Branding Obama UnAmerican Is Unfair Smear
Link to Dr. Bill Ayers Attempts Guilt by Association
Oct 6, 2008
This smear effort shows disregard for historical accuracy, confuses “is” and “was” and reflects poorly upon the McCain-Palin campaign.
White working-class voters keep being told by the right that Barack Obama is a Muslim who hung with bomb-throwing radicals during his childhood in the late 1960s, says New York Times columnist Frank Rich in his Oct. 4 column titled “Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain.”
It was another Oct. 4 New York Times article that Palin based her out-of-context remarks upon.
Bill Ayers: Radical Protester to Respected Educator
The reference is to Bill Ayers, 63, honored as Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois. He worked with Obama on educational projects. It is common for community organizers to work with various segments of the wider community.
Dr. Ayers has edited and written many books and articles on education theory, policy and practice. He worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley on the city's school reform program, co-authoring a grant proposal that in 1995 won $49.2 million for public school reform.
The article Palin read doesn't show close ties between Ayers and Obama. It also quotes Daley saying Dr. Ayers has “done a lot of good in this city and nationally."
The Weathermen Days
Bill Ayers was a founder of Weatherman, known for violent riots in Chicago from Oct. 8 to Oct. 11, 1969. There is no doubt that he “was” a very radical left wing protester.
Palin probably knows little about this violent segment of the wider countrywide student protests against the Vietnam War. She was only five years old.
Of course Obama was only eight years old and didn’t spend any of his childhood in Chicago.
Weatherman was a radical spin off of Students for a Democratic Society. Its name is from a Bob Dylan song with lyrics "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." It was meant to appeal to American youth inspired by Dylan’s songs.
“Our opponent though is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin told an Englewood, Colorado fund-raiser. The “is” of this is that Bill Ayers is a long way from being a terrorist that would launch any attack upon our country.
Character Assassination
Should Palin continue this immoral character assassination she could heighten polarization of our society. Polarization lays the groundwork for riots and even more dangerous displays of outrage. Already a few people attending her rallies have reportedly yelled such words as "get him" and "kill him".
That neither McCain nor Palin has expressed open displeasure with this sort of behavior is unconscionable. People of goodwill everywhere should challenge Palin to prove her accusations or withdraw them.
Guilt by association is unfair. Should Palin sit next to Jane Fonda at a fund-raiser she would be furious if someone associated her with Fonda’s social activism. Politically, the two are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Attacking Palin in such a way would also be unfair to Jane Fonda, who recanted support of the Black Panthers and who deserves credit for doing much good.
SOURCES: Fusco, Chris; Pallasch, Abdon M. (April 18, 2008) "Who Is Bill Ayers?", Chicago Sun-Times; "Fugitive Days: A Memoir," Bill Ayers autobiography (Houghton Mifflin: 2001; Jane Fonda Profile, Hello Magazine, April 2, 2006.
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