Now, Obama’s campaign is claiming he didn’t know that William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were terrorists, unrepentant ones, during all the years when Obama worked with Ayers, sent foundation money in Ayers’ direction, when Ayers’ helped Obama kick off his political career, etc.
Powerline has this to say about the likelihood that Obama “didn’t know”.
This strikes me as a rather stunning development. Obama appears to be admitting that if he knew about Ayers’ terrorist history, and the fact that he still takes pride in that history and despises America, it would be an error in judgment to form a close association with him.
But it is inconceivable that Barack Obama knew Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn well enough to kick off his first political campaign in their living room, but didn’t know that Ayers and Dohrn were Communists who led the Weatherman faction of SDS, urged young people to “kill your parents,” carried out approximately 30 bombings, including New York City’s police headquarters, the Capitol and the Pentagon, celebrated the Charles Manson murders, spent years living underground to avoid criminal prosecution, and continued to express their lifelong hatred for the United States in books, magazine articles, and public speeches. This is rather like a person claiming that he had worked closely with Arnold Schwarzenegger for years, but had no idea that he was once a bodybuilder and movie actor. Ayers’ and Dohrn’s radical past is their only claim to fame.
There must be a great many people who can attest that Obama was well aware of Ayers’ and Dohrn’s history. It will be interesting to see whether any of them are willing to blow the whistle on Obama’s latest evasion.
But there are also other problems with this incredible assertion:
1) The Ayers association has been a big topic among those opposing Obama for over a year. Why, exactly, is it only NOW that we’re being told Obama didn’t know? We’re supposed to think that the campaign just noticed, this week, that Obama’s relationship with Ayers is a problem? Why didn’t Obama say so when he was asked about this in the primary campaign debates with Hillary Clinton?
2) Even if one accepted the impossible assumption of Obamian ignorance about Ayers’ past, what does this say about the KINDS of people with whom Obama works? Ayers has NEVER hidden his past: indeed, he celebrates it, and specifically refers to it often as a badge of honor, verifying his pedigree as an authentic supporter of the radically LEFT causes he supports, and with which he and Obama were involved. That means Obama’s ability to assess people is very weak, at a minimum, a charge strengthened by his pretended shock that Rev. Wright just surprised him with his hate-speech, after all those years of attending his church, being married by him, having his babies blessed by him, etc.
3) When the Obama campaign (inevitably) retracts this silly assertion, will the campaign pay a price for lying desperately to try to blunt the charges about Obama’s terrorist connections? Probably not, because the main stream media, snorkeling around in the tank for Obama, will simply not cover it, write editorials about the questions it raises, etc.
UPDATE: One more thought: even if we take a face value the argument that Obama didn’t know about Ayers’ terrorist past and unrepentant present, when Obama was working most closely with him on “education foundations”, Ayers was kicking off Obama’s political career in his home, etc., it is impossible to believe that those advising Obama at the time did not know, either. Why wouldn’t they have told Obama? Hard to think of a reason, unless it is that they knew Obama wouldn’t care.
