McCain questions Obama radical ties By RYAN GRIM & MIKE ALLEN
| 4/20/08 10:59 AM EST
Updated: 4/20/08 7:13 PM EST Text Size:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stoked debate over a ’60s radical’s ties to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, saying Obama’s defense “borders on the outrageous.”
William Ayers — a former member of the Weather Underground, which embraced bombing in its effort to end the Vietnam War — became an issue in the Democratic nominating race at last week’s debate. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said Obama’s past meetings with Ayers are part of a “larger set of concerns about how we are going to run against John McCain.” Republican sources said McCain plans to make a major issue of the connection in the months ahead.
Asked by host George Stephanopoulos whether he has any doubt that Obama shares his sense of patriotism, McCain brought the subject up.
“I'm sure he's very patriotic. But his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question,” McCain said.
“He became friends with him and spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his activities as a member of a terrorist organization, the Weathermen,” McCain said. “Does he condemn them? Would he condemn someone who says they're unrepentant and wished that they had bombed more?”
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton responded aggressively, calling McCain's salvo "smear politics."
“Unable to sell his out-of-touch ideas on the economy and Iraq, John McCain has stooped to the same smear politics and low road that he denounced in 2000," Burton said. "The American people can’t afford a third term of President Bush’s failed policies and divisive tactics."
David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, says in the forthcoming issue of Newsweek that the campaign is planning to expand its research and rapid-response team in part to counteract charges about Ayers.
"He's not going to sit there and sing 'Kumbaya' as the missiles are raining in," Axelrod told the magazine. "I don't think people should mistake civility for a willingness to deal with the challenges to come."
See Also Obama linked to gun control efforts Clinton adviser quits over China rhetoric McCain camp releases bundlers As a defense, Obama said during the debate: “The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions. Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those either.”
McCain seized on that, calling Coburn a “great humanitarian” and “in my view, one of greatest spokespersons for the rights of the unborn.”
“To compare him with Dr. Coburn, who spends so much of his life bringing babies into this world, that in my view is really — borders on outrageous,” McCain said.
At the debate, Obama said of Ayers: “This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense.”
Axelrod told Politico's Ben Smith in February: "Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school. ... They're certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together."
Information about the pair's connection has been dribbling out over the past few months. Obama first met Ayers in 1995, during Obama's first state Senate campaign, and the two met with a small group of local liberal activists
Poster Comment:
Michelle Obama displays disturbing racism
By Pat Shannan
Just what kind of 60;change61; is Barack Obama offering and just how much influence has his wife, Michelle had over him in their married life the past two decades? It appears that Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama does not look into a crowd of Obama supporters and see Americans. She sees black people and white people, eternally conflicted with one another.
In her senior thesis at Princeton University, Michelle LaVaughn, the future wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, stated that America was a nation founded on 60;crime and hatred.61; Moreover, she stated that whites in America were 60;ineradicably racist.61;
The 1985 thesis, entitled Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community, was written under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn. Michelle Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her 60;further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society, never becoming a full participant.61;
Not only does she see separate black and white societies in America, but emphatically elevates black over white in her world. As first lady, would she insist the White House be painted black? That57;s been a standard joke in this venue since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but this next ominous quote from her thesis suggests that she would in fact urge her husband toward just such an extreme position.
60;There was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the black community, I am obligated to this community and will utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit the black community first and foremost.61;
She seems to justify those feelings with what she claims to see on the other side of the issue: 60;Predominantly white universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the white students, comprising the bulk of their enrollments.61;
Michelle added in her thesis that to 60;whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, [I] will always be black first.61; However, it was reported by a fellow black classmate, 60;if those 56;whites at Princeton 56; really saw Michelle as one who always would 56;be black first,57; it seems that she gave them that impression.61;
Michelle Obama57;s poll of black alumni concludes that other black former students at Princeton do not share her obsession with blackness. But rather than celebrate, she is horrified that black alumni identify with our common American culture more than they value the color of their skins.
60;I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow, the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with the black community. However, these findings do not support this possibility,61; she wrote.
Most black alumni ignored her racist questionnaire. Only 89 students responded, out of 400 who were asked for input.
The thesis provides a trove of Mrs. Obama57;s thoughts and world view seen through a race-based prism. For a potential first lady, this is a very divisive view that would do untold damage to race relations in this country in a Barack Hussein Obama administration.
During this presidential election year in which the term 60;transparency61; has been frequently bandied about, candidates have buried a number of potentially revealing documents and papers. In Hillary Rodham Clinton57;s case, there57;s been a clamoring for tax records, White House memos and other material the candidate57;s team has chosen to keep from release.
The 96-page, 1985 Princeton thesis, restricted from release by the school57;s Mudd Library, has also been the subject of recent scrutiny. Commentator Jonah Goldberg remarked on National Review Online, 60;A
reader in the know informs me that Michelle Obama57;s thesis is unavailable until Nov. 5, 2008, at the Princeton library. I wonder why.61;
60;Why a restricted thesis?61; asked Pastor Louis Lapides on his website,
Thinking Outside the Blog. 60;Is the concern based on what57;s in the thesis? Will Michelle Obama appear to be too black for white America or not black enough for black America?61;
Will an Obama administration really offer constructive 60;change61; or just an intellectually refined racism?
Pat Shannan is the assistant editor of American Free Press. He has been working in the alternative news business for more than 30 years.
(Issue # 16, April 21, 2008)