# What's the Straight Dope on Obama and Ayers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 24, 2008, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967 "2008-09-24T12:18:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/81 "2008-09-24T20:19:57Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > Enjoy your partisan hackery. The funny part about that is that **Weirddave** says he’s a Democrat. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/82 "2008-09-24T20:21:19Z")
Can we please suspend this debate so we can all work on the financial crisis? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/83 "2008-09-24T20:23:55Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It’s not even spin; it is more of the liberal “that depends on what the meaning of the word is, is” stuff when they are confronted with inconvenient facts. I understand that, as a Republican, you should not be expected to recognize such things as nuance or shades of gray, but you could at least not make the fact that Democrats actually recognize the existence of those instead of lumping the world into black or white like Republicans generally do sound like some sort of defect. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/84 "2008-09-24T20:25:17Z")
I hear that for 5-1/2 years, John McCain was closely associated with known Communists. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/85 "2008-09-24T20:30:09Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > I also think it is really a stretch to just call Ayers a professor - he remains unrepentant about his activities and says he didn’t do enough. He has specifically said that he wasn’t referring to violence when he said he “didn’t do enough”, but to overall efforts to stop the war. I’m not sure how right-wingers and presumably Second Amendment advocates can be so appalled by the idea that violence can be a justifiable response when the government goes too far. After all, [one of their regular talking heads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Gordon_Liddy) is the guy who reminded us that when ATF agents bust into your house it’s important to aim for the head. Aren’t they just disagreeing on what type of violence is appropriate and what constitutes the government going too far? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/86 "2008-09-24T20:32:21Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > You’re contradicting yourself here. > > If Obama is, in fact, a “left wing un-vetted opportunist whose only job has been to run for office”, then why would he associate himself with a “known terrorist”? For the political influence? Please. > > I’d really like to see an answer to the question that’s been asked in EVERY Ayers/Obama thread- are you \*seriously \* implying that Obama is a secret terrorist intent on blowing up the White House once he gets into it? What’s the conflict? He was friends with a communist as a child and used a communist wanna-be to launch his career in Chicago. You can’t get more left wing than Obama and his past associations bear that out. As to why he would associate with these people is the million-dollar question. He’s tried to distance himself from them. You’ll have to ask him yourself because he’s getting a huge pass by the media. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/87 "2008-09-24T20:40:47Z")
Awww…isn’t that cute? They still think Obama is the one getting the free pass from the media! ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/88 "2008-09-24T20:40:54Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > I hear that for 5-1/2 years, John McCain was closely associated with known Communists. You’re making fun of someone who was tortured as a POW? Seriously? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/89 "2008-09-24T20:42:02Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > He has specifically said that he wasn’t referring to violence when he said he “didn’t do enough”, but to overall efforts to stop the war. You can understand why, given his history, people didn’t immediately grasp that fact. Even so, I won’t press it too far - it isn’t terribly important to my overall point. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/90 "2008-09-24T20:43:51Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You’re making fun of someone who was tortured as a POW? Seriously? Because McCain is so modest about it that he hardly talks about it at all. I’m sure such an American hero as McCain would never use his experiences in Vietnam as a catch-all excuse and diversion or anything. Never! ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/91 "2008-09-24T20:47:58Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > “Close” is such a subjective word. I’m sure there are hundreds of people who could have at least similar lines drawn between them and Obama; you just don’t get to where he is otherwise. > > But let’s say Ayres really is in Obama’s Top 8. Regardless of what Ayres did 30 years ago, by the time Obama knew him he was devoted to charitable work toward goals that Obama happened to strongly agree with. Should Obama have shunned him even if it meant progress wouldn’t be made toward those goals? > > If anyone should have shunned Ayres, it should have been the people who worked with him in the early 80s when he first emerged from underground and started to become involved in education and urban activism. But they didn’t, and by the mid-90s he was a strong player in Chicago philanthropy. Obama could have made a political point, refused to associate with Ayres, and passed up the chance to do good work. Instead he decided (as many before him already had) that the past was the past and progress was progress. This is why I don’t buy his “change” claim, though. His history here in Chicago is that he has been willing to associate himself with anything or anybody, if it will help further his political career. He wants to fight corruption in government? Great! But he’s had ample opportunity to fight the horribly corrupt Chicago & Cook County Democratic machine, but he hasn’t, apparently because it was politically expedient for him not to. I’m not the least concerned that he’s a communist terrorist, or has those leanings. I AM concerned that his claim to be a reformer is nothing but an empty promise. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/92 "2008-09-24T20:48:11Z")
