ask you a question, which I believe you'll answer honestly.  It's a counter-factual, but bear with me.  You say Ayers never did any time, and therefore isn't "rehabilitated."  But suppose Ayers had been charged in 1981 with an offense, and had been tried and convicted.  Suppose also he had served four years in prison and then come out and entered the same career at the U of Chicago as he did, and was involved in the same organizations and also had held a fundraiser for Obama.

Given that other reality, do you think that you (I don't ask you to speak for anyone else) would have said, when this storm in a teacup blew up, "Hold on -- Ayers was in the Weather Underground, true, but he gave himself up, he was convicted and served his sentence, he paid his debt to society"?  Would you have said, "He's rehabilitated himself, and what he does now he does as an individual and citizen and under no circumstance should Obama be obligated to defend serving on the same board as Ayers or meeting in his apartment or accepting money from a fundraiser"?

I'd like to believe that that would be the case.

irony, I would be willing to accept the decency of your attitude towards Ayers if the man had been repentant.  But, quite the opposite.  As recently as 2001, he told the New York Times his big regret is that he and the Weathermen had not "done more".

Doing more in this instance would mean having been more successful in their attempts at terrorist bombings.

The only reason Ayers is not pariah at the University of Chicago and amongst Democrats is because he was a Leftist terrorist.  If he had been an academically well credentialed version of, say, David Duke, do you think any university, any politician of either side, or Obama himself would have gone within ten miles of him?

The Left has a bizarre double-stand on morality.

You don't have to accept it, Chan.  I explained that I have this issue with an individual being convicted of an offense, or not.  And I explained that I don't give a great deal of credence to these "repentence" narratives, as one can only judge from what a person does in their life rather than being able to look inside their hearts.

Again, if someone is trying to live a normal life, why shouldn't they be a professor or a bus driver or a doctor if they are so qualified?

Everyone, including Republicans, has some double standards.  And maybe mine are bizarre to you.  However, speaking personally, I should say that if somebody with a background in race hatred conducted himself as Ayers has done for nigh on three decades (= left it behind him and was a good colleague), I would have no issues with him or her being in my university.

And I also asked, suppose Ayers *had* served time, would he be seen as a man who had paid his debt to society and could now engage in minor political involvement without his name being used to smear someone who was a small kid when the pertinent history took place?

Maybe I'm cynical, but I doubt it.

Blackie, I think you are wrong to elide the Ayers matter.  But maybe it will fade, given that this is April. However, the combo of Wright+Ayers+lapel pin+Michelle's comments about being proud+bitter start to add up, and the slime machine is pretty good at what it does.

We'll see.

butchie and chan, you have a lot of faith in your man McCain, I'd like you to sit back, relax, and honestly consider the following:

1. Wrong track polls are at 85%.

2. McCain is running even with both Dems in spite of the fact that he's faced 0 competition (that GOP field was a fucking joke) and a slavish media.

3. McCain has had nothing to do but shore up his base for the last year, and he's still not managed to accomplish it.

McCain is a VERY weak candidate, you really think he can pull this off?

mmathog, I haven't touched on McCain's candidacy at all in this discussion.  This has been about what many-- including obviously myself-- consider Obama's questionable association with Ayers.

And the bigger topic, why does the Left tolerate people who have committed or attempted to commit atrocities simply because that person is with them on the Left?

But, to address your question, I am a strong McCain supporter, but I hardly believe he is a shoe-in against Clinton, or especially against Obama.

Obama is a very talented politician and a personally attractive individual.  He is quicker and more articulate than either of the other candidates.  

And, worst of all, America may now be afflicted by a slacker mentality, dominated by a "whatever" generation that is morally obtuse and hates to make value judgements.

If that is the case, Obama can dine with child molestors and hold hands with suicide bombers and Maoists and still win.  After all, a lotta people still think Che t-shirts are chic, and movie stars praise Fidel every Oscar eve.

On the other hand, there are still a lot of decent people out there who may prefer a guy who is solid, principled, not a knee-jerk ideologue, and whose background is clearly and unambiguously deeply patriotic.

We shall see soon enough what America's true value system now is.

Maybe people will vote for Obama because they think he'll take the country in a better direction, and they support his position on the issues, and not because we're all a bunch of slackers.

People might also think that McCain not only holds unpopular positions, but also isn't particularly solid or principled (I sure don't) and find that Obama's patriotism (like McCain's) is clear and obvious.

