[Vision2020] Getting the 'Ayers Issue' Straight

[No Weatherman]

Getting the 'Ayers Issue' Straight
By M. Jay Wells

If we move beyond the retort of being 8 years old at the time, and
consider what we already know, there is plenty of disturbing evidence
from Obama's own past about the Ayers relationship.

According to Rasmussen Reports public opinion polling, 50% of voters
believe that the "Ayers issue" has hurt the McCain campaign. According
to the report, 57% say it is not an important voting consideration.
And finally, 59% of all voters believe Ayers will have hardly any or
no influence over the policies of a potential Obama administration.

These numbers particularly disturbing. And so let's get this "Ayers
issue" straight.

Yes, William Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn were anti-American
domestic terrorists who bombed US targets. And sure, both have
remained insolent about their terrorist activities, proudly declaring
no regrets and "we didn't do enough."

But set aside the 1960s terrorism for a moment. What is pertinent is
that the terrorist-turned-educator transitioned from assailing
America's buildings to assailing America from within them.

When the question of Obama's relationship with Ayers was raised in his
April primary debate with Sen. Clinton, he dismissively responded with
the now famous falsehood that Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my
neighborhood." We know the Ayers-Obama relationship goes well beyond
this. An Ayers-pattern has emerged; Obama is hiding something and
therein lies the "Ayers issue."

Ayers is on the board of the Miranda International Center think tank
in Venezuela. The group calls Ayers "the leader of the revolutionary
and anti-imperialist group . . . [who has] developed courses around
the urban reform of schools, problems of capitalist education, and
investigation."

In a 2006 speech at the World Education Forum in Venezuela, Ayers
said, "We share the belief that education is the motor-force of
revolution . . . I look forward to seeing how he and all of you
continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education."

Sol Stern observes that Ayers "still boasts about working full-time to
bring down American capitalism . . . Ayers now works to indoctrinate
America's future teachers in the revolutionary cause, urging them to
pass on the lessons to their public school students." In the Ayers
social justice model of teaching, "knowledge-based and politically
neutral curriculum" is gone.

Ayers & Obama
1.	In 1995 Obama kicked off his Illinois Senate run in the living room
of Ayers. Also in attendance at this political coming-out party was
Communist Party member Quentin Young. The obvious question: Did Ayers
introduce and launch someone he did not know, someone not in accord
with his own agenda?

2.	The same year, Obama had been chosen by Ayers to be the first
chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a public school reform
project co-founded by Ayers. We are once again faced with the
question: Did Ayers hire someone he did not know, someone not in
accord with his agenda?

Having reviewed the CAC Board of Directors meeting minutes, Stanley
Kurtz concludes that it "clearly involves significant consultation
between the board, headed by Obama, and the Collaborative, co-chaired
by Ayers." The materials "show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as
a team to advance the CAC agenda."

CAC received a $50 million matched grant which the two used to advance
radical alternative education. Funding, however, did not go directly
to schools but rather to "external partners" with whom the schools
were required to affiliate, writes Stanley Kurtz. Many of the partners
were radical community organization groups, ACORN among them.

Another such group, given over $1 million, happened to be Ayers's
Small Schools Project, a radical alternative education project founded
by Ayers and directed by Michael Klonsky, an Ayers friend and former
chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist).

CAC also funded a group called the South Shore African Village
Collaborative, philosophically a "carbon-copy" of the worldview of
Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ pastor, Jeremiah Wright. One
goal, according to its grant application to the Annenberg Challenge:
"Our children need to understand the historical context of our
struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us."

3.	Obama served with Ayers on the Board of Directors for The Woods
Fund of Chicago. The Fund gave $75,000 to ACORN, $6,000 to Obama's
church, and $60,000 to the Children and Family Justice Center founded
and run by Dohrn, wife of Ayers. The Fund also gave $50,000 to the
Ayers/Klonsky Small Schools Network.

In two separate grants, $75,000 was given to the Arab American Action
Network, founded by well-known anti-Semitic spokesman for the PLO and
Yasser Arafat Rashid Khalidi.

Ayers, Dohrn and Obama were in attendance at a 2003 AAAN farewell
party for Khalidi who was leaving the University of Chicago for a
position at Columbia University, reported the Los Angeles Times. The
Times has a videotape of the dinner but refuses to release it to the
public; apparently the tape is damaging to the Obama campaign.

The video tape is said to include tributes by Ayers and Obama. The
Times reported that Obama gave Khalidi a "special tribute" as he
reminisced about conversations "around Mona and Rashid's dinner table"
that had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my
own biases."

With evidence mounting and his "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" no
longer tenable, Obama admitted, "And so I have talked to [Ayers] about
school reform issues." He most assuredly would have, and these "talks"
would be far more than casual; they clearly would have been policy and
agenda related.

The record — that is, the parts the public are allowed to see — shows
the two comfortably working along side one another. Do they accomplish
all of the above while having opposing agendas?

And this is the "Ayers issue."

1.	First, it is an issue that goes to Obama's honesty and
forthrightness with the American people. Why is he secretive about
what he initially called a "flimsy" relationship? Why has he been
gradually changing his story as the facts emerge?

2.	Second, this goes to Obama's judgment. Obama did not work against a
radical domestic terrorist who continues to have radical views, he
worked along side him.

3.	Third, it follows, this goes squarely to Obama's ideology itself.
What in Obama drew the radical Ayers into alliance with him? And why
was Obama so comfortable moving within his sphere and advancing his
agenda?

The "Ayers issue" is not 1960s terrorism.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/getting_the_ayers_issue_straig_1.html