Why Bill Ayers Matters

Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers does tell us something important about the candidate, Charles Krauthammer writes in an assiduously fair new column. Contra many of his conservative comrades, Krauthammer does not believe Obama himself is an America-hating terrorist, or that the Ayers ideology is even close to Obama's. "But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale," he writes. "For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond." Krauthammer's conclusion: "Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not."