No, McCain is certainly not a shoo-in, or even the favorite, but he has a chance.  A good chance against the Lioness of Tuzla, some chance against the Chosen One.

It's early.  What seems decisive in April may be forgotten in October. We'll see.

There's also a new game in town -- demanding that Obama justify/condemn/distance himself from X, Y, or Z.  It began with Wright, it's now at Ayers, and no doubt there's more to come.  I think Ayer's connection with Obama is provably minimal, but this is just practice bear-baiting.  If Obama starts backing away from every single person that he's met that has any kind of iffy past, it'll never end.  So there's a tactical aspect.  You may think it's a moral issue Chan, and I respect that, but I just see one more tool to get Obama declared "unelectable," along with mispronouncing the middle name and leaking the tribal dress photo and the "secret Muslim" emails and the father's MA thesis.

There's a simple name for it:  guilt by association.  And my hope is that it won't work with the voters.

What is there to debate? Ayers is another of those brat rich kid "revolutionaries" from the sixties, which I was very much a part of at the time. Never met him but met the rest of that sorry lot. (blame drugs and a rudderless life: my motto at the time "up the revolution or up your miniskirt, whichever's easier") Overachieving dolt that Ayres was he took all that playtime revolution nonsense seriously, especially if it involved guns and explosives. After all, his father was the CEO of a giant energy company so once you undertake something, "do you best and come out of top." Now, he's trapped. He can't recant because it would make his whole red-flag over the shoulder life be just what it was: a useless waste of time. So this brat rich kid is going to stick it out no matter what and be buried with his coffin draped in a red flag.Or a black flag or a red and black flag as long as it's not an American flag. What does this have to do with Obama, another privileged kid (I mean, the most expensive school in Hawaii, Columbia, Harvard, an international hippie mom) who had the good fortune to be born half-black (yeah, Ferraro has a point; you can't deny that) and who shares a desire to "save the world" with Ayres. That's what his association with Ayres means. They both want to save us. Be afraid o these people. Very afraid. Gimme an old fashioned corrupt politician any day.    

That's the tiredest bs I've read on TNR in a good while.  In what way, in the name of all that's holy, was Obama's "international hippie mom" remotely comparable to Ayers' rich corporate CEO dad?  My impression is that Ayers had every privilege arriving gift-wrapped -- including the kind of dyed-into-the-fabric American identity that Chan likes so well -- that Obama had to struggle to obtain.

This is the most confusing set of comments I have ever come across.

1. The Clinton supporters can hardly be condemning Obama for serving on a charity board with a fellow University of Chicago professor, when their girl is married to the man who commuted the sentence of the terrorist cohorts of Ayers.

2. The McCain supporters cannot come here and claim that, "were it but for this one relationship of Obama - regardless of how minor - I would be an Obama supporter".  You were not going to support Obama anyway, that is what it means to be a McCain supporter.

Who are these people who are introduced to co-workers and say things like, "aren't you that famous 60s terrorist?  Begone!"  Is there no more concept of civil society?

When in an intellectual environment like the University of Chicago there is often a cache about interacting with people like Ayers when you know their background. Such associations can be a personal thrill and a bit rebellious for an intellectual like Obama. On many college campuses there is a degree of moral relativism that you do not find in greater society especially among those who consider themselves intellectuals. I would be willing to bet that Obama never gave a thought to the fact that interacting with Ayers would ever be a point of controversy later in life. As he did with his pastor he probably saw the good points in Ayers and didn't calculate the potential problem created for an ambitious politician. You could say that he is either an extremely accepting, broad minded individual or that he is nieve depending upon your point of view. Such a judgement is one of the basic issues that determine if your an Obama or Hillary supporter. The "new politics" of Obama seem to preclude calculating the consequences to the degree of old politics. As we run full steam from the Bush Administration it will be interesting to see how the "experimental new politics" of Obama plays out in the real world. So far the Obama way is rhetoric, hope, faith, and let's face it a gamble. Voters certainly do not have a track record upon which to make their decision. There is nothing new in what I'm saying it is just a questions of whether or not the voters will take the plunge for a young presidential candidate and his new ideas of how things should work in Washington.

RAPProds, you nailed it with your character analysis of Ayers and his ilk.  I knew some of that type back then, although none who took it nearly as far.  It was a laughable pose for most.  A very serious crime in Ayer's case.

