I just encountered one of those loathsome ads I've heard about, which attempts to paint Obama as a 9/11 hijacker for attending a reception offered by a college professor. It seems to be running hourly on TNT via Service Electric Cable in Schuylkill County, PA. Although I've previously encountered a call to protest these ads being aired at all, I've been uncomfortable with this approach on ideological grounds. Apart from an urgent desire to see McCain raked over the coals in similar ads for a far more substantial and culpable association with Charles H. Keating, Jr., I think it is worth setting down exactly why this argument is invalid.
The ad can be viewed, if you can stomach it, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Oytd6DaWk
Their home site is at http://americanissuesproject.org/
Yes, it is true that Ayers was a member of a radical organization around 1970, which supported the bombing of unoccupied property including the Capitol after providing warnings to allow evacuation. And Ayers was never even convicted of a crime, because the charges against him were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.
But what the ad neglects to mention is that Ayers had since gained professorship at the University of Illinois and had become broadly active in liberal circles in Chicago. As a well-respected professor at a major Chicago university, and faculty advisor to campus organizations, Ayers was able to mobilize a large number of university students in support of liberal causes. This means that it really is nothing special for him to hold one reception during a campaign, or to make a $200 campaign contribution, or to serve on a committee with a liberal composition.
Suppose you or I decide tomorrow to open a local Obama campaign office or to make a donation: would you expect Obama to say he'll get back to you after he looks over your rap sheet?
The last point may be impermissible it may be with a Republican audience, but it still is worth mentioning. We should not forget our history - that Chicago in 1968 became famous for a police riot with billyclubs, even against reporters, and that COINTELPRO (the operation leading to the dismissal of charges for Ayers) involved the deliberate infiltration of radical organizations by provocateurs urging people on to acts of violence. The situation at that time was simply not normal, and things like this campaign of 'nonviolent bombing' did not last. Even if we assume Ayers guilty of offenses for which he was never convicted, and for which he would long since have completed any sentence, it isn't right to think of him as a true terrorist forty years later in a very different world.
The bottom line: Obama had no reasonable obligation to shun Ayers' help in his Chicago campaign, nor did that involvement go beyond what could be expected of a well-known liberal professor in a local political campaign.
P.S. Obama's well-composed response ran two hours later on the same channel, pointing out that he had denounced these crimes from when he was eight years old.
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