L.A. Times Gives Bill Ayers a Puff Piece
The L.A. Times gives Bill Ayers a little unrebutted puff piece today, allowing Ayers to claim, without any opposing viewpoint, that he is being misrepresented in the media.
Ayers, of course, is the Weather Underground terrorist (now a professor who spoke fondly of bombings as recently as September 2001) who has been described as “friendly” with Obama. In February, Obama strategist David Axelrod described Obama and Ayers as friendly acquaintances:
“Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school,” [Axelrod] said. “They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”
This article further explains:
Ayers was loosely involved in Obama’s election as an Illinois state senator in the late 1990s, when he was introduced to local activists at a meeting in his house. He also donated $200 to Obama’s reelection campaign in 2001.
Obama served with Ayers on the board of the Woods Fund, a philanthropic foundation, for three years and shared a platform with him at two academic conferences.
The L.A. Times allows Ayers to portray his terrorist attitude as ancient history, in a piece titled Ex-radical William Ayers keeps low profile. The deck headline reads: “The Weatherman founding member, now a professor, says he wants to avoid fueling his ‘cartoon’ media image. So he won’t be discussing his ties to Obama.” And the lede reads as follows:
William Ayers, a former radical leader turned academic and school reformer, has never been hesitant to speak his mind.
Although there has been no public response from him since his ties to Barack Obama — the two neighbors served on a charity board together for three years — were referenced during last week’s Democratic debate in Philadelphia, Ayers said Wednesday that he has a good reason.
He doesn’t want to feed the flawed “narrative” out in the media, he said, one that has commentators on Ayers’ own blog wondering why someone hasn’t shot him dead yet.
“It’s a cartoon” that people are reacting to, said Ayers, a professor of education, in a brief chat at his University of Illinois at Chicago office.
There’s one little detail left out of this puff piece: just how “ex” are the pro-bombing views of this “ex-radical”? Not as “ex” as they ought to be, according to this New York Times article published, inappropriately enough, on September 11, 2001 (although the interview obviously occurred earlier):
”I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. ”I feel we didn’t do enough.” Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970’s as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings. And he still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure in the radical student movement.
Tattoos can be removed, if a person really wants to do it. But why would they, when they still believe in the principles of the criminal organization whose murderous goals are symbolized by that tattoo?
How can any responsible profile of Bill Ayers leave out the tidbit that he spoke approvingly of the concept of setting bombs only 6 1/2 years ago? Or fail to speak to even one person who might have pointed that out?
But then, who said this profile was bound to be responsible? It was published in the L.A. Times.
Do you think we’ll see Ayers in Denver?
nk (35ac33) — 4/24/2008 @ 8:05 amAccept that Axelrod is lying about the Obama – Ayers relationships. Their kids don’t go to the same kids — they have about a 20 year age difference. Ayers and Obama have a shared political and ideological relationship, they’ve been college forum buddies who cooperate to put on programs about education, left wing politics, and kids — often set up by Michelle Obama herself. A quick google search will give you the links and sources on this — mostly university press releases.
PrestoPundit (ff5e16) — 4/24/2008 @ 8:13 amSorry — make that “their kids didn’t go to the same school.”
PrestoPundit (ff5e16) — 4/24/2008 @ 8:14 amhe still has a tattoo!
stef (46c091) — 4/24/2008 @ 8:50 amHe is being misrepresented. He’s not being portrayed as a bomb-setting terrorist!
htom (412a17) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:03 amIf ever there was a candidate for an American Citizen being sent to GTMO, this is the guy.
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:21 am“Born to wealth in the upscale Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, Ayers, like thousands of other young Americans at the time, was moved to political action by the Vietnam War.”…LAT.
In short, he just didn’t want to be drafted. Ayers was either spoiled, scared or both.
For that metter, I didn’t want to be “drafted”. I had signed an Air Force contract while I was still in high school in 1965 before war was even an issue. When Vietnam escalated, so did enlistments in the Air force and the Navy. By the time my Air Force number was called, I was already drafted by the US Army. I didn’t blow things up in my own country in a selfish fit of pique.