Maybe many hear did not know this kind so they don't share our disdain and despising of same.

Although, hey, I can remember when murder or attempted murder by bomb was considered to be a crime.  Silly me for not being so sophisticated as to get that it's really know biggy if you think correct social and political thought.

irony, you postulated, and I didn't directly answer, the following:  "...suppose Ayers had been charged in 1981 with an offense, and had been tried and convicted.  Suppose also he had served four years in prison and then come out and entered the same career at the U of Chicago as he did, and was involved in the same organizations and also had held a fundraiser for Obama....Would you have said, 'He's rehabilitated himself, and what he does now he does as an individual and citizen and under no circumstance should Obama be obligated to defend serving on the same board as Ayers or meeting in his apartment or accepting money from a fundraiser'?"

First of irony, serving your time "pays your debt" for the crime.  But, it doesn't buy you complete absolution for your crime.  (That's why they have pardons, instance.  And Bill Clinton pardoned two Weathermen.)

Meanwhile, a convicted felon can't vote, for instance.  Someone convicted of child molesting is permanently branded a sex offender and is proscribed from living near a school, etc.

A person convicted of terrorism, and attempted murder by bomb, first of all, ought to serve more than four years.  This is very, very serious stuff.  Especially as Ayers' intent was sedition.

Second of all, I look upon teaching in a university as something of a privilege.  You are, after all, given thousands of young minds in something of a trust.  One would hope you were honest, and certainly that ones professor was not a former terrorist.

So my honest answer is, associations are relevant to the judgement and character of a candidate for president of the United States.  I would prefer that our president had not considered it proper to associate with an unrepentant and, in fact, gloating terrorist.  

Convicted or not convicted (and he wasn't prosecuted only because FBI investigators had broken rules of collecting evidence) the man is an admitted and proud terrorist.  People are allowed to blackball those who are indecent.  I am sure there are people who you would refuse to share a room with.  Maybe a former KKK member?

That any honest person in Chicago would knowingly rub shoulders with Ayers is shocking to me.  I would prefer that our presidents have higher scruples.

Peculiar misspellings:

"...Maybe many here..."   "...it's really no biggy..."

From my perspective, Chan, I think it's a significant problem that people are permanently deprived of their right to vote after serving time in some states (almost all in the South -- I wonder why?), and I don't think it does anything for the health of either our political system or our system for rehabilitating people released from prison.

That aside, however, I assume from your post that you regard

(a) an individual's crime as warranting a kind of perpetual punishment, beyond what the law imposes;

(b) that someone should be denied a particular career not only on the grounds of a past criminal conviction but even if they don't have a conviction of any kind;

(c) that any politician should avoid even the most above-board connections (e.g. a charitable foundation whose work is clearly for the common weal) so that they don't accidentally end up having a conversation with someone that Fox News doesn't like.

The real problem I have with your evaluation of this affair is not that Ayers has no chance -- if he's not convicted he's sort of guilty anyhow, if he's convicted and serves time he's "branded" in some way, and you wouldn't allow him to vote no matter what.  That's ultimately a difference of opinion between us on what constitutes legitimate sanction/punishment, and on how we see moral as opposed to legal responsibility.

What really bothers me is that Obama, a presidential candidate running in 2008, was supposed to have said "Oh no, a 60s militant radical -- I'd better leave the room!" whenever he might have met Ayers years earlier, and now that he has had a couple of interactions which were normal in the area he lived and worked in, Obama is being smeared despite the fact that any alleged crimes on the other individual's part took place almost 40 years ago when Obama was still in elementary school!  To be honest, I find this both ridiculous and creepy.

Again, I emphasize that, as much as I (and, I assume, the candidate too) detest Ayer's former politics and smug rich kid revoluzzer past, it's nevertheless not Barack Obama's business to manage Bill Ayer's conscience for him; and if the man has done some good work in his job as professor and in his local civic involvement over the last 25 years, then Obama does not need to justify the minor contact they've had.

But I appreciate you taking on my counterfactual and describing your position.

As a quick coda, I should say that I would rather share a room with an ex-KKK member who was honest about his past, maybe not self-congratulatory but at least upfront with what he felt at the time, and had spent decades living a normal life and working at a normal career, than with someone who was permanently tying himself into knots with unctious "distancing" exercises and fake claims of redemptive transformation.

