Everything old is new again: The McCain camp revives the Bill Ayers non-story
Sunday, October 05, 2008 at 12:28 am
- 5 Comments
above: the obama campaign
Apparently bereft of ideas, the McCain campaign has decided to revive the Bill Ayers non-story that worked so fantastically for Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary debates. Sarah Palin — who it’s safe to assume would be unable to construct a single coherent sentence about the Weather Underground and its broader significance to the Vietnam War era — was handed an index card today and dutifully read it to a Colorado audience, who learned that Barack Obama spends his time “palling around with terrorists.” Displaying her vaunted command of every news source known to humankind, Palin referenced today’s New York Times article, which concluded that the relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers has been fleeting and innocuous at best. Conservative bloggers, like Scott Johnson and Tom Maguire, have twisted their knickers into a mighty knot over the possibility that they’ve wasted dozens of minutes establishing the fact that Obama and Ayers worked on . . . uh . . . education policy together and . . . er . . . somebody got money . . . and Obama said something nice about Ayers’ book . . . and . . .
. . . uh . . . [crickets, awkward silence, nervous coughing] . . . well, g’bye!
Although McCain is sure to bring up the Ayers connection during Tuesday’s debate, refuting it is really not worth more than a few seconds of Obama’s time. As for the conservatives who insist on bothering with the nonexistent controversy, their reasons have a familiar inscrutability about them.
5 Comments
Comment posted October 5, 2008 @ 12:55 am
You really think his connection with Bill Ayers isn’t worthy of scrutiny? What bothers me more than anything is Ayers desire to teach his radical, militant ideas to children in the public school system and Obama’s willingness to help make that happen.
It’s only a non-story to you because you’ve already decided who you’re going to follow and no amount of reality will now change your mind. Keep it up with your mindless hope and desire for “change.” That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. They don’t need your pro-action, necessarily; they just need you to be a useful idiot.
Comment posted October 5, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
What on earth about the Ayers connection is worth more scrutiny than it’s already received? There’s nothing scandalous in the least about it; indeed, what’s striking about your generic and usefully idiotic insinuations is that they universally fail to specify precisely what these “radical, militant ideas” are supposed to have been. The Kurtz piece in the WSJ was completely vacant as far as specifics are concerned — it contained nothing regarding the curricula that ABC was implementing, so it’s hard to take his ominous phrasing seriously.
But hey, don’t let me stop you. I happen to think that Iraq’s WMD were non-existent and that the Clintons didn’t actually murder Vince Foster, so I’m hardly a credible source in what I assume is your world.
Comment posted October 5, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
if this story is nothing why won’t Obama be a bit more forthcoming and just answer the questions and release the sealed records about the non-profit and Obama’s association. Obama hadn’t been a model of openness and expect the public to take him at his word. But it’s alway the other way around for McCain.
Comment posted October 5, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
Kev, you act like this story hasn’t gotten any attention. It’s been scrutinized pretty thoroughly. Face it, there isn’t much of a connection.
justwonderin, Obama doesn’t own or control those records. He gets nothing to say about their release: http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/barack_obama_records_sealed_at.html
Besides, McCain has his own tawdry connections which have received little attention. I haven’t heard anything about Donald Diamond since this story came out: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/us/politics/22diamond.html?_r=1&ex=1209528000&en=ec5e90047b6169b9&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=login
Comment posted October 6, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003870402
‘NYT’ Raises Obama/Ayers Link — But In Chicago, No Big Deal,
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77075
N.Y. Times whitewashes Obama-Ayers connection
Fails to report key connections, ignores incriminating documents given to paper
Posted: October 04, 2008
By Aaron Klein
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