Oct 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The Excluded Middle
Jonah Goldberg throws down the gauntlet:
It seems to me the liberal left needs to decide, was Ayers a horrible figure to be ashamed of, or a hero? If you don’t like this choice, why?
This is baffling. Is Jonah Goldberg a horrible figure to be ashamed of, or a hero? You must choose! But he’s neither. He’s just a guy. What Ayers did was wrong, and it’s troubling that, unlike most 60s-era radicals, he can’t seem to see that even in retrospect. But I dare say he’s responsible for a good deal less violence, death, and destruction than is, say, Henry Kissinger. It’d be dumb to idolize Ayers’ actions from back in the day but he’s hardly history’s greatest monster or even the greatest monster involved in 1960s political controversies.
106 Responses to “The Excluded Middle”
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October 7th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Jane Fonda: Your perfect role model or troop-hating death-dealer: CHOOSE!
October 7th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
McCain, McCain, McCain! What are you thinking? Ayers’s skin isn’t dark enough to rile up the swing voters. It’s Wright or nothing at this point.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
He’s a Marxist wacko, who carried out his crazed revolutionary fantasies, and Barack Obama had absolutely no qualms about befriending him. But hey, he only blew up bathrooms in the Pentagon. No biggie!
October 7th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Jonah Goldberg is a horrible figure to be ashamed of.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
What Jimmy Carter did for sweaters is more appalling than Ayers’ antics.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
What the hell is the “liberal left”? Seriously, is the Pantload trying to draw a distinction with a “liberal right” or a “conservative left” or what?
Mike
October 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I don’t see Ayers as any different than those who still say If we stayed long enough we could have won Vietnam.
I for one am sick to death of fighting Vietnam over and over again. This is what the Ayers question comes down to. Those folks from that era have never gotten over Vietnam, not those on either side. I was 7 when Ayers did his thing. Obama was 8. But we have to move on from the late 60’s. We can’t fight Vietnam over and over again. It is over. They can’t turn the page but we have to turn the page. McCain thinks we can win in Iraq but can’t define winning. That is the one parallel to Vietnam. What is the definition of winning? Does this mean we can never leave Iraq? Jonah Goldberg doesn’t know squat, nor does Ayers or McCain. We have to move on from this mentality, the all or nothing mentality. It is crazy. Ayers is meaningless in this race. The 60’s are over.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
What Ayers did was wrong, and it’s troubling that, unlike most 60s-era radicals, he can’t seem to see that even in retrospect.
Actually I think a lot of former Weathermen (e.g. David Gilbert) are about as unrepentant as Ayers is.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
There is a point here, in the vein of “heightening the contradictions.” Are liberals tribal Americans or rootless cosmopolitan political theorists? Modern progressives want to have it both ways by pointing out that being American really means embracing a particular political theory, but the Jonahs do not want them to get away with it.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
John McCain was almost undoubtedly involved in the deaths of more innocents than Ayers was (although McCain was a bad pilot, I assume that he was involved in *some* kind of succesful napalming/bombing; correct me if I’m wrong), even if you make him responsible for the actions of all of the Weathermen. Moreover, remember that McCain wasn’t drafted; he was a lifer, a professional, and volunteered to fly in Vietnam.
How does one define “terrorist,” anyway? If one defines it, as most do, as “indiscriminate targeting of civilians,” then it’s not like McCain was a particular terrorist; a fundamental strategy of the U.S. in Vietnam and WWII was, bluntly, terrorism. Which takes us to Biden’s correct assertion that terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology — a tactic that the U.S. has used extensively.
Ayers is no hero of mine. But he was right about Vietnam and his methods, while being wrong, were less wrong than our collective methods.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Ayers is an inconsequential figure about whom I know next to nothing. Why should I be force to defend or condemn him? He’s a non-entity. Sorry, Jonah, you and Uncle Cranky don’t get to decide what the issues of the day are.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Is Jonah Goldberg a horrible figure to be ashamed of, or a hero?
Um, is a trick question?
October 7th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
did Ayers’ actions take lives? no. was he convicted of a crime? no. I for one think that people like him, the children of the incredibly wealthy who felt guilty during ‘Nam and embraced radicalism (or a silly derivative of it) to compensate for their social shame were a mixed bag for ‘the left’. I don’t like the idea of setting bombs at all, by anyone in this country. but they weren’t targeting people, and frankly, in my eyes, if you went to Vietnam and killed innocent people there, you are far, far more tainted than Ayers can ever be considered to be.