Irony writes, "...(b) that someone should be denied a particular career not only on the grounds of a past criminal conviction but even if they don't have a conviction of any kind;"

Irony, I doubt if most universities would accept me as a student if I'd been convicted of terrorist bombings.  So why hire a terrorist as a professor.  No he wasn't convicted.  But, he publicly admitted (bragged) about his terrorist activities.  So what are you giving me?

And yes, certain kinds of careers are a privilege.  Certainly teaching in a university is a trust.  One would expect a higher moral reputation from a professor than a person not given such a trust.  

I'm in the advertising business, an I can assure you that even in my low and despised profession, I would not be hired as a creative director or other executive if I'd bragged to the NY Times about my terrorist activities, and done so well into my adulthood.  Your dad was a cop.  Do the police customarily hire admitted terrorists?  Ought universities have lower standards than the police department?

If a charitable organization allows an admitted terrorist on their board, that raises serious questions about the standards of the organization.  Someone with presidential aspirations ought indeed avoid or resign from such an organization.  Any decent person ought to, and make their reasons why plain and clear.  How can the standards of a charity be so low?

What most surprises me about your attitude, irony, is you don't hold any higher standards to someone who would be president of the United States than you would for some crappy corporate vice president.  The presidency is the most extraordinary and powerful and sensitive job on the planet.  What kind of LCD do you suggest for such an office?  

Obama, despite your claims, wasn't  merely "in the room" with this guy, Ayers.  He sought out the man's support.  He spent time in his home.  His campaign a few weeks ago confirmed that they were on "friendly terms".

The crimes of "forty years ago" were high crimes.  Terrorism.  Bombing.  Not smoking a joint or throwing a rock through the police station window for God's sakes.

Nazi criminals have been tracked down, tried, and convicted when they were in their seventies and eighties.  Certain crimes ought not be forgotten or forgiven, particularly when the perpetrator continues to brag about the crime.  A little detail you continue to ignore in your arguments, over and over.

And, once again, serving time does not earn you a pardon.  It does not completely by back for you all privileges you enjoyed previous to the perpetration of said crime.  What it buys you, is your freedom.  Not complete respectability.

It certainly does not and should not buy you complete trust if the crime or attempted crime was heinous, as in the case of Ayers.

What you are not admitting, Irony, I believe, nor are those who defend Ayers, is that neither you nor they truly believe that Ayers' admitted crimes were particularly bad.  Because he did it in support of the anti-war cause.

Well, it doesn't matter.  Attempting to kill innocent human beings-- which the cops certainly were, they didn't run the war-- is unforgiveable.  

And, by the way, the fact that Obama was 8 years old when a crime was committed, is a lame excuse.  He wasn't 8 when he spent time with Ayers, sought Ayers' support, or admitted his "friendly" relationship.

but, irony, Ayers was not merely being "honest about his past".  He was ragging about it, and regretting he'd not committed more acts of terrorism.  And this to the New York Times just 6 years ago.  

Again, if some ex KKK guy was bragging about the blacks he'd shot at or tried to lynch back in the 60s, and this guy was also acknowledged to be the wealthy scion of a prominent family with zero social excuse for his atrocities, would you really associate with such a person?  Would you really sit on a board with such a man?  Would you really publicly profess to "friendly" relations with such a guy?

Given your other attitudes, that claim would strain all credibility, irony.

Chan, I would have zero problem had Ayers been charged and tried and convicted and locked away for whatever stretch of time.  The fact is, however, he wasn't.  Therefore he is a free man and furthermore appears to have led a reasonably normal and productive life for a long time -- nobody seems to have complaints about his teaching or his work outside the university for the city and various communities there.

I'm very much against "tests of conscience" when it comes to jobs, be they in academia or anywhere else.

But that's not at issue here -- in general, I think we might find that we agree with each other about Ayers more than we disagree.  I think he sounds like a kind of myopic egoistic moralist, which is pretty much what he was 40 years ago, only now he's not dangerous.  It's not a type I'm attracted to, but if he wants to support Obama, I regard that as a sign of progress in his political thinking.

And I'm always interested in people who see the light, no matter where they are coming from.

My big beef here is not Ayers, but the election.  I regard this bull about Ayers as aimed, simply and clearly, at smearing Obama for something that is utterly meaningless in terms of his candidacy.  I don't believe that Obama will be anything accept an energetic patriot when it comes to crucial decisions about this country's security, and frankly there's not a shred of evidence to the contrary.

