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The Obama–Ayers controversy during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign is a dispute over the significance and details of Presidential candidate Barack Obama's contacts with Bill Ayers, a former leader of the Weather Underground and presently a professor in Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The matter was covered by news organizations and brought up by the campaign of competing candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in February 2008, and was revisited during a debate between Clinton and Obama in April 2008. Republican presidential candidate John McCain subsequently also questioned Obama's interactions with Ayers and it became an issue in the general election campaign.

Underlying circumstances

William Ayers

Ayers and Dohrn are fixtures of their Chicago neighborhood, "embraced, by and large, in the liberal circles dominating Hyde Park politics", according to Smith. Ayers has been described as "very respected and prominent in Chicago a national reputation as an educator." But they have not been embraced everywhere due to their past leadership of the Weather Underground, a violent 1960s radical organization that placed bombs at a number of government institutions. Ayers was one of the five-member central committee of the Weathermen in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, some alumni of the University of Illinois at Chicago, where Ayers is a tenured professor of education, and Northwestern University, where Dohrn is a law professor, have protested their presence, though colleagues believe their achievements since overshadow those actions. "This is a community that has regularly elected former Black Panther Bobby Rush (D) to Congress and mostly sees Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as the onetime heart of an established African American church with thousands of members," according to an article in The Washington Post.

Interaction between Obama and Ayers

Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn hosted a "meet-and-greet" political meeting for Obama at their home in the Hyde Park section of Chicago, where the Ayers and the Obamas lived. It was at this meeting that then State Senator Alice Palmer introduced Barack Obama as her chosen successor. Although the exact date of the meeting is not known, it was sometime in the second half of 1995, according to Ben Smith, a reporter for The Politico. Chicagoan Maria Warren wrote in 2005 on her Musings & Migraines blog: "When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the livingroom of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. They were launching him — introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread."

Obama's worked for a time with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a large education-related nonpforit organization Ayers was instrumental in starting. Obama served as president of the Challenge board of directors during the 1990s, when the board disbursed grants to schools and raised private matching funds while Ayers worked with the operational arm of the effort. Both attended some board meetings in common starting in 1995,retreats, and at least one news conference together as the education program started. They continued to attend meetings together during the 1995-2001 period when the program was operating.

Obama and Ayers served together for three years on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty foundation established in 1941. Obama had joined the nine-member board in 1993, and had attended a dozen of the quarterly meetings together with Ayers in the three years up to 2002, when Obama left his position on the board, which Ayers chaired for two years. Laura S. Washington, chairwoman of the Woods Fund, said the small board had a collegial "friendly but businesslike" atmosphere, and met four times a year for a half-day, mostly to approve grants. The two also appeared together on academic panel discussions, including a 1997 University of Chicago discussion on juvenile justice. They again appeared in 2002 at an academic panel co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library. One panel discussion in which they both appeared was organized by Obama's wife, Michelle. Ayers donated $200 to Obama's 2001 state senate campaign.

Presidential campaign issue

Howard Kurtz has written that the connection between the two Chicagoans was "all but ignored by the news media, other than Fox" until it was raised in a presidential debate. According to research by the Washington Post, the first coverage in the mainstream media occurred in the British press in February, 2008. In a February 15, 2008 article, a Bloomberg L.P. reporter quoted Obama's rival, Hillary Clinton, who stated that the Republican Party might use the supposed connection with Ayers to discredit Obama if he were chosen as the nominee of the Democratic Party.

The connection was picked up by a number of blogs, including the Huffington Post.

Primary debates

At the Democratic Party primary debate in Philadelphia on April 16, 2008, moderator George Stephanopoulos (after Sean Hannity suggested the question the day before ) questioned Obama about his association with Ayers, asking the candidate: "Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Obama responded as follows:

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, George.

Obama's response led to an exchange between him and Clinton, in which Clinton said, "Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Fund, which was a paid directorship position." Obama then referred to President Bill Clinton's pardoning of Linda Sue Evans and Susan Rosenberg. The two were convicted for their actions after they had left the Weather Underground for the splinter group May 19 Communist Organization. The following Sunday, Stephanopoulos asked Republican presidential candidate John McCain about Obama's patriotism, and McCain responded: "I'm sure he's very patriotic", then added, "But his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question."

General election campaign

In August, 2008, the Republican Party created website, barackbook.com, as a spoof of Facebook, on which Ayers is listed as one of Obama's "friends", and that contains a mocked-up user profile for Bill Ayers, which describes the controversy and Obama's alleged connections with Ayers.

Also in August The American Issues Project began running an ad that said in part, "Barack Obama is friends with Ayers, defending him as, quote, 'Respectable' and 'Mainstream.' Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?" In response, the Obama campaign's attorney Robert Bauer wrote TV stations running the ad, saying, "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity," and wrote Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General John C. Keeney, describing the ad as a "willful attempt to evade the strictures of federal election law." The same month, the Obama campaign ran a TV ad in selected market that said in part, "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers? McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old."

Reaction to the controversy

Obama has condemned Ayers' past through a spokesman. Mayor of Chicago Richard M. Daley and the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune immediately issued statements in support of Ayers in response to the controversy.

After the controversy arose Ayers was defended by officials and others in Chicago. Mayor Richard M. Daley issued a statement in support of Bill Ayers the next day (April 17), as did the Chicago Tribune in an editorial. Ayers remains on the Board of Directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago Washington said it was "ridiculous to suggest there's anything inappropriate" about the two men serving on the foundation board. "Bill Ayers is very respected and prominent in Chicago as a civic activist," she said. "He has a national reputation as an educator. That's why he's on our board."