I’m pretty tired of listening to people fall all over themselves to apologize for this guy. who cares. the sh#t he tried to pull was pretty minor, and it had a valid point, even if it was the wrong way to address the problem at hand. which it was.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Again … why are we trying to reason with Jonah “liberals are fascists” Goldberg? Jonah Goldberg might not be a horrible figure or a hero. But he is an intellectual nitwit.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
The exact comparison, seems to me, would be with someone involved in one of the more militant anti-abortion groups. It’s obviously wrong to associate with people who excuse the bombing of abortion clinics and the murder of the workers there. But there’s nothing about being anti-abortion per se that should be outside the pale of civilized discussion. And of course it’s really hard to imagine that Goldberg would consider it a deal-breaker if McCain had a casual political relationship with such a person.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I still have no idea who Ayers is or was.
Staking a campaign on a political footnote from 30 years ago…
October 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I was trying to think of this all weekend. What’s the word for when you see something as either black or white, good or evil? I think it starts with an m, maechanian or something like that, but can’t get close enough to the correct spelling for google to work.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
You’re either with us or you’re against us……
October 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Come on, guys, Jonah’s on to us. Admit it, you were all hoping Bill Ayers would be Ward Churchill’s running mate on the Democratic ticket.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
What the heck does this moronic question have to do with today’s issues? Will being on the board of a non-profit with some 60s radical influence Obama’s ability to lead the country through two wars, a financial crisis, global warming, and staggering job loss? My answer is no – I just don’t see the connection. Instead of asking his asinine question about Ayers, he should ask “the liberal left needs to decide how they are going to get us out of the mess the conservative right has contributed to?” Oh well, wishful thinking. But please, again, who cares? Not the voters.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I’ve stood in rooms with Republicans who eagerly supported the anti-Mayan genocide in Guatemala — even helped arrange it. Does that bar me from running for office now?
You sad Republican dirt-bags who think that somehow you’re going to keep from losing by screaming “Bill Ayers” over and over need to just grab your blankie, retreat into your corner, and start silently weeping as we Americans push the Reagan legacy over the side of the aircraft carrier as we begin sailing away, to sink in the deep and not be heard from again.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
It seems to me the liberal left needs to decide, was Ayers a horrible figure to be ashamed of, or a hero? If you don’t like this choice, why?
Because it’s a false choice. Asshole.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Jonah Goldberg must choose: is Bill Ayers a radical terrorist, or some guy who serves on boards and lives in Chicago. If he doesn’t like that choice, why not?
October 7th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Ayers is a Distinguished Professor at that radical hotbed, the University of Illinois College of Education. He worked with that well-known communist, Mayor Richard M. Daley III, on the reform of the Chicago public schools, and authored a grant proposal that won a grant of $50 million from that terrorist organization, the Annenburg Foundation. He serves on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and regularly meets with other board members who are employees of terrorist organizations like BP and UBS Bank.
Professor at a state university. Works closely with the mayor of Chicago. Wins a $50 million grant from Annenberg. Serves on a charitable board with big business executives. Must be a commie wacko!
October 7th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
This is baffling.
What baffles me is why bloggers write this sort of thing about Goldberg all the time. It isn’t baffling. I will explain it to you: Jonah Goldberg is stupid. The things that he says make no sense because he is not capable of understanding and expressing complex ideas.
This is a good example. I doubt he cares about Ayers even one bit except as a way of criticizing Barack but amazingly he actually seems to believe that he is creating some sort of clever trap with that statement. He believes that because he is unable to conceive that 1. different people think different things about Ayers so that there is no reason for “the liberal left” to decide anything; 2. it is not at all the case that anyone needs to be either a hero or a villain; and 3. one can believe that Ayers is either a hero or villain and still not find the topic especially relevant to anything of importance in this election.
His inability to understand those types of concepts, none of which are especially complex, pretty much defines stupidity. I am not one to cast about insults much but the simple truth is that Jonah Goldberg is an idiot. He proves it everyday. Its ok to say it. Better yet, ignore him.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
What’s the word for when you see something as either black or white, good or evil?
Manichaean.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Kolohe,
I believe the word you are looking for is Manichaean
October 7th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Kolohe: it’s “manichean”
October 7th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
hahahah
October 7th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
It seems to me the liberal left needs to decide, was Ayers a horrible figure to be ashamed of, or a hero?