What's going on with Obama and Ayers has a name:  t's called guilt by association, and I have no time for it.

"Guilt by association," irony, means you can go to jail or be otherwise punished for knowing a questionable person.  

My father lived in Chicago and knew newspapermen, show people, and gangsters.  He probably had a drink with a few hoodlums over the years.  But, I doubt he ever spent time in Capone's living room.  And he certainly would not have asked a mobster to back him in a business, or hold a fundraiser for him if he were running for office.

If he had, he wouldn't deserve prison.  But, people would also have good reason to think twice about voting for my dad for an office of public trust.  And General Motors, for whom he was a senior executive, would have had reason to not wish someone who had sought the backing of a gangster to be in their employ.

There is "guilt by association".  And there is questionable judgement.  Do you have kids?  Are there no kids that you wouldn't want yours hanging out with?  Were there guys in high school who your parents didn't want you riding with Saturday nights?

Mr. Ayers was not convicted of anything, you're right.  But, he was on the lam for ten years, a wanted man.  And he has subsequently and frequently bragged about his time as a terrorist.

You really think we are not allowed to even consider what it means, at least in terms of the man's judgement, that Obama has sought this person's support, money, and characterizes his relationship with the guy as "friendly"?  

Maybe you're not old enough to remember when presidents were guys like Eisenhower.  But, men like that weren't on friendly terms with terrorists.

I haven't said that Obama was "guilty" by his association with Ayers.  I've said this association at least raises questions about Obama's judgement.  And it is an association that merits a lot of investigation so that voters can thoroughly understand it.

Obama is not running for alderman.  He is running for president of the United States.  How can you say that any query into his friends and associates is out of bounds?

If you or I were up for a sensitive job for a defense contractor, or being hired by the CIA, or were looking to fly fighter jets in the navy, all sorts of queries of this sort would be made.

Why ought a presidential candidate be subject to less?  Nothing is out of bounds.

Because the presidency is different.  It's an elected office and many people who would not be selected for navy fighter training or a CIA position get to be president because the people want them to be -- and often for many other reasons that can't be filtered through a kind of "security check" process.  Politcs is messy in a democratic society and people and biographies don't always fit into hermetically sealed ideological categories.

For many years, Martin Luther King, Jr. was held by people in positions of authority (e.g. Hoover) to be a communist subversive using the "race" issue (which was entirely exaggerated of course) to engage in communist subversion, and a significant number of people thought that activism in the civil rights movement was tantamount to treason.  Civil disobedience is not terrorism, of course, and no such suspicion of that kind ever attached to King -- much as Hoover and others would have loved to have found evidence of same.

But consider John Brown.  Brown is certainly someone who, perhaps to this day, is regarded with some ambivalence by a lot of Americans -- a hero to some, a doubtful figure to others.  I'm not suggesting Ayers is John Brown, not least because Brown had the courage to be executed for his clearly illegal action, but many people at the time thought the Vietnam War a great evil, and a kind of techno-genocidal stain on America as our B52s delivered more ordnance onto a primitive agricultural country than all the strategic bombing campaigns of WW2 in toto.

But, to repeat, it's not about Ayers but Obama.  I don't know what Obama was expected to do.  Ayers appears to be a local neighbor and is politically active in a number of areas where Obama was too.  He also appears to have advised that well-known radical, Mayor Daley of Chicago, on certain policy matters.  His offenses -- which have never come to court -- happened 30-40 years ago.  I don't dispute the right to ask questions, but this isn't a judgment issue, this isn't Obama making Ayers his domestic policy adviser -- this is nothing more than an attempt to suggest that Obama's desire to be president is somehow tainted because of one relatively minor connection among hundreds.  

The question can be asked, yes, but it has been answered:  Ayers has no influence, good or bad, on Obama's style, policy positions, or general philosophy, which have always clearly been small-d democratic and aimed at peaceful organizing and advocacy.

irony, now we get where we have fundamental philosophical differences.  I don't want anyone sitting in the Oval Office who couldn't pass a Navy security check.  You're OK with it.

I'm not looking for the president of the United Nations.  I'm looking for a president of the United States.  Unvarnished, unalloyed, unquestionably loyal to our nation first.

Your standards are by your own testimony a bit more fluid than that.

We may have common ground on other issues.  But, clearly not on this one.

P.S. irony, I don't see how John Brown is helpful to your cause.  He was a madman and a zealot.  He violently attacked a U.S. Army fort, and tried to kill American soldiers.

