Smoke and Fire: The Ayers Cover-Up
By Bud White on August 31, 2008 at 6:38 PM in 1st Amendment, Annenberg Chicago Challenge, Barack Obama, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, John Kerry, Larry Johnson, Terrorism, Weather Underground
The Obama Team over-learned the lesson of John Kerry. In the aftermath of 2004, Kerry was widely criticized for not responding to the charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
The Obama campaign’s attempt to silence all critics is having the undesired effect of turning smoke into a conflagration. The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund has picked up on Obama’s tactics:
Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune’s radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama’s association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist.
Stanley Kurtz writes for National Review Online, and although he’s of the Right, his reporting has been factual and his tone measured. Larry Johnson describes him this way:
Kurtz may be a conservative. His political views may be obnoxious. But his research is conclusive, factual and inarguable. Ayers and Obama have had a long relationship with Ayers playing the mentor and Obama as protege. And Obama has lied and lied and lied.
Because the media was asleep at the wheel over the last year and failed to vet Obama, it’s the cover-up, lies, and strong-arm tactics which are now causing Obama problems. Instead of releasing all of the documents pertaining to Ayers, it appears the Obama camp attempted to block Kurtz from reviewing the materials. Only after legal actions were threatened did the Richard J Daley Library decided to allow Kurtz in to review Obama’s relationship with unrepentant terrorist Ayers. Kurtz explains the library’s strange behavior:
Initially, as I said, library officials said that I could examine the [Chicago Annenberg Challenge] records. I received this permission both over the phone and in writing. The subsequent denial of access came with a series of evolving explanations. Is this a politically motivated cover-up? Although at this stage it is impossible to know, it is hard to avoid the suspicion. I also have some concerns for the security of the documents, although I have no specific evidence that their security is endangered.
Now that the documents are open, the Obama campaign has launched a full-tilt effort to smear his critics. This classic strategy was perfected by Nixon: attack the messenger, obfuscate when questioned, compile an enemies list, use the levers of power to conceal. Hours before Kurtz was to be interviewed on radio, the Obama campaign sought to smear him. Fund writes
An Obama campaign email to supporters called Mr. Kurtz a “slimy character assassin” whose “divisive, destructive ranting” should be confronted. WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is “unprecedented.” He also notes that it is curious — because “we wanted the Obama campaign’s take” on Mr. Kurtz’s findings, but the campaign declined to put anyone on air.
Although many of us disagree with Kurtz’s socially conservative views, his biography at the Hudson Institute, where he is a Fellow, says that he has a Ph.D and has taught at Harvard University. In other words, he’s another bookish conservative but he’s not a fraud or “slimly.”
In regards to the attacks on Kurtz, Larry Johnson writes:
Why is Obama reacting with such nervousness and such disproportionate anger? Because the truth is so damaging. You can’t hang with an unrepentant terrorist and then want to get elected as commander-in-chief to lead a global war on terror. The average voter won’t swallow that nonsense.
In the same vein, John Fund says that Obama’s attacks:
are designed to shut down legitimate questions. “They’re terrified of people poking around Obama’s life,” one reporter told Gabriel Sherman at the New Republic. “The whole Obama narrative is built around the narrative that Obama and [campaign strategist] David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it’s not entirely true.” The stakes are high. If the full story of Mr. Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright had been revealed before the Iowa caucus, he wouldn’t have won.
The cover-up from Obama, according to sources inside the campaign, has more to do with the way Obama and Ayers spent tens of millions of dollar than Ayers’ past. Johnson writes:
Their fear about Ayers has little to do with his past as a bomber of U.S. Government facilities and more to do with the mismanagement of more than 100 million dollars that was spent by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC).
Although Obama is attempting to cover-up his relationship with Ayers, it’s indisputable that Obama was friends and colleagues with Ayers for many years. What does this say about his judgment? And what does it say about his character that he lied about his relationship with Ayers and then he attacks those who seek the truth?
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
* (Included in the 
* 
.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