It seems to me that John McCain needs to decide, was G. Gordon Liddy a horrible figure to be ashamed of because of his crimes and because he publicly advocated the murder of ATF agents, or a patriot? John McCain called him an “old friend” and lauded him as recently as May. I guess we know his answer.
As a result, I have a follow-up question. John, you public embraced this terrorist. You also publicly embraced Singlaub and touted an endorsement by North, supporters of the contra terrorists. In 1998, you said Osama bin Laden wasn’t necessarily such a bad guy. You chose a former member of secessionist Alaska Independence Party to be your running mate. John, why do love terrorists and hate America?
October 7th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Ayers has killed fewer people than Laura Bush
October 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
The other problem with this whole “ayers” flap is one question: “Who”?
Seriously, who knew the name Bill Ayers 12 months ago?
I don’t think the left needs to make any decision about him.
He’s less consequential than a second string half back on a high school football team.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I was trying to think of this all weekend. What’s the word for when you see something as either black or white, good or evil?
It’s called a Manichaean worldview.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Jonah, the vending machine has Hohos and Twinkies. You must choose one! You can’t have both!
October 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
One of the Powerline guys said the other day that it’s “inconceivable” that Obama wouldn’t have been aware of Ayers’s actions in the 1960s. Now, maybe that’s true of the Powerline goons. They’re older. They were getting college deferments and pretending to be radicals so they could avoid fighting. They probably viewed the Weathermen as heroes at the time, the same way they view people who actually go out and fight now as heroes while they again provide the “support” of pseudo-intellectual babble (the difference being that they’re online and not in debate club).
But Barack Obama was 8 then. In Indonesia or Hawaii. Whatever awareness he had of Vietnam was probably pretty minimal, and awareness of protests and such probably nonexistent. Over time I’m sure he became aware of the Weathermen, but I doubt he knew who their team captain was.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
1) I lost a friend in Vietnam –who was drafted and came back in a coffin with his throat slit from ear to ear.
2) Ayers didn’t do that. It was Lyndon Johnson — a chickenshit Democratic coward who wouldn’t stand up to warmongering Republicans. And warmongering Republicans in Congress –who sent 55,000 Americans to their deaths with the Big Lie.
3) If Ayers had managed to blow those lying cocksuckers to hell, I don’t see why Real Americans would have found him guilty at a trial.
4) I don’t hate American — I hate lying Republicans who have a long tradition of betraying this country for the sake of money –and who wave the flag while they do so.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Manichaean
Thanks to everyone.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Rob Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Ayers has killed fewer people than Laura Bush
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laura Bush slays me every time I see her. Is that a dress she has on or is she wearing the curtains?
October 7th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I had an interesting moment with my wife yesterday. I showed her Ayers’ open letter to Rove McCain now at YouTube. She knows I was in Chicago in 1968 and among those teargassed. I mentioned that I would have probably lobbed a grenade into the open door of City Hall as I drove around in the aftermath of our Lincolm Park expulsion by Daley’s police. I certainly remember my reaction at the time. It had nothing to do with reason and everything to do with sensing what was being closed down around us at the time. I believe that closing down defines the time between then and now. Whether Barack Obama’s election will help reopen the prospects that folk like RFK and MLK stood for, I do not know. But in terms of the question, the answer is that Ayers and I and everyone else on earth is, at some points, a dismal SOB and at other points an individual worthy of admiration. A spectrum — not an either or. Penitence like prayer is best practiced in solitude.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
It seems to me the liberal left needs to decide, was Ayers a horrible figure to be ashamed of, or a hero?
It seems to me first we gotta ask somebody how to pronounce this crazy 60’s dude’s name. Is it one syllable, “Airs?” Or two, like “Ay-ehrs?”
Besides, the reason liberals don’t blow shit up anymore is not just because we’re over the 60’s, but because we think people like who blow stuff up are stupid and bad. In point of fact, these days, it’s just the right-wingers who are murdering doctors and blowing up buildings full of children in Oklahoma.
You go to an Obama event, and people in the crowd are not shouting “kill him,” about McCain, cursing at sound men, or shouting “terrorist” and “treason.” That, however, is par for the course at a McCain/Palin rally.
It seems to me the Republican presidential candidate has to ask himself: “when I let shouts of ‘Kill him’ in a rally pass without comment, am I endorsing it?”
