Swiftboating or Vetting?
By Bud White on August 27, 2008 at 10:17 PM in Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Terrorism
The Obama campaign is panicked that terrorist and Obama benefactor, Bill Ayers, has reared his ugly head into this campaign.
The Obama camp sent an e-mail to their supporters which says:
Yesterday, the McCain campaign issued a statement effectively endorsing and echoing the latest baseless attacks sponsored by former Swift Boat funder Harold Simmons.
Simmons’ next generation Swift Boat group, The American Issues Project, is running a false, negative ad designed to smear Barack with the absurd insinuation that he is connected to terrorism.
But is it really Swiftboating? There is a convincing case to be made that Obama is simply being vetted, something the media failed to do throughout his short national career. Regardless of what the e-mail says, the charges are all true and that’s why they are panicked.
We know all about Hillary’s alleged wrong doings. For example, a dailykos blogger named pdxattorney was deeply offeneded that Hillary was a Republican 43 years ago, suggesting that it sheds a light on her views today:
Is there really any difference between today’s HRC and Hillary the former “Goldwater girl”? Given her pro-war right wing foreign policy sympathies and premature pandering to republican general election voters, it’s often difficult to tell.
So if Hillary can be vetted for her views from over 40 years ago, certainly Obama’s friends can be looked at closely.
Is Obama, scion of the corrupt Chicago machine, really that clean? Maybe, maybe not. He’s never received a proper vetting. Until now.
Michael Barone suggests dirty Chicago politics was part of Ayers/Obama connection:
You might wonder what Obama was doing working with a character like this. And you might wonder how an unrepentant terrorist got a huge grant and cooperation from the Chicago public school system. You might wonder–if you don’t know Chicago.
Swiftboating is fabricating events to smear a person’s character. John Kerry did serve honorably in Vietnam. He did not, as Michelle Malkin claimed, shoot himself so that he could get out of combat. That’s Swiftboating.
The Bill Ayers story is different, very different, because Bill Ayers’ vile actions have been a part of the public record for 40 years. No event is being fabricated; Obama’s judgment is being questioned.
Bill Ayers did attempt to blow up the Capital; he escaped prosecution because of a technicality.
This brings us to another Obama excuse. “I was only 8 when my pal was trying to blow up the Capital.”
Yes, Obama may have only been 8 when the event occurred, but Bill Ayers has not changed. He celebrated the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He said he wished he had done more. He and Obama had long been friends by this point.
I would not be friends with a Holocaust denier or a racist. I would not be friends with a murderer (even if he got off on a technicality), and I would not be friends with a rapist. For good measure, I’d exclude all terrorists. Being friends with the criminally-minded would be incongruent with my values.
How can Obama swear to protect America when his friend is committed to its destruction?
Michael Barone hypothesizes Obama’s motives:
For Obama, the outsider who gained the trust of the insiders, the position is different. He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate.
Morally, many would argue, there is no statue of limitations for Bill Ayers’ actions. He hated the United States in the 1960s and he does today. Why did Bill Ayers take Obama under his wing? What does this say about Obama?
Larry Johnson asks:
The facts are fair and the question is valid–Why did Barack Obama get in bed on both business and politics with a man who insisted that his only regret from his days as a member of a domestic terrorist group was that he didn’t plant more bombs?
And Barone writes:
But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers’s past or of Ayers’s beliefs. It’s something voters might reasonably want to take into account.
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