The Independent View

Why is Barack Obama and his cam­paign lying about his rela­tion­ship and asso­ci­a­tion with William “Bill” Ayers? Con­sider what Obama said on April 16, 2008 when asked about Ayers at the ABC Pri­mary Debate in Philadelphia:

“This is a guy who lives in my neigh­bor­hood, who’s a pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some offi­cial endorse­ment from. He’s not some­body who I exchange ideas from on a reg­u­lar basis. And the notion that some­how as a con­se­quence of me know­ing some­body who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, some­how reflects on me and my val­ues doesn’t make much sense…”

The very next day, the Obama cam­paign posted on its Web site under the title “Fact Check on Obama and Ayers” the fol­low­ing, each pref­aced with “Real­ity” and backed up with one or media reports:

• Obama was eight years old when the Weath­er­men were active
• Ayers con­nec­tion is “phony,” “ten­u­ous,” “a stretch”
• Ayers com­ments were pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 11; the inter­view occurred prior to publication
• Ayers is a tenured pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois at Chicago and was a “respected adviser” to Mayor Daley on school reform.
• Charges against Ayers were dropped and he served no time

Obama con­tin­ued his lies about Ayers when he appeared on Fox News Sun­day, April 27. Barack repeated the claim that, “Mr. Ayres (sic) is a 60 plus year old indi­vid­ual who lives in my neigh­bor­hood…” (Fox News, April 27, 2008).

The cam­paign to per­suade the pub­lic that Barack barely knew Ayers got a boost on August 21, 2008 from Truth​Fight​s​Back​.com (John Kerry’s Web site for the Obama cam­paign). The site trum­peted, “Barack Obama Barely Knows William Ayers” and wrote that “The Repub­li­cans, des­per­ate to smear Barack and try to build on their lies about his reli­gion, insin­u­ate that Barack Obama has a deep rela­tion­ship with William Ayers. William Ayers was once a mem­ber of a rad­i­cal group in the 1960s.” Truth​Fight​s​Back​.com calls this lie “The Truth” under the title Barack Obama Barely Knows William Ayers:

“Barack Obama lived in the same area of Chicago as Ayers, and Ayers has been a polit­i­cally active mem­ber of that com­mu­nity for years. Con­sid­er­ing that, it’s actu­ally remark­able how lit­tle the two have to do with each other. Early in Barack Obama’s career, he attended one recep­tion in his honor at Ayers’s house. They also were sep­a­rately asked by a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion to serve on that organization’s board. And that’s it. There’s no friend­ship between the two, no rela­tion­ship, no his­tory of work­ing together.”

The Obama team’s effort to cover up Barack’s ties to Ayers included an orga­nized cam­paign to intim­i­date a Chicago radio sta­tion (WGN) that planned to inter­view Stan­ley Kurtz, who had suc­ceeded in exam­in­ing doc­u­ments from the Chicago Annen­berg Chal­lenge (CAC). The cam­paign emailed an Obama Action Wire to its sup­port­ers encour­ag­ing them to call in to the show and use fol­low­ing talk­ing points (as found on the report form for sup­port­ers to log their call):

• William Ayers was involved with the Weather Under­ground when Barack Obama was eight years old, and Barack has roundly con­demned their actions.
• Last night on Fox News, Kurtz tried to rad­i­cal­ize an edu­ca­tion reform pro­gram in Chicago called the Annen­berg Chal­lenge. The Chal­lenge was funded by Repub­li­can Wal­ter Annen­berg, intro­duced by Mayor Daley and Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Jim Edgar, and one of its ini­tia­tives was even praised by John McCain.
• Kurtz claimed on Fox News that William Ayers recruited Obama to the Annen­berg Chal­lenge — a flat out lie. Ayers did not serve on the board of the Chal­lenge, and he had noth­ing to do with Barack’s recruitment.