October 7th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
A quick check of wikipedia informs me that ayers was part of a group that, when it wasn’t accidentally blowing itself up, pretty much blew up empty buildings. I find it hard to get excited either way about this one. Sure sounds like he was a terrorist during the Vietnam war. But that was a long time ago. If there were enough evidence to convict him, then the government should have done so. If not, then unless his suggestions during these community meetings involved blowing up other community centers, how the heck does this reflect poorly on Obama?
I really hope my generation doesn’t spend its entire political life refighting the Iraqi war/war on terror just as the boomers constantly refight the vietnam war.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Counterpoint: both Jonah Goldberg and Ayers are horrible human beings, and worth being ashamed of. Goldberg never actually committed terrorism, sure, but that’s only because he’s too much of a coward to act on one percent of the bile he spews.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I have never met a single liberal, or even a radical, who ever had anything good to say about the Weather Underground. They were despised back then; they are irrelevant now.
BTW, see Kirkpatrick Sale’s SDS history for some insight into the group and how marginal they were.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
“But I dare say he’s responsible for a good deal less violence, death, and destruction than is, say, Henry Kissinger.”
By my count, Kissinger is responsible for the death of five million people. That makes him better than Hitler and Stalin, but worse than Pol Pot. But, somehow, he’s considered to be a credible and sane person. If that’s the case, then we the people are neither credible nor sane.
And if you don’t buy my claim about Kissinger and Pol Pot, consider this: in Cambodia, they didn’t kill Pol Pot, they just let him die of old age. But if Kissinger showed up in that country, they’d kill him and feed his body to pigs. And then they’d slaughter those pigs and force feed the meat to Lon Nol supporters. Cambodians can be very forgiving, but not to Kissinger.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
McCain flew 23 missions in Vietnam, undoubtedly killing more people and blowing up more bathrooms, or whatever, than Ayers ever dreamed of. State terrorism gets a pass because power doesn’t have to speak truth to the powerless.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
By “the group,” I meant the Weather Underground. SDS was, of course, an influential group for quite a while.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Goldberg is as irrelevant as Bush.
No reponse is needed to this non-entity.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Zoroatrianism, a Persian religion founded by the prophet Zoroaster around 900 BCE, is the source of many of the ideas that later found expression in the Christian heresy that was called Manichaeism. Those beliefs include a division between wholly-good and wholly-evil forces; the struggles between these forces of light and darkness compose the history of the world.
I believe that Jonah Goldberg’s long history of this sort of either/or statements, his slavish devotion to black-or-white thinking and his susceptibility to the fallacy of the excluded middle, is strong evidence that he is in unwitting thrall of this Iranian religion.
(Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, the theme from the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey, was inspired by Zoroastrianism. The Zoroastrian god of light, Ahura Mazda, provided the name for the Mazda car brand, and for a Japanese light-bulb company.)
October 7th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Here’s my question: If the Right is all worked up about this dangerous radical William Ayers, why are they going after Obama?
Sounldn’t they be going after Chicago prosecuters to lock him up? Shouldn’t they be voicing disgust at a system that allows this man to walk free? Shouldn’t they be trying to reopen the case or something?
But instead, they’re just using it to smear Barack Obama. Makes me feel like maybe the Right isn’t concerned about Ayers at all….
October 7th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Or how about this: Ayers is a bad person but this has nothing to do with Barack Obama?
October 7th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Somebody on the right wing needs to articulate just what it is that “befriending” involves that’s so dastardly. “Befriending” isn’t exactly a horrfiying verb. Bush “befriended” Putin, for example. McCain “befriended” Keating. Palin befriended Alaskan Separatists. “Befriending” is pretty vague.
If they want to accuse Obama of approving of Weatherman-style bombing, they ought to say so. “Befriending” is going to go nowhere.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
If you don’t like this choice, why?
Surely even Jonah Goldberg can grasp the concept of “false dichotomy.”
October 7th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
As LFC says, the answer to this is Liddy, Liddy, Liddy, Liddy, Liddy.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Jonah is just channeling Bernardine Dohrn:
“White youth must choose sides now. They must either fight on the side of the oppressed, or be on the side of the oppressor.”
October 7th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Didn’t the gang at the Corner all feel bad about Pinochet’s death? Wasn’t he implicated in a car bombing in Washington DC? Perhaps someone with more energy than me feels like looking up their archives after Pinochet died.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Does Jonah Goldberg know any people he doesn’t approve of on the right? If so, does he go around telling people about them all the time?