OK, I am here to concede every fact about Obama and Ayers, they knew each other, they worked on some common cuases together with respect to improving educational opportunities in Chicago? It is true…true…true!! So what? ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/93 "2008-09-24T20:52:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I was talking about factual assertions. You are merely spinning, just opposite in direction to the author of the piece. His entire piece is spin. The “factual” assertions are de minimis. > [@Shodan](#): > > notice you had to introduce a new word into the assertion to deny it. He wrote the grant application and co-chaired the policy board. But it wasn’t his brainchild. Oooookay. Let me get this straight before we go any further. I do not expect anything I post to change YOUR mind. You proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, that NO AMOUNT OF FACTS will do that. You feel that writing a grant application and being on the board makes one a “brainchild”. The FACT is that CAC existed before Ayers, the national Annenberg Challenge had nothing to do with him, and there were two other people with more influence than him. That is not a brainchild. > [@Shodan](#): > > Again, a distinction without a difference. I assume you would agree that launching a rocket also takes planning ahead of time. However, it would be incorrect to the point of incoherence to say that the rocket had been launched long before it was built. Again, you must understand I am not trying to convince YOU of anything. I’m merely pointing out that one meeting at Ayers’ house did not “launch” his political career. It was going on before then, it was going on after that, and that one meeting had little to nothing to do with it. > [@Shodan](#): > > No, it would be like saying that those who serve on the board of directors are partners with the chairman. No, it’s like saying one vice president is partners with another vice president. Hey, if that’s your idea of partners, have at it. > [@Shodan](#): > > No, he is saying that there were two key parts. Ayers, the former terrorist was head of one. Obama was the head of another. I know what he is saying. What he is saying is factually wrong. There were 3 parts to the CAC, Kurtz left out the research arm. > [@Shodan](#): > > This essentially doesn’t mean anything. Ayers was part of the group that assembled the baord; but he had nothing to do with getting Obama onto the board. It’s not even spin; it is more of the liberal “that depends on what the meaning of the word is, is” stuff when they are confronted with inconvenient facts. And, again, I’m pointing out the bullshit that Kurtz is spewing. There isn’t any “inconvenient facts”, there is only Kurtz’s bullshit spin. > [@Shodan](#): > > See above. That’s it? C’mon. I show you, I cite to, and I point out that Kurtz is lying about the largest part of his article, and you give me a “See above”? Here’s the thing, the CAC was not Ayer’s “brainchild”. Ayers was not the CAC’s “guiding spirit”. Kurtz is making that shit up. The CAC existed without Ayers, it followed principles and goal from the Annenberg Challenge, which had nothing to do with Ayers. The CAC was more than Ayers. Kurtz just wants smallminded people to think that it was Ayer’s plaything. And some small minded people are more than willing to buy it. > [@Shodan](#): > > Right, right - members of the board have no influence on the organizations they create and direct. And now you need to build strawmen. I was wondering when you would get around to that particular fallacy. My patience is rewarded. Saying “CAC translated Mr. Ayers’s radicalism into practice” is wrong. The CAC translated, as it was required, the policies and goal of the Annenberg Challenge, not the policies and goals of Mr. Ayers. Ayers was just one person. The CAC was thousands. Ayers didn’t found it, he didn’t create it, he didn’t run it alone. Did he have influence? Sure. But Kurtz is protraying him as some kind of Capo, when, in fact, he was just one small part of the entire thing. > [@Shodan](#): > > I didn’t see the word “every” in the quote. One wonders why you needed to add it. I needed to add it to correct the mis-perceptions and spin that flood Kurtz’s piece. He wants to pretend that Ayers was solely responsible for CAC and that the CAC was meant to support “radical education activists”. He focuses on the minutiae (Ayers and ACORN) and ignores the great majority (Hallett, Chapman, the other board members, the Partners, the schools and pretty much everything else) It works for what it is… spin. It’s amusing that Kurtz spend all this time going over those papers, and all he has to show for it is spin, lies, misinformation, and half-truths. No wonder you like it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/94 "2008-09-24T21:02:10Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > You honestly cannot seriously describe Obama’s relationship with former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers? Oh, it’s easy to describe: Ayers is an Obama **supporter.** Just like millions of Illinoisians and, more recently, tens of millions of Americans. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/95 "2008-09-24T21:04:26Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You’re making fun of someone who was tortured as a POW? Seriously? Actually, I’m making fun of the belief that Obama and Ayers serving on the board of the same organization is such a close relation that it constitutes proof of, well, pretty much anything. Although, I did recently hear that for 5-1/2 years, McCain had a close relationship with Commies who tortured our brave soldiers. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/96 "2008-09-24T21:04:38Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I know the author is a conservative, but that doesn’t necessarily make him wrong. This is where you made your first mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/97 "2008-09-24T21:06:22Z")
Looks like it’s a lot of hot air over a couple of idiots, then. I still think that it’s a negative for Obama that he hasn’t dealt with this more trenchantly, but then I’ve heard a lot of things about Chicago politics. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/98 "2008-09-24T21:13:27Z")
Speaking as a leftist, I would love for Obama’s association with Ayers to mean Obama is a radicalized small-c communist. But then I remember how Bolsheviks failed at Marxism, & had serpents & opportunists throughout. Equating Obama’s politics with Ayers’s due to them working in the same group is fallacious, even if Ayers had brought in Obama himself (which Kurtz acknowledges he did not). ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/99 "2008-09-24T21:16:45Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > Actually, I’m making fun of the belief that Obama and Ayers serving on the board of the same organization is such a close relation that it constitutes proof of, well, pretty much anything. Well that and he launched his career from Ayer’s home. That suggests they knew each other well. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967/100 "2008-09-24T21:20:27Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I still think that it’s a negative for Obama that he hasn’t dealt with this more trenchantly, but then I’ve heard a lot of things about Chicago politics. I don’t like Ayers, I think he should be in prison, and it was wrong of University of Illinois at Chicago to hire him. But pretending that serving on a charitable board with him or going to his house, decades after his reprehensible actions says anything important about Obama is nothing but partisanship. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-obama-and-ayers/464967.md?page=6)