Therefore every conservative politician who attended Jerry Falwell's ministries on a regular basis is suspect, even if s/he disowns the worst statements.


Huh? I know the great, fair and balanced WorldNetDaily's story on Obama's connections to Ayers and Khalidi has been circulated widely by the GOP, conservative bloggers and others, but Ayers did not hold an Obama fundraiser. Ayers donated $200 to Obama's Illinois reelection campaign.

Not that this should matter to you. It is just like Aryan groups donating money to Ron Paul. Obama need not be at Khalidi's fundraising event to associate with him (though he did have a terrible lapse of judgment by stepping into Ayers's house).


Even WND says Khalidi "reportedly" worked for the PLO and "reportedly" was director for WAFA. You can read more reportedlys and accuseds in Khalidi's Wiki page.

His judgment and those of officers from UBS, Owings & Merrill, BP & Skidmore. And technically, the grant went to AAAN. Not that it makes much of a difference in today's political climate. Anything remotely Palestinian-related is as good as a terrorist group, and calling Israel an apartheid state is as good as asking for a second Holocaust.


I don't know enough about this to comment.

Actually, Doclotus, I don't need to acknowledge that was kind funny because it wasn't funny to me. I don't find the sexist objectification of women in general and Black women specifically to be the least bit "funny."

Humor is subjective. What makes one person split their sides laughing leaves another person sitting there stone faced. I have a sense of humor, but I don't agree that remark was funny and particularly not when it's part of the systematic degradation of African-American life that is standard programming on BET.



Oh, give it a rest, carlitoswhey. Watch something more substantial than Faux News. That propaganda will rot your mind.

I am bored and tired of all this guilt-by-association "gotcha" politics both in the national media and all over this board. Am I supposed to get all bent out of shape over William Ayers?

If the mayor of Chicago isn't concerned , I don't see any reason why I should be.

There are a lot of reasons that Americans are angry about Washington politics. And one more example is the way Senator Obama’s opponents are playing guilt-by-association, tarring him because he happens to know Bill Ayers.

I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally-renowned school reform program. He is a nationally-recognized distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois/Chicago and a valued member of the Chicago community.

I don’t condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep re-fighting 40 year old battles. link

If you have proof that Ayers is still involved in anti-American activities, carlitoswhey, then report it to the Department of Homeland Security like a good citizen. Personally, I could give a damn.

This is just the latest in a series of pointless and trivial distractions being throw at Obama in hopes that if you throw enough slime at him, some of it will stick. I'm not impressed and I'm not interested.

I think you're overstating the "America-hating leftist" line a little. Obama was saying that he "surrounds himself" with all kinds of people - people as diverse as William Ayers and Tom Coburn and that neither especially affects his own beliefs. I don't think he was implying any sort of comparison or connection between the two men - apart from himself.

That said, Obama's "associations" will figure in the general election and it will be people who have made direct contributions to his life and campaign that will figure more prominently than Capitol Hill colleagues. Ultimately, in electability terms, the Ayers and Rezco and Giannoulias "associations" will matter as much as the Wright "association" - no matter how many names of conservative associates Obama can drop (and he'd want to be careful about associating himself too closely with boneheaded embarrassments to the Republican Party like Tom Coburn, for Christ's sake).

I agree with your more recent assessment of Obama's judgment (and you've but scratched the surface, to my mind, in terms of the senator's consistently appalling judgment) and some of his more inept attempts to rationalize his "associations", though I still think you're unnecessarily exaggerating the latter.

Just a side note here: Tom Coburn may be "pro-life" when he's stumping for votes - not so much when he's performing abortions himself or advocating the death penalty for other doctors who do what he has done.



Oh, yeah - that's a real comfort. Actually, I suspect that more people here would put me in the "misguided Clinton supporter" pigeonhole, to wit:
But it's a mistake to assume that my serious reservations about Sen. Obama in any way represent a reciprocal lack of reservations about Sen. Clinton. I think Obama is a poor candidate, especially now, and that, to large extent, Clinton is simply the only viable alternative. I do think she would make a far better president than Obama, but I don't think she would have made a better president than most of the other Democratic contenders. (Despite nighttimer's spin elsewhere, I was only advocating the gender difference in a thread that was specifically discussing sexism in the campaign.)


My frustration and anger are not directed at Obama's policy agenda (though I do have a few problems with it). They are related to his ability to effect any of the "change" he keeps discussing (and, for a start, his ability to win the election in the first place) - his knowledge and experience of national politics, his history of compromise, his super-apparent divisiveness in spite of his claims to being a unifying force, his politically damaging and easily exploitable "associations", his absenteeism during the course of his political career - well, you really don't want me to go through my entire litany of reservations. Suffice it to say that I could have lived with the policy proposals of any of the Democratic contenders (and at least one of the Republican contenders) - and it is not on those grounds that I have my doubts about Sen. Obama.


Well, we'll see. If Obama wins the nomination and loses the general, it's going to take a while for me to calm down. And if he wins the general, it'll be at least another year or two (after the 2010 election, perhaps) before I'll potentially feel "calm" enough to start warming to Citizen Obama. Unless, of course, all this charisma and brilliant public speaking and supernatural power to bring people together to effect change and so on that I keep hearing about finally start manifesting themselves and I'm won over in an instant. Having read his "Blueprint for America", having sat through every Democratic debate so far, having watched hours of YouTube clips, and having seen Sen. Obama speak in person for what seemed like hours, I keep wondering what he's waiting for. If I could leap tall buildings in a single bound, I'd be doing it - and I'd have taken Clinton out with my heat-ray vision long ago.

