Blogs and Stories
Bill Ayers Fan Club
How did Barack Obama get involved with such a person? Out of naiveté. You would have needed to know the past pretty thoroughly to understand that Ayers, for all his prestige among serious-minded grade-school teachers, had once upon a time tried to impose his own political views on everyone else through acts of organized violence. Obama, when he met Ayers, knew the past less than thoroughly. Obama was young. Ayers was old, and he had found another young person whom he could deceive, for the moment.
Obama never shared, not even for the briefest second as a kid in high school or college, the political imagination of Bill Ayers. A few hot-headed moments in someone's youth may well testify to a sturdy character. But Obama is authentically Mr. Cool. Hot-headed moments have passed him by. Nonetheless he is saddled with Ayers, and for an obvious reason: the Republicans have found a stick and are using it, as anybody would do in a political election. But Obama is saddled with Ayers also because of a culture of mendacity on the far left in America—the mendacity that allows Ayers to go on proclaiming his own nobility and ideals, quite as if his own principles were those of any liberal-minded person, which they are not.
Just now, some 3,247 people (at the time that I am writing) have signed a statement called "Support Bill Ayers," describing Ayers as a victim of McCarthyite slurs. The statement contains a laughable passage: "The current characterizations of Professor Ayers—`unrepentant terrorist,' `lunatic leftist'—are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans..." But, hey, Prof. Ayers is, in fact, an unrepentant terrorist. As for "lunatic leftist," why, if this phrase does not apply to Ayers, it applies to no one. The 3,247 signatories of "Support Bill Ayers" nonetheless include a number of well-known professors and writers, not to mention a number of my own friends.
Dear 3,247 signatories, and, for that matter, dear Bill Ayers (who may or may not remember me, but I remember you): allow me to remind you of some of the consequences of the armed left-wing movements that were influenced by the Weather Underground. In California, the Symbionese Liberation Army, of which Patty Hearst was first a victim and then a member, succeeded in assassinating the first black schools chancellor of Oakland. In New York in 1981, an offshoot of the Weather Underground staged a hold-up in Nyack, N.Y., that managed to kill the first black person to win a job in the Nyack police department. The armed left-wing movements of those years claimed to be the champions of black advancement, and yet made a point of destroying the actual black people who were advancing.
Barack Obama's prospects appear right now to be good. But if he loses? Dear 3,247 signatories, and dear Bill: if Obama loses, one of the reasons will be your moronic and dishonest refusal to draw a distinction between the democratic ideals of the left, and terrorist notions of totalitarian communism.
Paul Berman has written a two-volume history of the generation of 1968, A Tale of Two Utopias and Power and the Idealists.
10 Power Food Combos
Divya Gugnani is the CEO and founder of BehindtheBurner.com, an emerging culinary media brand that creates expert-based content about food, wine, mixology, and nutrition.
How Barack Beat Bibi
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published by HarperCollins in June. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
skibum
Mr. Berman, to put it simply, you are wrong. Ayers has repudiated violence as a tool for social change. He has, in the classic sense of the word, rehabilitated himself. And your post has disturbing intimations of some kind of personal vendetta against Professor Ayers--what's wrong, did he give you a bad grade on a paper?
jhink465
How do 3,247 supporters of Bill Ayers wash over to Obama's prospects for winning the election. From what I can see, Obama's so-called ties to Ayers is a case of no there - there. Unless someone can show something more than a six degree of separation between the two, all we are left with is a feeble attempt at guilt by association. Such an attempt has appeal to Pavlov's dogs but not so much to the thinking.
dj-reddingct
I wholeheartedly agree with your view, and feel that Mr Ayers could have deflated this by appearing publicly and giving people a picture of who he is now, to contrast with the 'picture' the McCain campaign is promoting.
photoshockpenn
The Far Right Wing Christian Wing of the Grand Orgy Party, has as one of its mottoes, "never forgive, never forget."
Why do they have this motto? Isn't the Christian way to forgive and forget the sins of the past?
With a person such as Bill Ayers, who has redeemed himself, without the, "Help of JESUS, they cannot forgive and forget, for the operative words are, "Help of JESUS."
My how times and doctrines have changed, the principles that I grew up with in a Roman Catholic home, were once a sin had been confessed, that it was forgiven and forgotten. Yet the Protestant Far Right Wing Christians are of another breed, they do not follow the scriptures of the new testament and the sayings of their leader, Jesus. I for one, cannot see the difference between these people and those of the "world," for whom such niceties do not exist.
With this in mind, I commend Bill Ayers, for not allowing himself to become a spectacle and sideshow for the Grand Orgy Party. He is a principled and courageous man to stand up to the slurs and smears that have come his way. Surely, such a man, as Bill Ayers, deserves to be left alone by those who, for lack of a better platform, cannot and will not win this election, other than to sling bullshit around by the pound and give the American people nothing but sound bites in the process.
mamaes
Isn't it just as likely that the influence of the Weather Underground was positive in that it brought about the end of the Vietnam war and thereby saved the lives of many?
southernyankee
These rightwingers only forgive their own rightwing nut jobs. Palin/McCain are trying their best to paint Obama with Ayers. The more they do it, the more they look dumb. It is so amazing to watch these rallies and see some of these people getting the wrong information. They are proud to be stupid. Many of these people say they get their information from Fox news. It is amazing they believe that scum from fox news.