So is Goldberg evil or stupid?
Hm, no need to exclude both…
October 7th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Jonah Goldberg: goat-blower or pig-fucker? CHOOSE ONE!
October 7th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
When did Jonah stop beating his… Not sure how to end that one.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
it starts with an m, maechanian or something like that
Here I thought you meant McCainian. The Maverick seems to think in black and white too.
Hmmmm … who else tends to think like that?
October 7th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Is anybody else sick of babyboomers who can’t quit fighting the Vietnam War. Or sick of babyboomers in general? It can’t just be me.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Surely even Jonah Goldberg can grasp the concept of “false dichotomy.”
No Roddy, he cannot. That is why he asked the question in the first place. He is not able to grasp these things. He is quite assured that he really told us liberals on that one.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
You know, Peter King (a McCain surrogate these days) was passing the hat for the IRA back in the 1980s and still has a warm glow in his heart for the Provos. But he’s a congressman from New York, which makes it all right, I suppose.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Is anybody else sick of babyboomers who can’t quit fighting the Vietnam War. Or sick of babyboomers in general? It can’t just be me.
Jonah Goldberg was born in 1969. Five years after the last boomer ( The boomer cohort spans 1946-1964).
October 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
One more thing: I’m mostly surprised that Ayers is a white guy. After all, the GOP is usually after swarthy types for guilt-by-association.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Ayers was/is a putz. The Weathermen were puerile insurgents. Feckless nincompoops. On the other hand, Magoo (McCain) was a mass-murdering coward. Still unrepentant for the slaughter of innocent villagers he still calls “gooks”. And, Malted-Milk Face (Jonah G.) is a pseudo-intellectual, chickenhawk traitor.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
it’s troubling that, unlike most 60s-era radicals, he can’t seem to see that even in retrospect
Ayers keeps repudiating violence, but as you might expect, can’t get the right to listen. The estimable Gary Farber gives a good account in comments here.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Or how about this: Ayers is a bad person but this has nothing to do with Barack Obama?
Or maybe, Ayers was a bad person. I don’t know the guy, and for all I know he’s a total A-hole here in 2008, but it certainly appears that he’s now a productive member of society devoted to education. I thought Christians were all about forgiveness. It’s a crying shame how all those conservative evangelicals are ignoring the commandments of Christ.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Let’s assume that everything the McCain camp is saying is true: Obama knew who Ayers was and sought out and received his support and friendship. What exactly is the point? That Obama wants to blow up Federal buildings? That he’s secretly a Marxist? That, once president, he intends to bring down the government he was just elected to run?
I realize this attack is supposed to provoke a visceral response, not make sense, but I can’t help but think that it’s an attack that doesn’t really go anywhere because the implications don’t even make sense at a gut level because they’re contradicted by too much other evidence. Same with Wright (where I assume the implication is that Obama hates white people, which is contradicted by half his family being white). The receptive audience for this is so small that I can’t imagine that reasonable people really think it’s a helpful way to go negative.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
“Surely even Jonah Goldberg can grasp the concept of “false dichotomy.”
No Roddy, he cannot. That is why he asked the question in the first place. He is not able to grasp these things. He is quite assured that he really told us liberals on that one”
Umm, yes he can. Not only does Jonah understand false dichotomy, he exploits it. That’s pretty much his reason for existing.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Who gives a flaming rat-fuck about some guy named Ayers at this point? The Weather Underground? Are you serious?
Hell, I can remember the 60’s (vaguely) but that was a friggin’ LIFETIME ago. And that’s what John McCain has been saving up to talk about in the last month of the election?
Screw John McCain and the horse he rode in on! It’s about the ECONOMY and also the ECONOMY and with some side issues related to the ECONOMY.
If you have nothing useful to say about that then STFU! Get out of the way old man and let the grownups take over and try to save what’s left of my 401k.
NO DISTRACTIONS!
October 7th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Ayers was in the Weather Underground –what, 40 years ago?
Sarah Palin, by contrast, is a Life Member of the National Rifle Association TODAY.
Why doesn’t someone ask her if she agrees with NRA Wayne LaPierre’s characterization of the FBI as “jackbooted federal thugs” –stated during the Clinton Administration.
