Ooh, tough break. I don’t think the condescension card is nearly as effective following Hamlet’s long post. Perhaps you’d care to respond to it?
You’ve got a presidential candidate who was fascinated with communism as a teenager hook up with a “non-terrorist” bomber communist (with a little “c”) and uses this lowlife to launch his career. Said candidate then tries to distance this connection and is given a complete pass by the media.
Obama is not what he appears. His connection to Ayers was not an accident nor was his connection to Frank Marshall Davis. In fact the 2 men connect Obama the child to Obama the man. He’s a left wing un-vetted opportunist whose only job has been to run for office.
He’s tried to distance his past associations as coincidental when in reality he sought these people out. If he were a Republican the media would have crawled up his ass with an electron microscope.
Well, there is a teeny bit of difference between being friends with someone at the same time they used political influence and shady accounting to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and
working with someone who 25 years in the past, during a different time and when he was a different person, was involved in some “terrorist” activity, but when Obama knew him was actually NOT a terrorist and was, actually, a respected member of the community and, dun dun dun, an English Professor. That they worked together, albeit hardly side by freaking side, to actually try and improve the schools of South Chicago.
Yeah I completely see the moral equivalency here.
I am trying.
“traitorous consigliere”?
How about something non-inflammatory like “colleague” or “associate” or “fellow board member” or “fellow community activist”? Or is it just your goal to stir shit up?
It seems to me that the ones making the substanceless posts are the ones who refuse to simply acknowledge the facts that they can’t refute. I never called Obama a terrorist, never said he was anti-American or any of that garbage. I simply stated “here are the facts, it’s up to each person to decide if they matter for themselves”. Since the facts aren’t in dispute, what we get is the usual spinmasters in here attempting to explain them away, diminish them, dismiss them as “talking points” or outright lie about them. They’re puppets on a chain. If one says anything about Obama other than he’s bigger than the Beatles and twice as wonderful, their chain jerks and they foam at the mouth and attack. No substance. No thought. Nothing but partisan bullshit. Here’s what isn’t in dispute in the least:
Obama is a close associate of an unrepentant terrorist.*
That is the plain, unadulterated FACT of the matter. The rest…it’s up to the individual to draw their own conclusions. Jayjay said it doesn’t matter to him. OK, fine. Personally, it matters a little bit to me as it speaks to Obama’s poor judgment, but it wouldn’t decide me one way or the other. Anyone else? Well, that’s, as I said, up to them, isn’t it?
*Meets my definition of close, but since that’s subjective, opinions may vary.
(too late)
Well since you wish to boil it down to a word or two, how about “past working acquaintance”.
How about, “contemporary” and even that’s a stretch.
What? Not damning enough for you? Sorry, them’s the breaks.
You are making it out like Ayers took Obama, Bill Sykes-like, off the streets and taught every thing he needed to no about modern politics from how to point with his thumb to how to construct a pipe-bomb.
Their connection is tenuous at best. To say they are so closely linked is tantamount to saying that I’m closely linked with the IT guy who reset my password for me a couple of times last month.
And by the wayStephe96 , why do I have to clarify what you are claiming? You are the one contructiong bullshit titles here.
I gotta ask, did you even read his article and my post? Because your idea that “the facts aren’t in dispute” is patently false.
As opposed to your insightful, fact filled posts? The irony… it burns.
It is absolutely stunning to me that you can, with one post, contradict yourself and apparently not even notice it. What kind of wilfull blindness does that require?
Here’s what isn’t in dispute: Obama had minimal contact with a man interested in furthering educational reform in Chicago.
See how easy this faux “fact” game you’re playing is?
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?
Thank you for proving my point. The only thing you’re disputing is the degree of closeness of their relationship.
Did you read Hamlet’s post at the end of the first page? Seems to me he is pretty much disputing the “facts” of the entire WSJ opinion piece as well as your assessment of the facts. If you think Hamlet’s points are wrong then point out where.
Great point. And can we all agree that Obama was…um, lying…about the relationship when he laughably claimed Ayers was “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood.”
I mean, there are plenty of guys who “live in my neighborhood” who have never hired me, appointed me to boards, sat with me on boards, and hosted fundraisers for me in their living rooms. 
I’d like for people all across the spectrum to stop kidding themselves.
Sure, Obama and Ayers weren’t all that close - it was a working relationship. But the relationship was far closer than that admitted to in Obama’s debate with Hillary Clinton when he dismissed Ayers as just a neighbor. I don’t think anyone here will dispute that.
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 remains pretty far out there on the political fringes - he isn’t what we would consider a mainstream Democrat, to say the least. Mainstream Democrats don’t generally get photographed standing on a flag.
His right, I suppose, but let’s face it, that isn’t the image Obama wants to be associated with, and indeed he spent considerable time during the campaign denouncing Ayers’ actions, while not going into detail about their relationship.
This article by Mike Kinsley sums it up well - Kinsley is broadly dismissive of Ayers and Dohrn both, while noting that if Obama is guilty of dealing with them, it is a guilt most of Chicago shares. I think there is a lot to this, and I still wonder why Ayers gets to play in politics while other unrepentant violent felons wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a responsible candidate.
If anyone has any fault with anything I’ve posted here, chime up - but I think I played it straight.
So, Hamlet posts a bunch of unsupported interpretations of the CAC and his word is sacrosanct, the author of the op-ed piece provides his interpretation of CAC’s activities and he’s a lying dog. Oh no, there’s no bias driven analysis going on here, none at all. The author of the opinion piece is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (which seems to be somewhat conservative in his bias, I’m not going to spend an hour researching exactly where on the spectrum they fall) and his conclusions are based upon his study of CAC records. Hamlet’s got…what bona fides? He does link to a document that’s mainly a report on how the CAC failed miserably at it’s stated purpose, but other than that? Calling this a he said/he said situation is being generous.
The point, however, is Obama’s association with Ayres. In my opinion it has been demonstrated to be significant and long term. Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright was significant and long term. The Obama camp is doing it’s best to deny and downplay this because both of them are unpleasant people with offensive beliefs that have the potential to negatively hurt a politician running for office. I understand why they are doing it. I understand why a mass murderer shaves, puts on a suit and shows up in court with a bible in his hand. I just don’t discount the history behind either one.
sigh
If that is the conclusion you reached from my posts, I fear there is no point in any further explanation to you. Enjoy your partisan hackery.
“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.
I was talking about factual assertions. You are merely spinning, just opposite in direction to the author of the piece.
I 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.
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.
No, it would be like saying that those who serve on the board of directors are partners with the chairman.
No, he is saying that there were two key parts. Ayers, the former terrorist was head of one. Obama was the head of another.
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.
See above.
Right, right - members of the board have no influence on the organizations they create and direct. 
I didn’t see the word “every” in the quote. One wonders why you needed to add it.
Regards,
Shodan