Lies, big lies, and damned lies. The Obama team offers a disin­gen­u­ous blend of fact and fic­tion in try­ing to cover up the true rela­tion­ship between Obama and Ayers. The devil is in the details and details do matter:

Ayers is just a guy who lives in my neigh­bor­hood, a tenured pro­fes­sor, and adviser to the local mayor

Ayers does live in Barack’s neigh­bor­hood (or vice versa). In fact, Barack and Bill cur­rently live about two blocks apart on Green­wood Avenue and 50^th Street. And before Barack’s “bone­headed” deal with con­victed felon Rezko to pur­chase the Green­wood man­sion, Obama lived about 1−1÷4 miles from Bill. But the dis­mis­sive “just a guy who lives in my neigh­bor­hood” is a lie because Ayers was not just some fel­low Barack bumped into at the cor­ner mar­ket. They have a rela­tion­ship that goes back nearly 20 years. Ayers was Barack’s friend, employer, col­league, and polit­i­cal supporter.

Ayers also is a tenured pro­fes­sor and mul­ti­ple reports indi­cate he also is a buddy of Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley. In fact, Mayor Daley has defended him dur­ing the cam­paign say­ing they’ve worked together, that Bill Ayers is a respected edu­ca­tor, and val­ued mem­ber of the Chicago com­mu­nity (Chicago Tri­bune, April 17, 2008).

It is unfair to say that Ayers’ actions 40 years ago when I was only eight should reflect upon me; any­way, charges against him where dropped and he did not serve any jail time. Plus, I’ve con­demned the group’s actions

False. It is entirely fair to judge Barack by the peo­ple he sur­rounds him­self with. Bill Ayer’s may have beat the ter­ror­ism charges but he has remained res­olutely unre­pen­tant about his actions. In 1981 David Horowitz quotes him brag­ging “Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. Amer­ica is a great coun­try.” In 2001 he is quoted say­ing “I don’t regret set­tings bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” (New York Times, Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001). Bill’s wife, Berna­dine Dohrn went to jail rather than aid the gov­ern­ment after the deadly Brinks armored car rob­bery. I like the com­ment at Hot Air (Feb­ru­ary 24, 2008) where See-​Dubya expresses con­cern about Barack’s “…fright­en­ing tone-​deafness toward ter­ror­ism, and a blithe igno­rance of the evil and chaos these rad­i­cals represent.”

Any con­nec­tion to Ayers is phony, ten­u­ous, or a stretch. It is ridicu­lous to sug­gest any tie with Ayers

False. Every­thing dis­cov­ered to date unde­ni­ably doc­u­ment that Barack Obama and Bill Ayers have per­sonal, pro­fes­sional, and polit­i­cal ties that span nearly 20 years. Steve Dia­mond believes they likely first met in 1988 fol­low­ing Chicago’s teacher’s strike. Barack was hired into a Woods Fund spon­sored posi­tion with Devel­op­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Project that was a mem­ber of Bill Ayers’ Alliance for Bet­ter Chicago Schools (ABCs) (Global Labor and Pol­i­tics, June 7, 2008).

Con­sider as well:

• In Novem­ber 20, 1997. Michelle Obama, then Asso­ciate Dean of Stu­dent Ser­vices and Direc­tor of the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago Com­mu­nity Ser­vice Cen­ter, orga­nized and par­tic­i­pated in a panel that included Barack and Bill, Should a child ever be called a “super preda­tor?” at the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago. See also, Chicago Tri­bune.
• In 1997 Barack wrote a review of Bill’s book “A Kind and Just Par­ent: The Chil­dren of Juve­nile Court”. Chicago Tri­bune pub­lished a blurb from Obama about books he was read­ing. See also USA Today.
• April 19 – 20, 2002, Barack, Bill, and Berna­dine par­tic­i­pated in a con­fer­ence and panel “Intel­lec­tu­als: Who Needs Them?”. See also, Chicago Tri­bune.
• Feb­ru­ary 2005. Barack and Bill par­tic­i­pated in a con­fer­ence and din­ner for Rashid Kha­lidi at Colum­bia wherein they offered tes­ti­mo­ni­als to Kha­lidi. Mayor Daley also attended this hate-​fest. (See The Sun and Cam­pus Watch for some com­men­tary. Kha­lidi sub­se­quently lost his posi­tion at Colum­bia because of his com­ments, see New York Times.)