Norris (e3b173) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:24 amI wonder if it was the LATimes that Ayers bombed instead of the Pentagon if this puff piece would have been so kind?
PCD (5c49b0) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:30 am“Murderous goals”. That’s fucking stupid. The Weathermen went out of their way to make sure the buildings they bombed were unoccupied. The Brinks robbery was an anomaly, carried out by a bunch of murderous morons; Ayers, if you’ll recall, was not one of them.
Leviticus (3c2c59) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:40 amThe L.A. SLIMES the best kind or propeganda a terrorists kind buy i hope they end up losing several hundred subcribers
krazy kagu (ec436a) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:52 amEvidently there is still admiration for terrorism among the Left.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:56 amSo nice that some of us here are blind to evil jackasses who are not at all recalcitrant. Keep on enabling shysters like Wright, Rezko and your Lord gurlie man Boohoo Obama. How can anyone rationalize the spinning spewing from Ayers and his spouse? I do think it is most unfortunate that they too did not get blown to smithereens in that “accidental” bomb making explosion. And it boils my blood that the two merry weather pukes were never prosecuted. Why is it that with all the murder of innocents in this world, some psychopathic killer won’t emulate fictional character Dexter and just waste mutant human debris like Ayers, OJ et al???
madmax333 (935463) — 4/24/2008 @ 10:03 amWasting those creatures would merely turn them into martyrs. The best Punishment is to shout about what they believe and did from the housetops and to laugh at the Peter Pans with bombs who try to compensate for their inadequacies.
James (1d7747) — 4/24/2008 @ 11:03 amLeviticus,
“…went out of their way to make sure the buildings they bombed were unoccupied.”
They destroyed some one else’s property; they greatly increased the chance that someone would get hurt or killed (Brinks robbery) every time they set off a bomb; and a couple of them even blew themselves up. And what was their message?? That war is too violent. Stupid.
The worst player is this whole affair is the University of Illinois at Chicago. Why in the world are two people who have acted violently against our society allowed to teach?
Mike S (d3f5fd) — 4/24/2008 @ 11:21 am“…went out of their way to make sure the buildings they bombed were unoccupied.”
That is funny. When the USA spends hundreds of billions of dollars developing smart weapons, exotic systems to deliver them and training personal to use them in order to reduce or eliminate casualties, the left brands the USA as baby killers. But when the left sets off a low tech bomb after hours, its OK because “they went out of their way” not to hurt people.
Incidentally, the Weather Undergrounds slogan was “Bring the War Home.”
Perfect Sense (b6ec8c) — 4/24/2008 @ 11:51 amMike, academia loves the idea of flirting with leftist violence. It gives the wannabe marxists a warm feeling in their tummy to associate with people like Ayers. This was much of the appeal of the fraud Ward Churchill in CU Boulder.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:02 pmLev, is it OK if I come by your house and shoot it up as long as I do it while nobody is home?
tmac (86debe) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:09 pmI didn’t think so.
Didn’t the WU bomb a Math Lab at the UofMI?
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:20 pmNot too good at due dilegence – someone died.
Oh, I know; It was supposed to be empty at that time of night; how were these blessed warriors for peace, love, and pot, supposed to know that some ambitious guy was working late?
Evil schmucks, all of them!
And that includes appologists and enablers, too!
If Steve Schmadeke had known about Google, he could have added some charming details to his portrait of the cuddly civil servant. But that might confuse the sheeple.
AMac (c822c9) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:31 pm“This was much of the appeal of the fraud Ward Churchill in CU Boulder.”
He wrote a short book attacking pacifists.
stef (425e2c) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:34 pm“Lev, is it OK if I come by your house and shoot it up as long as I do it while nobody is home?”
– tmac
Are you really going to argue that there’s no difference between intentionally shooting up a house with people in it and intentionally shooting up a house without people in it? There’s a huge difference. Or do you believe that any punkass kid who sprays graffiti on someone’s private property is a Murderous Terrorist, as well?
