Bill Ayers

NYT Finds 'Hostile,' 'Angry,' 'All-White Crowds' Cheering on McCain-Palin
By Clay Waters | October 10, 2008 | 2:15 PM EDT

New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller reported Thursday from the McCain trail in Ohio and found "conservative and almost all-white crowds" greeting the Republican, in "McCain Excites Crowds With Criticism of Obama." Bumiller, perhaps the Times reporter most hostile to John McCain, led off by painting the candidate as out of touch with what voters really care about:

Senator John McCain devoted most of two campaign appearances on Wednesday to lusty attacks on Senator Barack Obama and gave less attention, and offered very few specifics, to the growing economic woes of American voters.
Bill Press Calls Todd Palin A Terrorist
By Kerry Picket | October 10, 2008 | 1:23 PM EDT

The mainstream media has resorted to attacking GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's husband Todd Palin.  At the bottom of the hour of Bill Press's radio show at 6am this morning, Press said the following:

PRESS: What's the difference between a secessionist and a terrorist? Isn't a secessionist just another form of a terrorist? Ask Abraham Lincoln...Let's find out what the "First Dude" was going to do in order to secede from the union. I tell you it wasn't going to be peaceful.

Has Bill Press lost it? The first glaring difference is Todd Palin never blew up innocent people or landmarks all over the country.  Comparing Todd Palin to Bill Ayers is just plain nonsense and disingenuous.

Will MSM Challenge Obama Assumption That Bill Ayers Was 'Rehabilitated'?
By P.J. Gladnick | October 10, 2008 | 8:37 AM EDT

Did you know that there is no longer any reason to make a fuss about Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers? He was rehabilitated. At least that is the absurd assumption by Barack Obama that he claimed he had in a radio interview with Philiadelphia radio talk show host, Michael Smerconish.

Larry King Kept Asking Michelle Obama: 'Attack Dog' Palin Doesn't Make You Mad?
By Tim Graham | October 10, 2008 | 8:18 AM EDT

Michelle Obama was interviewed on CNN’s Larry King Live on Wednesday night, and while no one expects King to offer a hard-hitting interview, he seemed eager to underline Republican meanness.The theme was "how can you not be mad yet?"

Network TV producers just plucked out Michelle's above-the-fray Clintonesque quote about people not liking the bickering in these hard times, but some Web sites noticed she said she was not offended by John McCain saying "that one" – which is kind of funny, since it was heavily promoted by the Obama campaign.

Obviously, when the Ayers question came up, King wanted to know if the one he called "the extraordinary Michelle Obama" was mad, and let her simply dissolve the inquiry with the line "I don't know anyone in Chicago who's heavily involved in education policy who doesn't know Bill Ayers." Take a look:

CNN's Roland Martin Says McCain's Ayers Is...Thurmond, Helms, and Byrd
By Tim Graham | October 8, 2008 | 3:45 PM EDT

At the top of CNN.com’s most popular stories at midday Wednesday was a commentary by CNN contributor Roland Martin, a relentless unpaid Obama spin controller and host of a series of weekend specials. Martin's commentary argued that the Bill Ayers issue is a "smokescreen" and that if Barack Obama is tarred by working with Ayers, McCain is just as tarred by working with....Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and Robert Byrd, who was "once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a domestic terrorist organization!"

The McCain camp, along with their right-wing media comrades, want to convince you that Obama should not have decided to serve with Ayers, who was named the Citizen of the Year in Chicago in 1987 for his education work, and who is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

ChiTrib Columnist: Ayers Wasn't Terrorist But 'Guerrilla' Protester
By Ken Shepherd | October 8, 2008 | 2:22 PM EDT

graphic via Chicago TribuneLiberal Chicago Tribune columnist and blogger Eric Zorn argued today that while Bill Ayers violent past must be condemned, it is improper to label him as a domestic terrorist (emphases mine):

My view is that one can unequivocally condemn the campaign of destruction and bomb-setting waged by the Weather Underground and still ask whether "terrorism" is or was the right word to describe that form of violent guerrilla protest.

To me, a terrorist is one who attempts to create malleable fear in a population through random acts of mayhem; someone who uses his own amoral unpredictability to magnify the power he is attempting to exert in an effort to create change.

Jon Stewart Can't Make Bomber Bill Ayers Funny
By Tim Graham | October 8, 2008 | 12:24 PM EDT

There are some topics that are tremendously difficult to make funny. Case in point: Barack Obama’s relationship with Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers. On Tuesday night, Jon Stewart utterly failed to make the Ayers story funny. He tried to center himself a little by calling Ayers a "s—thead" (bleeped), but he mostly made fun of McCain and Palin and their "angry mob" of supporters.

MRC’s Worst of the Week: Bashing Palin for Daring to Mention Terrorist Ayers
By Rich Noyes | October 7, 2008 | 7:45 PM EDT
Barack Obama received a valuable campaign contribution from the New York Times on Saturday: a front-page piece reviewing Obama's lengthy association with the ’60s and ’70s Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. The Times' key sentence asserted: "The two men do not appear to have been close."