Ayers did not help launch my career

False. Back in 1995 after Barack Obama had returned to Chicago upon grad­u­at­ing from Har­vard Law School, Bill Ayers hired the young Barack, then a third year asso­ciate at Davis, miner, Barn­hill & Gal­lad. Together they spent upwards to $160 mil­lion dol­lars over the next seven years. As well, Bill and his wife Berna­dine Dohrn feted him to the com­mu­nity as then-​State Sen­a­tor Palmer’s successor.

Early in Barack Obama’s career, he attended one recep­tion in his honor at Ayers’ house

Not the whole truth. This was not a meet and greet recep­tion. And Barack had more than one iso­lated sit down with Ayers and Dohrn. The Ayers/​Dohrn home is where Barack Obama launched his cam­paign to oust then-​State Sen­a­tor Alice Palmer. This recep­tion is reported in numer­ous arti­cles includ­ing Ben Smith in Politico (Feb­ru­ary 22). Maria War­ren writes about this gath­er­ing in her blog Mus­ings & Migraines on Jan­u­ary 27, 2005, “When I first met Barack Obama, he was giv­ing a stan­dard, innocu­ous lit­tle talk in the liv­ing room of those two legends-​in-​their-​own-​minds, Bill Ayers and Bernar­dine Dohrn. They were launch­ing him – intro­duc­ing him to the Hyde Park com­mu­nity as the best thing since sliced bread.” Ari Berman also reports in The Nation (May 1) that Bill hosted a fundraiser for Barack in 1996. (Pos­si­bly an error on Berman’s part as this might be the 1995 event since there is no other men­tion of a 1996 fundraiser.)

Ayers had noth­ing to do with my join­ing Annen­berg Chal­lenge. He did not recruit me, nor did he serve on its board

False. Bill Ayers founded the Chicago Annen­berg Chal­lenge, secured the ini­tial $50 mil­lion from Annen­berg Chal­lenge, and claims to have co-​chaired the Col­lab­o­ra­tive it with Barack Obama. While there is noth­ing to explic­itly prove that Bill recruited Barack, it is sim­ply not cred­i­ble to say that Bill Ayers had noth­ing to do with Barack Obama join­ing the organization.

I do not exchange ideas with Ayers

Really? Can you say the same thing about your com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor, David Axel­rod? Accord­ing to a source who attended the Demo­c­ra­tic National con­ven­tion in Den­ver, an old friend of Ayer’s bragged that Axel­rod and Ayers are in reg­u­lar con­tact and coör­di­nat­ing on how to respond to the claims about the Ayers/​Obama relationship.

Ayers has not ‘offi­cially’ endorsed me

Really? So he’s back­ing McCain? The issue is not who Ayers has endorsed. The issue remains – why did Barack hang out for so many years with a guy like Ayers. Endorse­ment or not, it is a ques­tion that matter.

Ayers has been a polit­i­cally active mem­ber of that com­mu­nity for years

True. First, as a home-​grown domes­tic ter­ror­ist, then since around 1987 as a com­mu­nity activist, orga­nizer, and financier. As Lynn Sweet wrote in the Chicago Sun-​Times (March 3), “Hyde Park wel­comed William Ayers and Bernar­dine Dohrn to the neigh­bor­hood after they resur­faced as local civic lead­ers fol­low­ing their years on the lam as mem­bers of the Weather Under­ground.” She notes Ben Smith observ­ing in Politico (Feb­ru­ary 22), “While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re bet­ter known nation­ally as two of the most noto­ri­ous — and unre­pen­tant — fig­ures from the vio­lent fringe of the 1960s anti-​war movement.”

Con­sid­er­ing that, it’s actu­ally remark­able how lit­tle the two have to do with each other

Oh yeah?! Now this is where the lying really begins. As is increas­ingly clear, they worked together and shared the same cir­cle of friends and fam­i­lies, same busi­ness asso­ciates, and same polit­i­cal associates.

They also were sep­a­rately asked by a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion to serve on that organization’s board

Not true. They were involved in at least three dif­fer­ent “char­i­ta­ble” orga­ni­za­tions. There was the Woods Fund of Chicago, which Barack joined 1993 and Bill Ayers joined in 1997. But what about the Chicago Annen­berg Chal­lenge, which Ayers founded and worked on with Barack Obama from 1995 through 1999. While Barack chaired the Chal­lenge, Bill co-​chaired its Col­lab­o­ra­tive arm. This was actu­ally three con­nected orga­ni­za­tions: Chicago Annen­berg Chal­lenge (CAC, the Board), Chicago School Reform Col­lab­o­ra­tive (the Col­lab­o­ra­tive, and Con­sor­tium of Chicago Schools Research (CCSR).