That his cause, abolition, was just, does not say that his means were just or right or even productive.  What he did put deep fear in the hearts of the South and perhaps made inevitable a war that otherwise might have been avoided.

It is not for citizens to act violently against the nation, even if their cause is sympathetic.  The United States was not a tyranny four-square in support of slavery.  It was clear that there were millions in opposition to it, and that many wished to see it purged.

So, yes, you do have a point, John Brown and Ayers in their actions or attempted actions were zealots of a piece.  And as such, Ayers certainly ought not be welcomed in decent company.  

Chan, John Brown is helpful to my "cause" (I actually don't think I have a cause) only in the sense that he was not only a madman and a zealot but also a hero to many people for his inflexible commitment to removing slavery from the continent.  Indeed he believed not so much that he could personally defeat the slave power but that he could inspire an uprising of slaves across the South which would bring the system to collapse.

The question of whether slavery was an immoveable tyranny in the U.S. is a complicated one but I'd be happy to discuss the history of the 1850s with you some other time.

However, if unvarnished loyalty etc are your criteria for a president, then I think Obama will have no trouble meeting them.  But I want a little more:  I want intelligence and insight as well as patriotism.  And ideed, I want constructive patriotism, not cheesy invocations and lapel-pin politics.  Smarts not instead of, but alongside the other virtues.

We haven't had that in a  while.

You don't hear me asking for lapel pins, irony.  I don't wear one, either.

I don't want unthinking loyalty.  But, I do want unambiguous loyalty.

High intelligence is certainly much to be desired.  But, I've known many intelligent men ambiguous or questionable character.  Harry Truman wasn't our most intelligent president, in all likelihood.  But his honesty and his instincts were what was needed.  (And, yes, he had questionable associations in Penderast (sp?) of K.C.)

Now, if you can get me a Lincoln, then we've got it all in one person.  Once in 500 or 1000 years.

As to John Brown once again, that millions of Abolitionists may have cheered him on testifies only to their own zealotry and foolishness.

If Brown had succeeded in fomenting a slave rebellion, it would have been put down violently and with much bloodshed by the slaves.  It would have cost sympathy in the North to the cause of the slaves.  And, it would not have  gained any of Brown's aims.

Again, the example of John Brown I believe plays far better to my point in favor of temperate action even in a just and burning cause, rather than yours in raising some sympathy through analog for Ayers.

If Ayers had succeeded in blowing up a major building and killing many innocent people, do you think that would have helped the anti-war cause?  You might want to consult with Gandhi on that one.

By the way, irony, when all is said an done, I may well agree with you that Obama's association, such as it was, with Ayers, is inconsequential and does not reflect on his fitness for the presidency.

What my real point in arguing is, this is not a trivial subject.  It is not "dirty politics" to wish to examine the question.  It is not "guilt by association" or "McCarthyism" or any of that.

It is absolutely legitimate and required that we know as much as possible about the associations and attitudes and beliefs of a presidential candidate.  It is an absolutely fit subject of inquiry.

And, the truth is, a candidate is likely to reveal a hell of a lot more in an unguarded moment, or in past actions, than in any position paper, or carefully rehearsed speech or talking point issued formally.

That's why these supposed gotcha games aren't necessarily that.  Or, maybe more accurately, they ARE gotcha.  But in the proper cause of knowing what a candidate really thinks.

There have been many people removed from their jobs in the last few decades for jokes they made off the record, or misstatements made on camera when they didn't think carefully before speaking.

If Jimmy the Greek can lose his harmless job for saying something dumb but revealing, then why not disqualify someone from the presidency for what we find out when he says what he really thinks-- and it is unthinkable?

No Ayers blowing up something or someone wouldn't have helped the anti-war cause, and I never claimed it would have.  Again, I repeat, I would have no problem whatsoever had he been tried and convicted.  

However Chan, in contrast, I do think that John Brown (someone not at all like Ayers in personality, I suspect) revealed something that changed the gameplan in 1859, to wit, that the Southern constitutional, legal, and political lock on the definition of personhood was not quite as impervious as almost everyone believed.  Five years after Brown's execution, slavery was over.  It's not post hoc propter hoc but the ghost of an American martyrdom persists.  Read his contemporary Henry David Thoreau on Brown:

www.transcendentalists.com/thoreau_plea_john_brown.htm

Many people had contact with John Brown in the 1850s, and some like Frederick Douglass left the U.S. temporarily because they suspected that they might be accused of conspiracy in the aftermath of the trial.  A great many admired him and some praised him openly (Ralph Waldo Emerson was one, along with Thoreau).  Brown saw what nobody else wanted to admit -- that there was a war, but it wasn't quite in the open yet.