S0UTHPAW
Perfect perspective, Berman. Nicely done.
Unrepentant. Terrorist. Mendacious. Typical rich punk who's been getting away with it all his privileged, putrid, self-absorbed life.
Now, here's everyone's homework reading assignment before tonight's anticlimax:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/
This is the archived 2001 Chicago Mag article that most clearly depicts this Ayers, Version 2.0. The great city of Chicago should be ashamed... very ashamed of this unrehabilitated piece of dung. Not to mention Dohrn, who's probably the least forgivable of the two, neither of whom did a single day of prison time for what they did, thanks to FBI overzealous incompetence.
What a farce.
Question of the month: during Barack's "soul searching" period in the mid- to late-80s as he cruised from NY thru Chi to LA to etc., what lifelong, self-styled white champion of all causes Black was emerging into the Overground and setting himself up as a socially acceptable savior of wayward youth? Coincidence? Hyde Park serendipity?
When do we get the air-clearing "we've known him since..." interview with Dohrn/Ayers? How are they keeping their inflated egos in check? ...off the tube? It must be killing them.
Talk to us, Bernardine... Billy... tell us how stupid we all are... you know, like you always have.
sophia5
Maybe those Bill Ayers supporters can sell his likeness
on t-shirts much the same way communist Che Guevara has been turned into a corporate brand .... a logo, a symbol of "cool" ... with little regard to the truth.
Lucidity
What about G. Gordon Liddy, a convicted, unrepentant felon who has raised funds for John McCain and considers him his friend?
S0UTHPAW
C'mon, Barry... Back in the '80s? Why Chicago? Why Hyde Park Leftist elite political circles?
WHY CHICAGO?
**WHY CHICAGO?**
Why Billy's LIVING ROOM???
All we want is the truth, baby. Don't go all A Few Good Men we can't handle the truth on us. C'mon Mr. Cool... 'sup with ChiTown in the '80s? I know you ain't no lifelong Sox fan...
What's that you're hiding.... ?
S0UTHPAW
Lucidity: Liddy did his time... and never slithered around Under anything but his own slime. For sure no hero... but at least with enough balls to stay in the light of day and take what was coming to him. But what would the Left know about something called Honor?
chasstarr
First off, Ayers is not a repentant terrorist. Asked the day after 9/11, "I wish I had done more" (NYTimes). Second, its not Ayers its Obama. How many different explanations did he and his staff give to his association. I lost count, Tell the truth Barry. That;s all the voters want. Tell us how you distributed monies to Acorn and other orgs in Chicago gotten by Ayers through federal grants. How about that Ayers was the ghost writer for your first book?? Just tell us the real associations with him and not the BS you and your campaign have put out!!
Phill2008
One thing I couldn't understand so far: if this guy has really bombed the Pentagon and done all this stuff, why isn't he in jail? (Seriously, I'm not trying to be smart)
bootspur
Perspective is always nice, if the concern is really just truth for it's own sake, then I submit to reader's that the election of 2000 takes the prize as the moment in time where truth had been absolutely obfuscated from the public view. More than once during dubya's infernal run for supreme decider I can recall proactive measures to keep bush's 'Driving Under the Influence' bruhaha from wrecking his campaign even though there is a truncated video with audio indicting bush just in the little bit that wasn't kept from public view. The media looked at this very hard, and they couldn't pry this story open any further, to my knowledge, but the story here was just how fast and how well bush's father could button things up from leaking to media view. Next there was the matter of the 'missing year' of dubya's life while still in the Houston Air National Guard. You will recall dubya's order's had him stationed at the Houston Air National Guard base between 1968 and 1973 (6 year's), except that bush asked to go to Alabama in April '72 through October '73 to work on the Congressional Campaign of Winton Blount, but bush exceeded that time arrangement by close to 6 month's, he was due for his annual physical in August '72, which fell in that first 1st six months and is mandatory in order for him to maintain his wings, (bush was an F104 pilot), and bush was a no show according to the government. In fact the military has NO record's to show that bush ever served in Alabama, and if there is one thing that the government is good at doing that is to maintain someone's military service records. So, as it turned out even without serving for the better part of the '72 through 73' year bush's final order record and discharge record's indicated that earned the necessary point total, and he received an honorable discharge most likely at the behest of his Congressman father George H W bush, but Poppy's fingerprint's are nowhere to be found in this scandal, so it was ALL left to look like a function of the invisible hand of government.
In every Presidential election there are elements of candidate's lives that will cause indigestion for campaign staffer's who then encourage their candidate to stay away from a particular pothole at all costs. McCain's foibles are probably in no particular order; his temper, 'The Keating Five,' The POW coverup, his persona change from the 2000 campaign through 2008 when he is a different candidate, his infidelity inflicted upon his first wife and then divorce. This yuck, yuck about Obama is smaller than trivial nonsense, but since a big shot like McCain dredges it all up partisan's then pounce, as for potential drags on the Obama campaign, experience could be his only weakness.
bootspur
''Isn't it just as likely that the influence of the Weather Underground was positive in that it brought about the end of the Vietnam war and thereby saved the lives of many?''
The Weather Underground was a blip on the screen, you would've needed to be there in the 1960's to really understand just how widely unpopular Vietnam was in the United States, there were so many crazy things happening then that the Weather Underground was part of a mosaic of anti-war push back. I see your point, but it probably isn't a determining factor, but to say again that it was part of the greater effort.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.