03_SHOOTER
11-14-2008, 12:00 PM
It seems that the unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers has a sense of humor after all!
Bill Ayers Accuses Critics of Using 'Politics of Fear' (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/14/ayers-accuses-critics-using-politics-fear/)
Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers speaks out on the criticism Barack Obama fielded during the presidential campaign for his ties to the 1960s radical.
FOXNews.com
The co-founder of the Weather Underground, which carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol, also defended his violent past, repeating a line he has said before: "I don't think we did enough."
Ayers used the interview, his first since the election, to downplay his relationship with Obama. Ayers said there is "no dark, hidden secret."
"It's not at all true that [Obama] sought me out to listen to my radical ideas, or that I sought him out," Ayers told ABC News' "Good Morning America."
"The truth is we came together in Chicago in the civic community around issues of school improvement, around issues of fighting for the rights of poor neighborhoods to have jobs and housing and so on, and that's the full extent of our relationship."
Ayers and Obama served on a Chicago school reform group and a foundation board, and Ayers hosted a meet-and-greet for Obama more than a decade ago. During the campaign, Republicans suggested their relationship ran deeper than that. John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, said in the run-up to Election Day that Obama was "palling around with terrorists."
Ayers, who kept a low profile during the campaign -- unlike Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. -- dismissed such charges on Friday.
"This idea that we need to know more, like there's some dark, hidden secret, some secret link -- it's just a myth. And it's a myth thrown up by people who want to kind of exploit the politics of fear," he said.
Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said he doesn't believe that "guilt-by-association should be any part of our politics."
But Ayers says in a new afterword to his memoir that he and Obama were neighbors and "family friends."
Ayers' reflections appear in a new paperback release of his 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the new afterword Thursday.
"In 2008 there was a lot of chatter on the blogosphere about my relationship with Barack Obama: we had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fundraiser at my house, where I'd made a small donation to his earliest political campaign," Ayers writes.
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt declined comment on Ayers' new writings. Obama has denounced Ayers' violent past and has said Ayers was never involved in his presidential campaign.
Ayers lives a few blocks from Obama on Chicago's South Side with his wife, former fellow radical Bernardine Dohrn. Now a law professor at Northwestern University, Dohrn was a fugitive for years with her husband until they surrendered in 1980. Charges against Ayers were dropped because of government misconduct, which included FBI break-ins, wiretaps and opening of mail.
Ayers writes that Obama's enemies saw their connections as a chance to "deepen a dishonest narrative about him."
"That he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist, a sympathizer with extremism," Ayers writes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
So let me get this right, the unrepentant terrorist, who declared War on the United States, and who is at least partially responsible for the deaths of at least 3 people, including his former girlfriend, is crying about Republicans using "the politics of fear"?? That has got to be one of the FUNNIEST things I've read lately!
Bill Ayers Accuses Critics of Using 'Politics of Fear' (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/14/ayers-accuses-critics-using-politics-fear/)
Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers speaks out on the criticism Barack Obama fielded during the presidential campaign for his ties to the 1960s radical.
FOXNews.com
The co-founder of the Weather Underground, which carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol, also defended his violent past, repeating a line he has said before: "I don't think we did enough."
Ayers used the interview, his first since the election, to downplay his relationship with Obama. Ayers said there is "no dark, hidden secret."
"It's not at all true that [Obama] sought me out to listen to my radical ideas, or that I sought him out," Ayers told ABC News' "Good Morning America."
"The truth is we came together in Chicago in the civic community around issues of school improvement, around issues of fighting for the rights of poor neighborhoods to have jobs and housing and so on, and that's the full extent of our relationship."
Ayers and Obama served on a Chicago school reform group and a foundation board, and Ayers hosted a meet-and-greet for Obama more than a decade ago. During the campaign, Republicans suggested their relationship ran deeper than that. John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, said in the run-up to Election Day that Obama was "palling around with terrorists."
Ayers, who kept a low profile during the campaign -- unlike Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. -- dismissed such charges on Friday.
"This idea that we need to know more, like there's some dark, hidden secret, some secret link -- it's just a myth. And it's a myth thrown up by people who want to kind of exploit the politics of fear," he said.
Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said he doesn't believe that "guilt-by-association should be any part of our politics."
But Ayers says in a new afterword to his memoir that he and Obama were neighbors and "family friends."
Ayers' reflections appear in a new paperback release of his 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the new afterword Thursday.
"In 2008 there was a lot of chatter on the blogosphere about my relationship with Barack Obama: we had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fundraiser at my house, where I'd made a small donation to his earliest political campaign," Ayers writes.
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt declined comment on Ayers' new writings. Obama has denounced Ayers' violent past and has said Ayers was never involved in his presidential campaign.
Ayers lives a few blocks from Obama on Chicago's South Side with his wife, former fellow radical Bernardine Dohrn. Now a law professor at Northwestern University, Dohrn was a fugitive for years with her husband until they surrendered in 1980. Charges against Ayers were dropped because of government misconduct, which included FBI break-ins, wiretaps and opening of mail.
Ayers writes that Obama's enemies saw their connections as a chance to "deepen a dishonest narrative about him."
"That he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist, a sympathizer with extremism," Ayers writes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
So let me get this right, the unrepentant terrorist, who declared War on the United States, and who is at least partially responsible for the deaths of at least 3 people, including his former girlfriend, is crying about Republicans using "the politics of fear"?? That has got to be one of the FUNNIEST things I've read lately!