Ask her if she agrees with Wayne’s argument that we need to keep guns so that we can shoot the thugs if they get too far out of line.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Hillary Clinton started this in the primary. Politics ain’t beanbag! From April:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/04/mayor_daley_defends_obama_vouc.html
PHILADELPHIA, PA.–Mayor Daley vouched for William Ayers on Thursday, praising the educator–and former radical– for his work on Chicago public school reform programs and sending a strong message of reassurance to voters who may be worried about Ayers association with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), which is a non-stop topic lately on Fox News.
Daley press secretary Jackie Heard said Daley decided on his own Thursday morning to issue a statement, after seeing Ayers’ name surface in the Wednesday Democratric debate, portrayed as an unrepentant former member of the Weather Underground. Daley’s brother, Bill, the former Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton is an Obama backer; Daley’s media consultant is David Axelrod, Obama’s top strategist.
‘I don’t condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep re-fighting 40 year old battles,” Daley said.
—————————-
In early 2001, I sat near Ayers at a dinner and he was pretty quiet and seemed nice enough. His book about his early years -he was 23-24 years old in 1968 – came out right before Sept. 11th. Talk about bad timing.
The guy in comments bashing Ayers as a trust fund kid is annoying.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
There is a difference between guilt by association and guilt by affiliation. Ayers is more than just a hippy from the 60s. He killed human beings in the name of anti-Americanism. This guy flat out hates AMERICA! If Osama bin Laden all of a sudden decided to become a humanitarian and would try to feed the world, WOULD WE SAY THAT WE SHOULD WORK WITH HIM?! Bill Ayers is a psycho, and anyone that ALLIES with him has some serious moral issues.
If John McCain allied with someone like David Duke to help himself get elected as a US Representative or US Senator, I’m sure the entire media would draw conclusions! Of course, you left wing radicals will never see the light.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
If John McCain allied with someone like David Duke to help himself get elected as a US Representative or US Senator, I’m sure the entire media would draw conclusions!
How about convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy? Good enough for you? How about Alaska separatist Todd Palin?
October 7th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Re Mike’s comment “Ayers is more than just a hippy from the 60s. He killed human beings in the name of anti-Americanism. This guy flat out hates AMERICA! ”
—————-
Actually, the people who hate America are the Republicans. Go to the National Mall and look at all those names on that black wall. They weren’t killed by Ayers — they were killed by Republican lies.
I don’t support what the Weather Underground did — their stupid shit Marxist jargon ensured they would never get the support of the common citizens. But the
Weather started bombing in order to deter violence by segments of the US Government against its own citizens. Senior officials of the FBI ended up being sentenced to long terms in jail as well as members of the Weather Underground — and the FBI dropped a lot of charges in a panicked attempt to bury the whole mess.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Rob Says: Ayers has killed fewer people than Laura Bush (#31)
Thank you that comment, Rob. It made my day.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
1) Let’s move a little more forward in time from 1971. How about 1995 — what was TIME magazine reporting about Sarah Palin’s NRA at that time?
“The Secret Service barred the N.R.A. from participating in its annual shooting competition, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police decided to ban N.R.A. ads from its monthly magazine, Police Chief. “We are outraged at the N.R.A.’s repeated, slanderous rhetoric against federal agents,” says John Whetsel, the group’s president. “Such attacks cannot help but suggest that the N.R.A. leadership is anti-law enforcement.”
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,982355,00.html
2) Hmmm. First Alaskan Separatist Party and now this. Seems to me that Sarah Palin has an inclination to be a “Domestic Terrorist” herself if the conditions are right. That what’s deterred her so far has been a lack of courage , not patriotism or strong moral fibre.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Virtually no one under the age of 45 knows who Bill Ayers is. I’ve studied the Vietnam era in college courses, read books on the subject, watched documentaries, talked to people who ran in radical circles back in the day… but when this issue was first raised during the Primaries, I couldn’t place the name. I knew a guy named Bill Ayers in High School, and that was about all I could come up with. I’m familiar with the Weathermen and I recognized Bernardine Dohrn’s name when it came up, but Ayers just wasn’t personally infamous enough to make much of an impression on me.
Unlike the mistreatment of Vietnam veterans, which generated a deep well of resentment toward Kerry, the crimes of the Weathermen have largely been forgotten. They accomplished virtually nothing of significance for either good or ill. Furthermore, the only specific charges being levied against Obama are that he casually “befriended” Ayers in the 1990s and worked with him professionally on education issues. Oh noes! John McCain befriended and caucused with unrepentant segregationists in the 1990s, but no one seems to think that is troubling.