Leviticus (b987b0) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:41 pm“…any punkass kid who sprays graffiti on someone’s private property is a Murderous Terrorist…”
It’s just one of the steps on the road to Hell; which, if you live in a major urban area, you should recognize.
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:50 pmEverybody, please do not call Leviticus “Levi”. Levi is a totally different somebody.
Leviticus,
I was a relatively poor boy, then. My neighbors were Vietnam veterans whom I would bug for war stories. My high school classmates and I were resigned to the fact that our numbers would come up in the draft lottery. Some of us took ROTC in the hope that we would be better placed. I was saved by President Nixon. Somebody six months older than me went to Vietnam. None of us blew up buildings.
nk (35ac33) — 4/24/2008 @ 12:56 pmLev, you may be fime with getting your house shot up while unoccupied, but most folks regard that as a crime. As usual, you hair-splitting liberals are quite willing to overlook a punkass kid that does something like that as long as he’s a left-winger.
trentk269 (3d3bfe) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:00 pmLeviticus, you are fucking stupid but you can’t be as stupid as you pretend. You are aware, of course, that the bomb that killed those other Weathermen, may they burn and rot most horribly, was meant for a dance at Fort Dix. Oh, how jolly! Legs and breasts festooning the front yard! Ayers is scum. Anyone who defends him in the least regard or buddies up with him is scum, too. And let’s not forget Dohrn who thought the Manson family murders were, oh, just swell. Can’t wait to see that vid fading gauzily into Big Brother Barry. Hope and change!
megapotamus (17c12e) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:05 pm“Evil schmucks, all of them!
And that includes appologists and enablers, too!”
especially the apologists and enablers for they aid and abet the criminals amongst us.
you graffiti my house and you’ll be in the felony prone when the cops finally show up…..unless you do something stupid.
i practice a “zero tolerance” policy with morons. %-)
redc1c4 (292479) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:19 pmWasn’t the bomb that blowed up those nice young rich kids in that nice building in nice Greenwich Village destined to blow up a Navy Officer dance?
Yeah, I’m sure they were going to make sure no one got hurt.
E Buzz Miller, Rev Dr (469b15) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:20 pmMight also be worth noting that the prematurely detonated bomb that killed 3 of Ayers’ friends was a “nail bomb,” obviously an anti-personnel device.
At the Bill Ayers Wiki, Ayers mounts a defense of his words in the NYT article, claiming that he was misquoted. His current views, however, although not advocating specific violent actions (as far as I know), do call for overthrow of capitalism and characterize the US government as the enemy.
Don (124ff9) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:21 pm“My high school classmates and I were resigned to the fact that our numbers would come up in the draft lottery. Some of us took ROTC in the hope that we would be better placed. I was saved by President Nixon. Somebody six months older than me went to Vietnam. None of us blew up buildings.”
– nk
nk,
I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure I agree with the point you’re trying to make. You’re saying that the Weathermen blew up buildings because they didn’t want to go to Vietnam; if they’d wanted to avoid Vietnam, they could’ve just gone to Canada. But the Weathermen didn’t just dodge the draft; they actively resisted the US government. That took conviction, albeit conviction misguided by youthful narcissism and half-baked ideology.
There are three points I’m hoping to make by participating in this thread:
1) There’s a difference between blowing up buildings with people in them and purposefully blowing up buildings without people in them. I’m not sure if both qualify one as a terrorist, but I am sure that one is worse than the other.
2) The Weathermen were a loosely connected bunch of arrogant kids, each of whom thought he or she knew best the path to Communist Utopia. To attribute the motives of one to another is fallacious, particularly in the case of Ayers (who was purged from the Weathermen before the Brink Robbery took place).
3) Individuals from various “pro-life” movements bomb abortion clinics and shoot doctors, but that doesn’t make all pro-life individuals murderers or terrorists.