Anyhow, I am also for knowing things about candidates for the presidency.  But I'm also for proportionality and realizing that an active life brings one into contact with all sorts of people.  I'm also in favor of asking difficult questions but realizing too when a question has been satisfactorily answered.

By the way -- this sounds like I'm trying to rile you or something but I'm not -- why do you almost always reply with two posts?  NTTAWWT, but sometimes it causes a circuitry overload in the ol' cortex as I have to knit your two replies into one mental unit, so to speak.

Well, irony, guess once I get going the old flywheel keeps me moving even after I think I've stopped.  Maybe I think I've gotten all my thoughts down, but a few beats later think of a point I ought to have made as well.  Better a few beats than a few days.

Meanwhile, in others, I prefer a couple of mid-sized posts to one real long one.  But, that's just me.  Maybe it's best you wait a few moments to see if I'm going to erupt again while your composing a reply.

I don't think in the context of the ABC debates that Obama was being asked a question that had been thoroughly answered re Ayers.  If anything, this was an opportunity in front of the largest audience he was going to get before PA for Obama to put the Ayers question pretty much to rest.  Or at least speak for himself on the subject.

I don't see why so many of Obama's partisans thought Gibson and Steph. were out of bounds in this inquiry.

As to Emerson ad Thoreau, great artists both.  But their opinions on Brown were not necessarily wise or dispositive.  (I'll read your sources and refs later.)  They would understandably have been caught up in the passion of the era, so may not have been wise in their views on Brown.

Yes, of course we were close to a state of war in the late 1850s.  And maybe war was inevitable.  It always seems so when the war has been so great and the sacrifice so high.

But, you can hardly believe that Browns actions relieved the pressure or were in any way cathartic.  From this juncture, Harpers Ferry looks like a torch put to gunpowder.

And returning to your point about proportionality of reaction re Ayers, and that an active person or pol will find himself in the company of many sorts, I concur in that.  

But, it would be hard to find an analagous unsavory relationship on the part of McCain.  Keaqting was his worst and he paid dearly for that back when.  Also, you seem to be maintaining that Obama simply found himself in the same room with a guy who was ubiquitous in his neighborhood.  

Obama sought Ayers' support and money raising abilities.  And,yes, one can wonder that the people of Hyde Park considered Ayers fit company.  Let alone the University of Illinois.

It is this untoward tolerance that I find unseemly on the part of liberals and the Left.  And believe me, some of my (make that probably most of my) best friends are and all that.

You were honest and candid enough to admit that you probaly had a double standard.  And again, if everything about Ayers were the same except that his cause had been Far Right not Far Left, Ayers would have no professorship anywhere.  And no respectable company.  Name me a Right Wing terrorist who has access to high Republican circles.

P.S. (there I go again) Irony, thanks for the Thoreau-Brown link.  Looks damn interesting.  Too much to read online.  I'm printing it out.

You're welcome, Chan.  Looking at events, I think we're going to be soon (a) the only people on this thread, and (b) it's going to be bumped back to p. 4 of The Stump by early tomorrow anyway.  

We'll almost certainly meet over this issue again, another day another discussion.

As a parting note, I don't want to say that "double standards is my middle name" but -- well, I don't like too much of what I know of Ayers or at least I hate the kind of rich-kid narcissistic militancy that he stands/stood for, while somehow understanding in a different way the journey he took.  But you're responsible for your own journeys.  He got a break, maybe he didn't deserve it.

But I wasn't quite being comic when I said that if he supports Obama that's an advance in his political thinking.

Random last thought:  it's odd, but I was teaching something about comedy this morning, and I mentioned Northrop Frye's (not sure if his name means anything to you, sorry) ideas about comedy as the myth of Springtime, and the way in which comedy includes rather than excludes at the end -- even the parasite and jackass get to hang out at the wedding party.  I think I'm in an inclusive mood this Springtime, however it all pans out.

Hey, irony, enjoyed the tennis game.  Don't know if you'll see this.  But, see you next thread.

Is the teaching of literature or drama your main gig or a side thing?

Main gig.