The Times' stamp of disapproval was all the rest of the media needed to reject the idea that Obama's dealings with Ayers should matter to voters, as Sarah Palin dared to suggest over the weekend. ABC's David Wright on Sunday called Palin's attack on Obama "incendiary," while CBS's Bob Schieffer (moderator of the final presidential debate on October 15) called it a "down and dirty" move, adding that Palin "took after Barack Obama in a style reminiscent of Spiro Agnew."
ABC's David Wright: What's Worse? Bomber Ayers or Keating 5 Scandal?
By Scott Whitlock | October 7, 2008 | 4:41 PM EDT

For the second time on Monday, ABC reporter David Wright continued to spin and justify Barack Obama's relationship with former terrorist bomber William Ayers. On the October 6 edition of "Nightline," he compared the McCain campaign's comments about the ex-domestic terrorist with the Obama team's new ads centering on the Arizona senator and the Keating 5 scandal. Wright (see file photo at right) wondered, "Which is worse, a radical terrorist who wanted to blow up the Pentagon 40 years ago or a crooked banker whose failed savings and loan had to be bailed out by the taxpayers 20 years ago?"

While discussing Ayers, a member of a violent '60s radical group that participated in 30 bombings, including the Pentagon, Wright made sure to point out: "Ayers was an early supporter of Obama's, but Obama has never condoned Ayers' politics." He even closed the segment by referring to the man, who said after 9/11 that he didn't do enough bombings, as "A former domestic terrorist who's now a respected professor." When discussing the Keating 5 savings and loan scandal, in which five senators were accused of intervening on behalf of businessman Charles Keating, Wright left out the fact that McCain was exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee.

AP: McCain Linked to Iran-Contra, ‘Nazi Collaborators,’ and ‘Right-Wing Death Squads’
By Kyle Drennen | October 7, 2008 | 4:40 PM EDT

On Tuesday, an Associated Press article featured on MSNBC.com and briefly as a top headline on the popular internet homepage MSN.com was titled: "McCain linked to group in Iran-Contra case." The subtitle read: "Organization had ties to former Nazi collaborators, right-wing death squads." The article attacked a group founded by retired U.S. General John Singlaub: "The U.S. Council for World Freedom was part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. The group was dedicated to stamping out communism around the globe."The AP appears to be getting its story tips from the Obama campaign, as Boston Globe deputy national political editor, Foon Rhee, reported: "The Obama camp today is sending around reports on Singlaub, founder of the US Council for World Freedom, which was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal during the mid-1980s and was criticized for supposed links to Nazi collaborators and right-wing death squads in Central America." The AP article justified reporting on the tenuous McCain connection by explaining: "McCain's ties are facing renewed scrutiny after his campaign criticized Barack Obama for his link to a former radical who engaged in violent acts 40 years ago."

CNN’s Drew Griffin Does a Real Fact-Check on Obama/Ayers Connection
By Matthew Balan | October 7, 2008 | 4:21 PM EDT

Barack Obama, Illinois Senator & William Ayers, Weather Underground Terrorist | NewsBusters.orgDuring a report on Monday’s Anderson Cooper 360 program, CNN investigative correspondent Drew Griffin presented many of the missing details about the relationship between Barack Obama and left-wing terrorist William Ayers that two earlier "Truth Squad" reports on the network on Sunday and Monday omitted. Griffin stated that despite the spin of the Obama campaign and their mainstream media supporters, "...the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said."

Host Anderson Cooper introduced Griffin’s report, which began 19 minutes into the 10 pm Eastern hour, as one of the CNN program’s "Keeping Them Honest" features. Oddly, a on-screen graphic that read "The Dow Plunges," which had nothing to do with the subject of the segment, ran during its entirety. The correspondent began by repeating Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn’s background in the Weather Underground, "an anti-Vietnam War group that bombed federal buildings, including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon." He then gave Obama’s early characterization of his relationship with the 1960's radical, that the Democrat "confirmed... that he knew Ayers, and, when pressed, said they served on a charitable foundation board together, and Obama condemned Ayers' support of violence."

CBS’s Glor: Bill Ayers A ‘Once Radical Anti-War Advocate’
By Kyle Drennen | October 7, 2008 | 1:00 PM EDT

Jeff Glor, CBS On Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Jeff Glor condemned the McCain campaign for "blasting" Barack Obama and playing a "guilt-by-association game" by discussing Obama’s connection to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Glor proclaimed: "Using a new ad to pile on adjectives, 'dangerous,' 'dishonorable,' 'liberal,' and 'risky.' And using running mate Sarah Palin to name names, trying to link Obama with controversial characters like the once radical anti-war advocate William Ayers and fiery pastor Jeremiah Wright."

While Glor referred to Ayers being "once radical," in a 2001 New York Times article, Ayers expressed no remorse for his 1970's terrorist activities, saying: "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough." In addition, in October of 2006, Ayers did an interview with the Communist publication ‘Revolution’ and defended left-wing radical Ward Churchill who referred to victims of September 11th as Nazis: "He’s being pilloried for his politics, for being a leftist, for being a critic of U.S. imperialism as it relates to Native Americans. How can we as socialists or as communists or as leftists, how can we leave him in the cold and say, well I’m a good leftist because I don’t talk the way Ward talks. I find that appalling. And I would hope that when they come to get Ward, we all link arms and don’t allow it."