This is the sort of anecdote, like much of the crap flung at Bill Clinton, that will enrage a certain segment of Baby Boomer conservatives and fire up right-wing bloggers. But the number of ordinary people who were leaning toward Obama but will change their minds because of Bill Ayers is, I suspect, vanishingly small.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Fostert in 44, I’m not sure how you got to the 5 million, but I’m not quarreling with it. I think you could argue without too much fear of contradiction that Kissinger/Nixon’s illegal bombing of Cambodia created the conditions that led to the rise of Pol Pot. So adjust your total as needed.
Tristero points out that the Weathermen were despised at the time. Even their nickname was stupid. The Bob Dylan line was “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Somehow from that those idiots concluded that the world actually did need Weatherman to blow things up.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
The Weathermen, by my informal survey, racked up a body count of three, all their own members, and possible one San Fransisco policeman. A group related to the WU robbed a Brinks truck in the 70’s and killed one guard IIRC. Ayers himself was not implicated in either death. I do not in any way, shape, or form condone the killings of the guard an d the officer, but there are bar fights that kill more people in one night than Ayers’ group killed in its entire existence. I’m sure McCain has shared a meal or two with Henry Kissinger, whose policies killed millions. Remind me again why knowing someone who once hung out with thugs and advocated violence against property disqualifies you for high office, but befriending a guy who killed millions by proxy doesn’t?
October 7th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I know that a lot of the simpler conservatives out there like way conservatism thinks in black and white, but this is ridiculous. Everyone is either a hero or a terrorist? What’s George Bush? What’s Nelson Mandela? What’s Richard Nixon?
October 7th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Q: Is Jonah Goldberg a horrible figure to be ashamed of, or a hero?
A: neither…”idiot” springs to mind…..
this is stupid…by the time obama met ayers, ayers was a suit-n-tie guy, a member of, dare i say it, “the establishment.”
besides…most of the electorate is under 40…”weatherman” doesn’t have any resonance as “boogie-man.”
October 7th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
As a matter of fact, this isn’t visible only in hindsight.
At the time, the CIA warned that the massive bombing of Cambodia’s rural population (which actually began under LBJ but became carpet bombing under Nixon) would lead to the ability of the lunatic and formerly marginal Khmer Rouge to recruit peasants.
And then the CIA confirmed that this was, in fact, what happened.
There just really isn’t any sane way to question that the hawks’ bombardment and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Cambodian peasants from 1965 – 1973 allowed the Khmer Rouge to take over the country.
But that doesn’t stop the right wing from trying to blame leftists for having caused the Khmer Rouge takeover by either opposing the bombing or by saying things after the fact.
October 7th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Seems to me that Sarah Palin has an inclination to be a “Domestic Terrorist” herself if the conditions are right.
She’s going to be the patron saint of militia kooks if Obama’s elected. She’s fucking dangerous, because she’s a creature of the wingnut id and taps into wingnut id-iots.
October 7th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
He’s a horrible figure. Give me an argument about why he’s not. That said, it doesn’t matter, because he and Obama are not close friends or associates.
October 7th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
“Fostert in 44, I’m not sure how you got to the 5 million, but I’m not quarreling with it.”
Well, it’s like this: 1 million in Cambodia, 3 million in Vietnam, 1/2 million in Laos, and 1/2 million in Indonesia. I’m not counting anything that Pol Pot did. Obviously, we handed Pol Pot the gun, but we didn’t pull the trigger. And notice that I’m not including any numbers from Cyprus or Peru. Now the numbers I’m using are not the UN numbers, they come from the countries themselves. And I’m counting starvation, not just bullets and bombs. It’s my belief that when you deliberately starve people, that should be counted as killing them. Granted, we didn’t put a bullet in those people, but we killed them just the same. Any court would rule that way, our statistics should too. And by deliberately starving people, I mean napalming their rice crops just before harvest. That was no accident, and we knew damn well that anyone who was relying on that food for their existence wouldn’t be getting it. It’s a pretty simple equation: People + No Food = Death. We try to say we didn’t really mean it, but we did mean it. And people really died. Oh well, sorry about that.
October 7th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Babyboomers is a strange category. I find it rather useless and misleading. I know time seems to be compressed as you look back historically, but there are huge differences between coming of age in the sixties and the seventies. I’m about the same age as Obama—I’m 47, and I heard about the Weathermen when I was a little kid but I didn’t really know what it was all about. The really big news was raw coverage of Viet Nam, and the civil rights movement. To a child, it was all rather confusing, but certainly violent and scary. Being minors, most children at that time didn’t feel the need to take direct action against the government.
