Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Kurtz on Ayers and Obama
Stanley Kurtz, who has been digging through the papers of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, reports his findings. Newshounds know that the CAC is the political/educational organization founded by Bill Ayers and on the board of which Barack Obama served. Its papers give one of the few documented glimpses into Obama's relationship with the radical left, the extent and breadth of which his campaign has assiduously de-emphasized, perhaps to the point of being misleading.
Kurtz has not yet uncovered anything really hideous, so I do not think this will hurt Obama much, even at the margin. I do, however, agree with this important point:
The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.
Right. It is not that Obama "knew" these people or went to pot-luck suppers with them. It is that he actively participated in and served on the board of an organization with an explicitly left-wing and arguably radical mission to transform education. With so few real insights into Barack Obama's true opinions, his association with Ayers and the CAC is freighted with more than "gotcha" significance. In both the real history and the Obama campaign's reaction to it, there is an important story about Barack Obama. The direction of that story remains unclear, and that is how Obama wants it to be.
8 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Tue Sep 23, 08:45:00 AM:
Membership and Mission of the Woods Fund:
2008
Laura S. Washington, Board Chair* - Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor and Fellow of the DePaul Humanities Center
Jesus G. Garcia, Vice Chair* - Executive Director, Little Village Community Development Corporation
William C. Ayers - Distinguished Professor of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago
Lee Bey - Director of Media and Governmental Affairs, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill LLP
Doris Salomon Chagin - Category Manager - Ethnic Markets, BP Products North America
Beth E. Richie - Professor and Head of the Department of African American Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
Patrick M. Sheahan - Executive Director, Public Affairs, UBS Investment Bank
Charles N. Wheatley - President, Sahara Enterprises, Inc.
Lucia Woods Lindley - Board Member Emeritus
Certainly sounds radical!
"The fund describes itself as "a grantmaking foundation whose goal is to increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities in the metropolitan area, including the opportunity to shape decisions affecting them. The foundation works primarily as a funding partner with nonprofit organizations. Woods supports nonprofits in their important roles of engaging people in civic life, addressing the causes of poverty and other challenges facing the region, promoting more effective public policies, reducing racism and other barriers to equal opportunity, and building a sense of community and common ground."
Oooooh! Scary!
By 
, at
Tue Sep 23, 09:25:00 AM:
If Ayers is involved it is radical, that this man is allowed to teach in a University certainly is scary - but I think we generally know that Universities are home quarters for all kinds of anti-American groups and thinking.
This Woods initiative is just more rabble rousing -- no matter how nicely worded their "mission" is, we don't need their misson. Who are all these people so involved with the school systems - stay out of them - let the Mayor, the schools and the parents help run them. Keep outsiders out who are only trying to get at minds at a young age.
By joated, at
Tue Sep 23, 09:38:00 AM:
This is the one time Obama could legitimately claim some administrative experience. (If you believe his claim to such in his campaign, you overlook the way campaigns are really run.) Yet, for all the money distributed via the Annenberg Challenge it had zero impact on the education of the kids it targeted and failed in any way to reach its goals.
That alone is reason enough to dig through the papers and to bring Obama's partiipation in this money hole into question.
By , at
Tue Sep 23, 09:50:00 AM:
I guess Guilt by Association only counts when your name is KEN LAY and BUSH..
By , at
Tue Sep 23, 11:30:00 AM:
After reading the snit by Ben Smith of "The Politico" last night, I left reminded that in this political season the 4th estate has done the American public a disservice.
After the Iraq War started, the 4th estate spent months before they finally decided that maybe they were vigilant enough with their reporting running up to the war.
In this election, the 4th estate repeats it's error by falling into the same trap.
Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me
In this election, the 4th estate has actually allowed one of the candidates to write his own narrative, based on two auto-biographical books, that is full of holes for large time sequences.
Today, with only 40 some days remaining till the election, a bit of one of those 4 year holes is filled in, but much is still left unknown.
Will the 4th estate be comtemplating the navel for that time or will they begin to ask the questions that will give the American people a complete story ?
Not only does the future of their craft stand in balance, the future of the country demands better.
If they are not up to the challenge .. we will look elsewhere.
By Thunderheart, at
Tue Sep 23, 10:40:00 PM:
TigerHawk,
I'm a Democrat, and I actually seem to be more concerned about this than you are!
I flip it this way -- if a rising Republican were to have worked for five years on "education reform" with a self-described "small f fascist" who also happened to be an unrepentant abortion clinic bomber (think Eric Rudolph, only that he didn't kill anyone and was acquitted due to a technicality as Ayers was) -- well, I don't think that Republican's political future would be too bright.
So I am amazed that Obama has gotten away for this long with the Rev. Wright association which would be troubling enough, but also with the similarly-lengthy Ayers association.
By Noumenon, at
Wed Sep 24, 08:03:00 AM:
This post is astonishingly fair and balanced. If this story gets any traction it will be from posts like this that aren't frothing at the mouth about Ayers, but make people say "So what can we learn about Obama from his work at the CAC board anyway?"
It's almost too late, though, so many people already think they know enough about him to make up their minds.
By , at
Mon Sep 29, 01:58:00 AM:
Bill Ayers is lower then a worm possibly the lowest form of life in the universe HANG BILL AYERS
