Obama and Ayers
| Tue Sep. 23, 2008 9:19 AM PDT
OBAMA AND AYERS....Stanley Kurtz has been working diligently for weeks in an attempt to prove that Barack Obama has hidden sympathies for pot-smoking-bank-bombing-60s-era domestic terrorism in the form of close (but well hidden!) ties to former Weatherman Bill Ayers. His operational strategy was to comb through the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a mid-90s educational experiment sponsored by Ronald Reagan's friend Walter Annenberg, to check for damning evidence that Ayers (who founded CAC) had a serious relationship with Obama (who was chairman of the board of directors, which did fundraising for CAC). I had sort of lost track of how this project was coming along, but apparently he finished up his labors and produced.....a mouse. Jason Zengerle summarizes:
So Kurtz spends days wading through 70 linear feet of material, suffers lord knows how many paper cuts, and the best he can come up with is that Ayers was part of a five-person "working group" that signed off on Obama joining CAC's board? That's pretty weak.
Better luck next time, Stanley.
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Comments
Submitted by Francis Beckwith (not verified) on Tue Sep. 23, 2008 9:51 AM PDT.
I read the Kurtz piece. The argument he offered was this: Obama was on a board that provided monies to support curricular changes that most American would consider bizarre. In fact, Kurtz concludes his piece by saying that the 60s stuff is irrelevant to that thesis.
Admittedly, there are some, such as the readership of this blog, who do not consider those curricular proposals as odd or strange. That's a point of view that, if reasonable, ought to be easy to defend with the full resources that an intellect as gifted as Obama's can muster.
I suspect that such a defense will not be forthcoming.
If this episode of Obama's life is so uneventful, why has he failed to mention his only executive experience ? .. why didn't the Obama campaign cry foul when Sarah Palin said he had "no executive experience" ?
After reading the snit by Ben Smith of "The Politico" last night, I left reminded that in this political season the 4th estate has done the American public a disservice.
After the Iraq War started, the 4th estate spent months before they finally decided that maybe they were vigilant enough with their reporting running up to the war.
In this election, the 4th estate repeats it's error by falling into the same trap.
Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me
In this election, the 4th estate has actually allowed one of the candidates to write his own narrative uncontested, based on two auto-biographical books, that is full of holes for large time sequences.
Today, with only 40 some days remaining till the election, a bit of one of those 4 year holes is filled in, but much is still left unknown.
Will the 4th estate be contemplating their navel for that time or will they begin to ask the questions that will give the American people a complete story ?
Not only does the future of their craft stand in balance, the future of the country demands better.
If they are not up to the challenge .. we will look elsewhere.
Stanley Kurtz is a quack who got his Harvard PhD by expanding Freudian quackery from the mere individual to entire peoples: "psychoanalytical sociology" it is (was?) called.
Kurtz once wrote an article on the Oedipus Complex of the Trobriand Islanders that still can be found on JSTOR.
It's difficult to decide who has more of teh stupid over at NRO: Jonah Goldberg, Donald Luskin, or Colonel Kurtz (no method, just madness).
A radical anti-American ideologue saw something in Obama which led him to seek Obama's services, and which led him to go out of his way to promote Obama's career.
What was it that he saw? Kevin doesn't want to know, and he doesn't want you to know either.
I read the Kurtz piece. The argument he offered was this: Obama was on a board that provided monies to support curricular changes that most American would consider bizarre. In fact, Kurtz concludes his piece by saying that the 60s stuff is irrelevant to that thesis.
Funny, then, that Kurtz feels the need to bookend his WSJ editorial with references to the 60s, and freight his text with the word "radical" -- no fewer than 5 instances, by my count. His thesis is entirely dependent on both the direct invocation, and repeated suggestions, of that "60s stuff." In order to take Kurtz seriously, you have to simultaneously buy into his crackpot notions that a) Chicago public schools have become breeding grounds for cadres of neo-Maoists, and that b) Ayers has even a shred of influence beyond the 7 to 8 folks who show up at his patchouli-scented readings. Kurtz's entire argument is nothing more than a redbaiting version of "When did you stop beating your wife?"
But such is contemporary conservatism that it's reduced to a parody of McCarthyism, looking to urban school reform in order to whip up charges of nascent insurrection. Lordy, but you guys are a bunch of rank amateurs.
Kurtz's article is particularly hilarious in light of his hyperventilating, at the beginning of his quest, about the archives being tampered with, and all of the dark conspiracies that were possible.
He's also been on a personal rampage to "save traditional marriage".
He's repulsive.
Obama needs a short answer: I was a kid (8 or whatever) when Ayers was involved in the anti-war movement. When I met him, he had transformed himself into an award-winning writer and a respected member of the University of Chicago faculty -- hardly a bastian of liberalism. I am not close to Bill Ayers. We have been acquaintances from time to time mainly on community matters. The picture John McCain is trying to paint is false, period.
What else is there to say?
Quick history lesson: Bill Ayers applied for an Annenberg Challenge Grant. At the time, Walter Annenberg, who was an ambassador under St. Ronnie, and fabulously wealthy, gave away some $500 million or more to re-do education systems. Educators from around the country applied for these grants.
So it was hardly a radical plot to subvert the the American way.
Obama needs a short answer...
To what question? When did it become unseemly, or even vaguely inappropriate, to serve on a board that's committed to improving urban education? Kurtz's entire argument is nothing but innuendo about radicalism. Mind you, he can't bring himself to say exactly what it is that's so radical about the Annenberg Foundation, but he'd like you to be very, very scared of the fact that Obama was involved with it.
Neo: If this episode of Obama's life is so uneventful, why has he failed to mention his only executive experience ? .. why didn't the Obama campaign cry foul when Sarah Palin said he had "no executive experience" ?
I know! It's because Obama doesn't feel the need to pad his resume with bullshit.
Actually, Obama does need a short answer. I reach this conclusion having listened to an interview with Stefan Forbes on NPR today concerning his documentary "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story". Atwater raised dog-whistle politics at the national level to an art form, using subliminal appeals to racism, patriotism and machismo to help Republicans defeat Democrats. The Republican-Right has been very successful with this strategy, a la Willie Horton, Swiftboating, etc. In this instance, Kurtz doesn't have shit on Obama. But the fact that he puts it out and it goes virtually unchallenged causes a subliminal reaction in the voters mind: Obama is a black radical. Let's face it, the voters of America are fairly unsophisticated about politics. Until they "get" dog whistle politics, or the media does a decent job of pointing out Republicans' lies and tactics, Democratic office seekers need to fight back.
There is only one reason this is still a story. Obama said something stupid. "He's only some guy from my neighborhood" or something like that. Maybe, he's upset about the lack of results the CAC generated, maybe he thought being associated with Ayers would cost him a few votes -- whatever the motivation, Obama fibbed about a major portion of his life. This prompts rightful curiosity from the right side of the aisle. What is Obama ashamed of? What is he hiding? it could be no big thing, but why lie about it?
Actually, Obama does need a short answer.
Again -- to what question??? Seriously. Kurtz's argument -- and I'm being generous in referring to it as such -- is comprised of (as Zengerle rightly points out) scare quotes & recycled tropes from HUAC hearings. Obama would be a fool to dignify this bit of twaddle. Add to this the fact that nobody, but NOBODY, outside of the staff at The Corner cares one whit about this piffle. And rightly.