Michael Kinsley, a longtime critic of Ayers, argued in Time that it was "absurd" to make a campaign issue out of Obama's relationship with Ayers: "If Obama's relationship with Ayers, however tangential, exposes Obama as a radical himself, or at least as a man with terrible judgment, he shares that radicalism or terrible judgment with a comically respectable list of Chicagoans and others — including Republicans and conservatives — who have embraced Ayers and Dohrn as good company, good citizens, even experts on children's issues."

Noam Scheiber, writing on the Stump blog of The New Republic, wrote, "Given that there’s no trace of support for terrorism or political violence anywhere in Obama's record — to the contrary, Obama condemned Ayers' and Dohrns' past through a spokesman — I just don't see how this tells us anything useful about Obama."

In August, when the controversy again became more prominent author Jerome Corsi, conservative commentators such as David Freddoso, and pundits such as Steve Chapman wrote that the situation raised questions about Obama's judgment and influences, while USA Today quoted 60s SDS member and later California legislator Tom Hayden as having said, "I have met and like John McCain, but he bombed, and presumably killed, many people in a war I opposed. If I can set all that aside, I would hope that Americans will accept that Ayers has changed, too"; and law professor and legal theorist Cass Sunstein, reported to know both Ayers and Obama, as having said Sunstein is "very disturbed by past and by his refusal to disavow what he did. I think the implications of this for Obama are zero."

References

1. Cooper, Michael, "Republicans Focus on Obama as Fall Opponent", article, The New York Times, May 8, 2008, retrieved June 5, 2008
2. ^ Montgomery, Paul L., "Last of Radical Leaders Eluded Police 11 Years", article, The New York Times, October 25, 1981, retrieved June 8, 2008
3. ^ Ben Smith (February 22, 2008). "Obama once visited '60s radicals". politico.com.
4. ^ Drogin, Bob and Morain, Dan, "Obama and the former radicals", article, The Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2008, retrieved June 5, 2008
5. Slevin, Peter, "Former '60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago", article, The Washington Post, April 18, 2008; p A04, retrieved June 6, 2008
6. Becker, Jo and Drew, Christopher, "The Long Run: Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side", article, The New York Times, May 11, 2008, retrieved June 5, 2008
7. Kuhnhenn, Jim, "Radical tied to Obama compared US actions to 9/11", Associated Press report, August 27, 2008, retrieved same day
8. ^ Cohen, Jodi S., and Gibson,Ray, , The Chicago Tribune, August 27, 2008, retrieved same day
9. ^ Berman, Ari, "Obama under the weather", The Nation, May 1, 2008
10. ^ Slevin, Peter, "Former '60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago", article, The Washington Post, April 18, 2008; p A04, retrieved June 6, 2008
11. Becker, Jo and Drew, Christopher, "Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side", The New York Times, May 11, 2008, retrieved August 24, 2008
12. "Fact check: Obama, Clinton and the Weather Underground". Associated Press. April 17, 2008.
13. Kurtz, Howard, "The Military-Media Complex", The Washington Post, April 21, 2008, retrieved June 6, 2008
14. Michael Dobbs, Obama's 'Weatherman' ConnectionThe Fact Checker, The Washington Post
15. Timothy J. Burger (February 15, 2008). "Obama's Ties Might Fuel `Republican Attack Machine'". bloomberg.com.
16. Larry C. Johnson (2008-02-16). "No, He Can't Because Yes, They Will". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-08-10.
17. AUDIO: Hannity Feeds Stephanopoulos Debate Question On Weather Underground»
18. Transcript: Obama and Clinton Debate, April 16, 2008
19. An Almost Oppo Free Zone, The Hotline: On Call, National Journal Group, April 16, 2008
20. Carla Marinucci (2008-08-07). "Obama, McCain campaigns bust out the brass knuckles". San Francisco Chronicle.
21. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92PL7400&show_article=1
22. http://www.wtop.com/?nid=213&sid=1466240
23. ^ Scheiber, Noam, "Parsing the Ayers Allegation", blog post, The Stump blog at The New Republic website, February 22, 2008, retrieved June 5, 2008
24. Mike Dorning and Rick Pearson, Daley: Don't tar Obama for Ayers The Chicago Tribune, April 17, 2008
25. ^ Chicago Tribune editorial board, Guilt by association The Chicago Tribune, April 17, 2008
26. Mike Dorning and Rick Pearson, Daley: Don't tar Obama for Ayers The Chicago Tribune, April 17, 2008
27. Board of Directors and Officers Woods Fund of Chicago
28. Smith, Ben (2008-05-30). "Kinsley on Ayers". Ben Smith's Blog. Politico. Retrieved 2008-06-01.
29. Kinsley, Michael (2008-05-29). "Rejecting Obama's Radical Friends". Time. Retrieved 2008-06-01.
30. Freddoso, David, The Case Against Barack Obama, Regnery Publishing Co., 2008, pp 122-123; bulleted list in the original
31. Chapman, Steve, blog post, "Obama's radical friend", August 22, 2008, 10:37 AM, "Minority of One" blog, The Chicago Tribune website, retrieved August 26, 2008
32. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-25-ayers_N.htm?csp=34

External links

• Barack Obama campaign statement on Ayers, April 17, 2008

• Barack Obama
• Political controversies