The Obama-Ayers Connection: The Big Lie

In the mail...

Hi Jim,
I'm having a problem with something and I'd like you take on it being your someone I consider a "national" blogger meaning your widely read and linked to. The connection between Obama and Ayers in relation to the Annenberg Challenge has not been reported in the MSM at all.It's only been on a few blogs . I can't believe it's stayed under the radar this long. Are conservative pundits and the RNC keeping this under wraps until a latter date or is this not as big a story as I believe it to be..I've sent out an email to family and friends on this which I'm pasting below..Am I wrong that this is a big story that will sink Obama?..I'm really interested in your take on this.
Thanx in advance,
Bruce

THE OBAMA-AYRES CONNECTION:THE BIG LIE

How many times does Barack Obama have to lie before people start realizing that this guy isn't the man that he ,or the press, claims to be. How many lies does he have to tell before someone , somewhere calls him on it? I therefore present to you what I consider to be a major lie in regards to his relationship with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the '60s. In a debate on ABC he was asked about this and his response was :

George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about.
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, George.

So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow — somehow their ideas could be attributed to me — I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.

First a little reminder of who William Ayers is. In the late '60's he was a founder of the radical group Weathermen who set over 20 bombs including one that went off in the Pentagon. No one was hurt but many important computers were destroyed. He and his wife and fellow member, Berardine Dohrn, were never charged in the bombings due to government misconduct. However Dohrn did recieve probation for aggravated battery and bail jumping. She also served a year for refusing to testify against another member of the Weatherman who was charged in an armed robbery. In an interview with the New York Times he was quoted as saying ''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' The interview appeared on September 11, 2001. Yes,really. And here he is on the posing on the cover of a local Chicago magazine ..standing on the American flag:

Kinda makes you all feel warm and fuzzy doesn't it?

Now back to what Obama said. His statement is entirely misleading. Barack Obama would have you believe that he and Ayers were simply neighborhood acquaintances. The Politico reported that Barack Obama went to the home of Ayers in 1995:

I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,” said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. “[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor.”

Obama and Palmer “were both there,” he said.

Indeed, the relationship between Obama and Ayers runs deeper. In 1993 Philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg pledged 500 million dollars to a school reform initiative called the Annenberg Challenge . This is where William Ayers comes in:

When three of Chicago's most prominent education reform leaders met for lunch at a Thai restaurant six years ago to discuss the just-announced $500 million Annenberg Challenge, their main goal was to figure out how to ensure that any Annenberg money awarded to Chicago "didn't go down the drain," said William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Ayers, who was at that lunch table in late 1993, helped write the successful Chicago grant application.

So in 1995 The Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund was created. They received 49.2 million dollars. Ayers and his two colleagues went on the form a "working group" that soon comprised over 70 members. But Ayers was a main figure in this working group as he himself says on his website:

Co-Founder and Co-Chair, Chicago School Reform Collaborative (The Annenberg Challenge), 1995-2000.

Want to guess who the working group, which morphed into the Chicago School Reform Collaborative , picked to lead the the fund? That's right..Barack Obama was tapped to be the first Chairman of the Board of the newly created Chicago Annenberg Challenge fund. The working group went on to form the CSRC which acted as amongst other things a consultant to the fund. Now , does Obama really expect us to believe that while serving as the chairman of the board of the CACF he had no contact with William Ayers? And what exactly did Ayers see in Obama to have selected him for this important role? Look at it this way..would Ayers have picked someone who holds MY views..or someone who hold views closer to his own?.If you know anything about these far-left radicals it's that they have very little tolerance for people who don't think like them. For example in 2006 Ayers traveled to Caracas, Venezuela to give a speech on..you guessed it..education. here's some choice excerpts:

President Hugo Chavez, Vice-President Vicente Rangel, Ministers Moncada and Isturiz, invited guests,comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica. Welcome to the World Education Forum! Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana!

I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life—whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!

Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life.

Despite being under constant attack from within and from abroad, the Bolivarian revolution has made astonishing strides in a brief period: from the Mission Simoncito to the Mission Robinson to the Mission Ribas to the Mission Sucre, to the Bolivarian schools and the UBV, Venezuelans have shown the world that with full participation, full inclusion, and popular empowerment, the failings of capitalist schooling can be resisted and overcome. Venezuela is a beacon to the world in its accomplishment of eliminating illiteracy in record time, and engaging virtually the entire population in the ongoing project of education.

Viva Mission Sucre!
Viva Presidente Chavez!
Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana!
Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

Is it not a legitimate question to ask whether the man who wants to be the next President of the United States shares these views?..Or is this simply the William Ayers that Obama didn't know..like the Rev. Wright that he didn't know..or the Tony Rezko that Obama didn't know? I'm sure he'll have some excuse that his simpleton supporters will take on face value- But, not me!

UPDATE: Global Labor and Global Economy has more on the Obama-Ayers connection.
And, more here.

UPDATE 2: Power Line has more history on the Obama-Ayers connections.