And that’s it. There’s no friend­ship between the two…

Ben Smith in Politico (Feb­ru­ary 22) writes that Dr. Quentin Young, a promi­nent Chicago physi­cian, told him that they were “friends”. At the time Smith dis­missed this for lack of sup­port­ing infor­ma­tion and the denial by Barack Obama. (I won­der if Smith has since recon­sid­ered?). Mayor Daley now says they are friends. Even Bill Bur­ton acknowl­edges that they were friends.

…no rela­tion­ship

False. They have fam­ily, com­mu­nity, busi­ness, and polit­i­cal ties. The only tie they appear to not share regards religion.

…no his­tory of work­ing together

False. Why is the media so reluc­tant to explore the CAC relationship?

At the risk of being redun­dant, some­time in 1987 Bill and Berna­dine returned home to Chicago, where both had fam­ily. Michelle likely already knew both through her Robin­son fam­ily ties and then in her 1988 work at Sid­ley Austin, where Bernar­dine was also employed. It is likely that Barack at least knew of Bill Ayers because he was already involv­ing him­self among with the Ayers fam­ily and their play­ers in the com­mu­nity. Bill Ayers oper­ated in rel­a­tive obscu­rity until Feb­ru­ary 2008 when his ties to Barack and Michelle Obama became a mat­ter of dis­cus­sion in Barack’s pres­i­den­tial aspirations.

As a com­mu­nity orga­nizer in Chicago from 1985 to 1988 Barack Obama received fund­ing from and worked with numer­ous groups, such as Devel­op­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Project. Bill Ayers joined in this arena upon his return in 1987 through his own group, Alliance for Bet­ter Chicago Schools (ABCs). They both surely crossed paths as Ayer’s father, Tom, pro­vided fund­ing to Barack and Bill through Chicago United, a group of busi­ness­men con­cerned about race and edu­ca­tion issues in Chicago. Tom Ayers was once CEO of Com­mon­wealth Edi­son (now Exelon) (Steve Dia­mond, Global Labor and Pol­i­tics, June 18, 2008). Michelle, the Robin­son daugh­ter, con­tin­ued her own involve­ment but details are murky at best. Barack Obama shows up again in Chicago after grad­u­at­ing from Har­vard Law School, ends up at Davis Miner Barn­hill & Gal­land, and joins the Woods Fund board, 1993, as a freshly minted 32 year old law school grad­u­ate, where he remained through 2002 and con­tin­ued asso­ci­a­tion with until gain­ing a seat in the U.S. Sen­ate. Bill Ayers for­mally joined the board in 1999 but had ties through­out the ear­lier years, includ­ing receiv­ing funds from the group.

Any­way, in 1993 Bill began orga­niz­ing the Chicago Annen­berg Chal­lenge. Despite his unre­pen­tant ter­ror­ist past he suc­ceeded in secur­ing nearly $50 mil­lion from Annen­berg Chal­lenge and imme­di­ately named Barack as his co-​chair. Together over the next five years they spent at least $110 mil­lion for “rad­i­cal” school reform in Chicago (Steve Dia­mond, Global Labor and Pol­i­tics, June 18, 2008 and August 18, 2008). Then, or shortly after­ward, the remains of the Chicago Annen­berg Chal­lenge was handed over to Chicago Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion Fund.

This was a small cir­cle of peo­ple, fam­i­lies, and busi­nesses. They were fig­u­ra­tively part­ners in crime, Chicago’s polit­i­cal mafia enrich­ing them­selves through their polit­i­cal posi­tion, through fed­eral, local, and state fund­ing, and through their posi­tions and funds given from pri­vate orga­ni­za­tions, espe­cially, of imme­di­ately focus here, from the Woods Fund and Annen­berg Chal­lenge. It is likely that there are other orga­ni­za­tions and peo­ple involved and this needs to be explored fur­ther. Stan­ley Kurtz, Steve Dia­mond, and oth­ers are now begin­ning to look into what Annen­berg Chal­lenge did with its more than $160 mil­lion in pri­vate and fed­eral dollars.