Nevertheless, I trust we can continue discussing the issues with civility and affection regardless of which side we're on. I've had pretty friendly relations with a number of traditional "opponents" here - Hobbes, Aquilla, Baphomet's Advocate, even Amlord sometimes - and, lately, people like you and nighttimer and Doclotus and entspeak and BoF - and I'm sure that we'll all weather the current turmoil, whether we ultimately agree on every issue (or elected official) or not.



Women? Who was talking about women?? And the butt wiggling to which I cling knows no racial boundaries.


And, NT, seriously - you may not care about the "association" memes (and I've already said that I agree with many of Wright's sentiments and now admit that I kinda liked the Weathermen early on when they were part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement within the SDS), but it's folly to think that these won't figure in the general election campaign. You may be no more impressed or interested in these attacks than you might have been in the Swift Boat Veterans campaign, but that doesn't mean they'll just go away, leaving the election results unaffected. (And some of them - Rezco, for example - should be of concern to every voter.)

ANYONE (and I do mean ANYONE) that rises in politics to the level of a Clinton, McCain and Obama to be within striking distance of The White House has already associated, met with, known, accepted money from, done favors for, interceded on the behalf of, pardoned, or otherwise struck up a strange relationship with some of the most scurvy, unsavory and shady human beings on the planet.

I support Barack Obama, but in doing so, I didn't turn off my b.s detector. I just turned it down. No, the questions about his associations won't go away. But it's better to get them out in the open and aired in the spring than waiting for the fall.

We aren't electing a pope. There was one in town this week, but he's not up for election. With that in mind, do I expect some of Obama's statements and remarks to come back to bite him in the tush? Yeah. I do.

But so what? Who among us doesn't have at least one or two friends, associates or crazy uncles in the attic that could spring out and make us look like a complete dolt?

Barack Obama will have to keep answering questions about William Ayers and Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright. But Hillary Clinton has more than a few questionable relationships of her own that could make life difficult for her in a general election.

And we have much more to hear about Grandpa Simpson--err...Senator McCain's association with far-right fanatics like the Reverend John Hagee and his thoughts about Harry Potter fans:

"As millions of people anticipate the release of the latest Harry Potter book and film, we're reminded once again of Satan's ongoing attempt to deceive and destroy. The whole purpose of the Potter books is to desensitize readers and introduce them to the occult."

and Reverend Rod Parsley's thoughts about America versus Islam: I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

Sooner or later, the mainstream media is going to have to start asking Mr. Straight Talk why he covets the endorsement of right-wing fanatics like Parsley and Hagee.

It's not that I don't care about the skeletons in Obama's closet, Wertz. I know they are there and he will have to answer for them. But so will Clinton and McCain. I don't think their dirty laundry smells any better than Obama's.

It's all part of the price of the ticket and we get to share the ride right along with them.

Perhaps you can enlighten me. I don't usually watch any news, let alone Fox News. But, even if I did, how does this silly response address my argument?


Well, I'll be sure to tell the mayor that the Black establishment in Ohio is stepping to his tune, just like here. Are you 100% sure that this "guilt by association" is a non-issue for American voters? Because even you couldn't stay "bored and tired" of it for more than 9 hours before you referred to the Hagee thing. As for the depth and breadth of skeletons, I promise you that anyone coming from the Chicago Democratic machine has more skeletons than their opponent. It's impossible not to..

Lesly, I can't find the relevant Tribune article now, but I know for a fact that Ayers and his terrorist wife hosted the Obamas at their home in Kenwood, back when he was running against Alice Palmer for the state house. Maybe it wasn't a fundraiser, but it was a party for a political campaign, and the who's who of the University of Chicago left were in attendance. As for Khalidi, we will probably never know, but for sure he once referred to the PLO as "we" in the New York Times, and his wife indeed worked for WAFA. I suppose that, being a liberated Muslim woman living in the Middle East, her husband had no idea what she was up to, but reasonable people could disagree...

My "silly" response was appropriate in response to your silly and hyperbolic post. Don't like the effect? Don't produce the cause. If you don't watch any news perhaps this is a sign you should start.



I got some rest. Barack Obama is the one who is trying to play a different style of politics. I'm not entirely ready to give up on the old style just quite yet.

Let me get this straight – a print journalist is encouraging me to get my news from television? Are you serious?

I listened to the debate live on the radio. Obama had his lunch handed to him with a serious of questions that have been “out there” in the blogs for months, and in the case of Rev Wright, since before he declared his candidacy. You could feel how upset he was with Gibson and Stephanopolis just from the tone of his voice. Obama was not ready for prime time, and his answers were just batty. Capital gains taxes should go up even if it means less revenue, “just to be fair?” Launching his campaign at a terrorist’s house doesn’t matter because the guy hasn’t killed anyone for 40 years? Associating with Ayers is OK because Tom Coburn once said something with which Barack disagrees?

If the answers to those questions show how Senator Obama really thinks, then he is a dead duck. And “faux news” doesn’t have a thing to do with it.