Leviticus (43095b) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:37 pmI had forgotten that Terry Robbins and Co. had been planning to blow up a Navy non-com dance, by the way. That is totally reprehensible, and I want to be clear that I’m not defending the actions of those individuals. But like I said, the Weathermen “cells” were loosely affiliated at best. It’s wrong to attribute the motives of Terry Robbins and Co. to Ayers when Ayers has said that he didn’t mean that more bombs should’ve been set.
Leviticus (43095b) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:44 pmLeviticus, it is not “wrong” to attribute the motives of Terry Robbins et al to Ayers if one does not find Ayers denials credible.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:45 pmBut, Ayers “fingerprints” were on several of the WU terrorist acts. And, but for the over-zealousness of some stupid prosecutor (apologies to PP), he might still be rotting in jail.
We’re not accussing people who walked a picket line, or stood in a silent vigil, of terrorism; so you shouldn’t compare abortion-clinic picketers with Rudolph, and others of his ilk.
Ayers and Dohrn did the crime, and but for a technicality, they would have done the time.
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:46 pm“3) Individuals from various “pro-life” movements bomb abortion clinics and shoot doctors, but that doesn’t make all pro-life individuals murderers or terrorists.”
The difference is that anyone on the right who defends the loonies that do such things is immediately ostracized by most conservatives, and all of the decent ones, and there aren’t too many fawning puff pieces writen about them in major dailies.
You just reflexively defended someone who commited and conspired to commit terrorist attacks on US installations and didn’t even think twice about it.
Why is it just so hard for liberals to say “Hey the guy is cretin who deserves to rot in hell.” Those of us on the right don’t have too much trouble saying it about Tim McVeigh or Eric Rudolph.
I guess it is just because saying that would be an admission that your side is not the bastion of purity liberal think and represent it to be.
headhunt23 (9e1243) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:53 pmLeviticus, you are better than this.
The apologia for Ayers is misplaced and his idiot wife is even worse.
1) Setting bombs off to make a political statement, and then being defended because they “plotted” for people to be absent, is inane.
Bombs are intended to cause large destruction and people are bound to show up unexpectedly.
2)Armed robberies of Brink’s trucks, plotting to set off nail bombs in a dance where young kids at FT. Dix brought their innocent dates, reveling in the Tate murders…aren’t a bunch of “kids” out for a little mischief.
Suggesting that young troops should be killed, parent should be killed, police should be killed, government officials should be killed, and then acting on it…isn’t simply youthful rebellion.
3)Ayers and Dorhn (she may be worse, in fact…much worse)were not idle bystanders in these plots, no matter how they try to revise the history. They sought to commit violence because they had a political disagreement with the establishment and any institutions that represented the establishment to them.
How would Ayers like it if someone didn’t like his politics and resorted to violence to express that dislike? How would Sen. Obama?
I suspect that they would find it barbaric, Neanderthal-like, …certainly not a bunch of “mischief” by “radically opposed” worldviews.
If we settled our political differences at the business end of a rifle…I wouldn’t want to be on the side of the gun control, anti-military, whine and brie set. That’s a pretty bad bet.
Then again, maybe that’s why Sen. Obama suggests that some people “cling” to guns. For the most part…most of the organized violence in this country for the last 40 years…has come from the left. Might want to disarm the other side while you take over…guns and religion were not welcome in some other regimes as well.
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 4/24/2008 @ 2:17 pmLooks like the Pyongyang-LA Times is back in prime form. Maybe they should conduct a poll next: Kim Jong-Il or The Weathermen: Who is the most misunderstood victim of the fascist Republican regime?
M. Scott Eiland (b66190) — 4/24/2008 @ 3:06 pmLeviticus:
I’m sure the fact that the Brinks’ felony murders were an…how did you put it…oh, yes, an “anomaly” is just such a great comfort to the widows and orphans of the murdered policemen and Brinks guards. All is forgiven.
It’s bad enough you moral cretins on the Left try to excuse actual, felony murder — but do you have murder the language, as well?
