Bill Ayers speaks at last — from his stoop

The New Yorker’s David Remnick caught Bill Ayers on his Chicago stoop today. Finally, we hear from the now-notorious educator and former Weather Underground leader. Here’s what he had to say:

“I think my relationship with Obama was probably like that of thousands of others in Chicago and, like millions and millions of others, I wished I knew him better.”

“It’s all guilt by association,” Ayers said.

Ayers said that he had never meant to imply … that he somehow wished he and the Weathermen had committed further acts of violence in the old days. Instead, he said, “I wish I had done more, but it doesn’t mean I wish we’d bombed more shit.” Ayers said that he had never been responsible for violence against other people and was acting to end a war in Vietnam in which “thousands of people were being killed every week.”