But first, let’s get back to Barack, Bill, and Berna­dine. Again, Michelle plays at least a bit role in this but to what extent is still unclear. Over the years Barack, Bill, Berna­dine, and Michelle show up together, along with other Chicago fig­ures that include Rev. Wright, Min­is­ter Far­rakhan, Rev. Meeks, Rev. Pfleger, Sen. Jones, and many, many more. Through­out this Barack also had his early ties with friend, busi­ness­man, and polit­i­cal financier Tony Rezko and Rezko’s part­ners and asso­ciates. And finally, let’s also not for­get orga­ni­za­tions that received fund­ing from Barack and Bill, such as:

• Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­nity Orga­ni­za­tions for Reform Now (ACORN)
• Arab Amer­i­can Action Net­work (AAAN) founded by hus­band and wife Rashid and Mona Khalidi.
• Maoist Mike Klon­sky, another ter­ror­ist mem­ber of the Weatherman
• Chil­dren and Fam­ily Jus­tice Cen­ter, Bernardine’s organization.
• Trin­ity Unity Church and Rev. Wright.

Finally, what role did Barack’s posi­tion as a sit­ting state sen­a­tor play in all of this?

Sum­mary

Fairly or not, Chicago has a long rep­u­ta­tion as a cor­rupt polit­i­cal city. It is increas­ingly clear that Barack joined and became a will­ing part­ner in this cor­rup­tion. The fam­i­lies, orga­ni­za­tions, and busi­nesses involved enriched them­selves off of the pri­vate and pub­lic funds that Barack con­trolled. That Barack Obama lied and con­tin­ues to lie about his rela­tion­ship with Bill Ayers is a smoke­screen and the tip-​of-​the-​iceberg about the depth of his involve­ment in what are, or may be, cor­rupt prac­tices among these peo­ple and their organizations.

A Bit of Back­ground and Unre­solved Items

As long as this post is, it is still embar­rass­ingly incom­plete. In writ­ing this I have read every post at Larry Johnson’s NoQuar­terUSA and Steve Diamond’s Global Labor and Pol­i­tics blogs involv­ing ter­ror­ist William Ayers. I also dug through scores of arti­cles and posts at var­i­ous media sites and blogs. While some mat­ters are con­sis­tently reported, oth­ers vary sig­nif­i­cantly. I’m sure I’ve missed many salient points.

It is espe­cially dra­matic to read ear­lier com­pared to newer posts. Con­sider Ben Smith’s “Obama once vis­ited ‘60s rad­i­cals” from Feb­ru­ary 22, 2008. The title alone shows the naivety of Ben and every­one about the level of Obama’s involve­ment with Bill and Berna­dine. That Obama let such false pic­ture spread with­out cor­rec­tion, includ­ing then and now on his cam­paign Web sites, fur­ther reflects his clear intent to deceive voters.

Four unre­solved items in an incom­plete list of ques­tions are:

• What is Michelle’s involve­ment in all of this?
• How did Barack’s role in the Illi­nois Sen­ate affect or was a part of all of this?
• What are Barack’s other board and orga­ni­za­tion memberships?
• Where did the money go? E.g., to friends, fam­ily, per­sonal and pro­fes­sional asso­ciates, and polit­i­cal cronies?

Sug­gested Readings

The body of evi­dence and dis­cus­sion on the rela­tion­ship among and between Barack and Michelle Obama, William Ayers, and his wife, Berna­dine Dohrn is grow­ing daily. As we get beyond the lies and begin to fol­low the money I rec­om­mend read­ing the following:

• Larry John­son at his Web site NoQuar­terUSA and as I have sum­ma­rized here.
• Steve Dia­mond at Global Labor and Pol­i­tics and as often pub­lished at NoQuarterUSA.
• Stan­ley Kurtz at National Review has made a start and it will be worth watch­ing to see what he devel­ops as he researches the Chicago Annen­berg Chal­lenge papers he’s now gained access to.
• Selected arti­cles from mul­ti­ple sources are sum­ma­rized here.
• My posts at The Prob­lem With Obama and The Inde­pen­dent View.

Matthew Weaver

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