Watching Barry and Michelle getting beaten bloody with their frequent and ongoing questionable associations (Ayers/Wright/ Meeks/Rezko/) during the General is going to be SO! MUCH! FUN!
furious (56af6d) — 4/24/2008 @ 7:44 pm“…that would be an admission that your side is not the bastion of purity …”
No, it would be an admission that being “judgemental” is a proper position – something they could never endure.
Another Drew (8018ee) — 4/24/2008 @ 7:55 pmWhere is Bill Ayers today? He was just elected Vice President for Curriculum Development of the American Educational Research Association. AERA is the largest educational research centers in the US.
He’s going to decide what your kids learn in school.
Now that’s something to worry about.
EduCrazy (def797) — 4/24/2008 @ 8:03 pmAyers most dangerous activity is going on right now. He is a professor of education, not English, and is busy screwing up the education of our kids. He is trying to make Marxists of them but that won’t work. All he will accomplish is a poorly educated generation who cannot make use of the opportunities that America offers them, as it offered to Ayers.
Obama is a kindred soul.
Mike K (86bddb) — 4/24/2008 @ 9:32 pmHugh Hewitt played a 2007 audio that of Ayers that sounds just like Rev. Wright. Once again the mainstream media is hiding from a story.
Alta Bob (934c6d) — 4/24/2008 @ 10:06 pmSo, the planned bombing of an Army dance at Fort Dix wasn’t a murderous goal? When the bomb for that plot blew up in their faces, it proved its lethality. That was the event that drove the Weathermen underground and the only reason they didn’t kill a significant number of Americans was their incompetence.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/25/2008 @ 7:14 amActually, this was a Chicago Tribune article that the LA Times republished. In fact, the original was even friendlier to Ayers, complete with quotes from Mayor Daley extolling his public service, which the Times omitted. BTW, has anyone ever spotted Ayers and Ann Coulter in the same room?
Steve Smith (72a7af) — 4/25/2008 @ 7:44 amJust another attempt to divert the public from the failed Republican policies of the last eight years. Blame the Obama for the actions of an organization created when he was eight and which he had no part in and ignore the associations of John McCain. Typical lynch mob mentality of the far right whose biggest fears are that a black man may become President. And that is the ugly truth you cant even bring yourselves to admit.
Here is something far more recent that you will never discuss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eniG9l_7its&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/14/151519/61/145/630389
VietnamEraVet (543dfe) — 10/15/2008 @ 5:40 amCall me a Goddamn racist again and, in the immortal words if Bill Buckley Jr, I’ll sock you so hard you’ll stay plastered.
My fear isn’t a black man as president. Part of my fear is that several of this particular person’s friends happen to either be terrorists (and proud of it), or actively hate me and the country I live in.
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 10/15/2008 @ 5:48 am43, VEV, why don’t you move to a country that is Socialist and hates the US? You’d find yourself at home and in the Majority.
PCD (7fe637) — 10/15/2008 @ 6:00 amDailyKos…lol…
As we say in Tennessee, bless your heart.
CW Desiato (614aa7) — 10/15/2008 @ 6:21 amVietnamEraVet, the “when he was eight years old” crap is just Obama propaganda to distract from what Obama did as an adult. And what Obama did as an adult was become the political protege of a terrorist.
SPQR (26be8b) — 10/15/2008 @ 6:30 amStraight out of the Baracky playbook. Watch his spokespersons on the news and they cannot make it through an answer without the smokescreen/distraction from meme. Today ACORN is a distraction, as Michigan’s AG is about to indict.
JD (f7900a) — 10/15/2008 @ 6:36 amYou know, JD, the only thing you can say is that Obama is not to blame for anything that has happened … because he has done absolutely nothing during his political career.
Hiding on the sidelines, that’s his contribution.
SPQR (26be8b) — 10/15/2008 @ 6:37 amSen. Acaca – Yes
JD (f7900a) — 10/15/2008 @ 6:42 amSen. Kennedy – Yes
Sen. McCain – Yes
Sen. Biden – No
Sen. Obama – Not sure … PRESENT!!!!!!!!!!!!