Seems like a lot of young people today assume that babyboomers are all hippies. I have to tell young people that I was seven years old in the Summer of Love, and my mother wouldn’t let me go to Woodstock or drop acid. I came of age in the era of disco, heavy metal, and punk. So did Obama. It’s highly unlikely that he was “cavorting” with sixties radicals in college. Whatever relationship he had with Ayers (whoever that is) they weren’t exactly peers.
Trying to portray Obama and all “liberals” as being comparable to radicals of the sixties is anachronistic. I think it’s a stretch to say that Obama is particularly liberal,at all, but making him out to be part of an anti-government underground, when he was a Harvard law student is just making sh*t up.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
fostert, you forgot about a few hundred thousand in East Timor when we signed off on Suharto’s invasion during the Ford years. Due to the fact that East Timor had a small population to begin with, over a hundred thousand deaths put the intensity of violence there around the same level as Cambodia during the Pol Pot years.
I also didn’t know who Ayers was before this year and I’ve studied 60s radicals before and read Abbie Hoffman as a primary source on a paper on masculinity in the 60s.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Also, a lot of people on the left hated the Weather Underground for their takeover of SDS, effectively killing the organization. Are we supposed to be apologizing for the Symbionese Liberation Army now or something?
October 7th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
“fostert, you forgot about a few hundred thousand in East Timor when we signed off on Suharto’s invasion during the Ford years.”
I was including that in the 500,000 number for Indonesia. At that time, East Timor was considered to be part of Indonesia. And yes, what happened there was unconscionable. But Kissinger thought it was great. Woohoo! Quite frankly, there isn’t an Asian in the world that Kissinger doesn’t want to kill. And I’m using present tense for a reason.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
As Karen said, the Weatherman killed only three people — all three were their Weathermen themselves. Bill Ayers didn’t kill anyone. Looking back, the Weathermen legacy seems both naive and remarkably unsuccessful, but quite frankly there are scooter clubs and street fairs more dangerous than the Weathermen. I’d say both Ayers’ actions and impact on the world falls well short of either “horrible figure” or “hero.” He’s a somewhat bitter failed revolutionary who now pays the bills as a fairly well-liked college professor(http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=207820). He’s also faced trial for his crimes — something Kissinger will never do.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
You all forgot the millions of Iraqi children Clinton killed via sanctions keeping whatsisname “in a box.”
Man, we (some, uh, low-info) Americans just suck at being human. But when we win a peoples presidency in November all American tenth-graders will get Howard Zinn textbooks & we’ll be able to buy indulgences again from the moral arbiters that make hope reality.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
To someone who lived those days in the San Francisco area and is very well aware of folks of the time, Ayers is a psycho. A lot of people were wild then but only a few bombed buildings. Most of us are a least a bit remorseful over some of our behavior from those days. Having watched more contemporary videos of Ayers and his wife , I cannot imagine any one who would end in up in the White House having anything to do with these people. They should have done 20 years in prison. They are losers who chose insane behavior to get attention because they had no positive talents by which they could get recognition. They were probably very spoiled children. I looked into his writings a bit and found his present ideas as bizarre as those he had in the 60s.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Damn, my speed reading sucks. I missed that.
I do wonder, considering how many older Irish-Catholics knew/know somebody who was in the Irish mob or had IRA connections, if McCain will end up inadvertently make some law-abiding people see a little of themselves in Obama with this attack.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Ayers was a spoiled brat rich kid playing revolutionary.He stepped in a load and came out smelling like a rose.
McCain was a spoiled brat son of Admiralty who quite accidentally stepped in a load and was forced to play war hero. Considering it the “role of a lifetime” he’s been performing it non stop now for over thirty years. Unfortunately his reviews have become increasingly unkind since 2001.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:30 am
My feeling is somewhat close to Michael Kinsley here (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1810338,00.html): Ayers really was a dangerous radical who probably should have gone to prison and does not deserve the respect and position he has today, but Obama does not deserve the blame for that. Ayers was, and still is, I think, accepted as part of the Chicago establishment, so the worst thing you could accuse Obama of is associating too closely and blindly with the Chicago political establishment.You certainly can’t make the demented argument that he was “associating with a terrorist”.
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