"I was only 9"

[Brugdor]

Well a couple of issues there:

2) That's assuming that you instantly know everything about everyone the moment you meet them to decide whether or not you want to associate with them. It is very easy to get to know someone and actually like them and find out that they have a checkered past and I'm not one to throw away a decent friendship just because the people I have came to know made mistakes or did something wrong in the past. It's what they are doing now that matters the most.

And I'm not suggesting you should if they are sorry for their actions. Ayers isn't sorry for his actions. We're talking about a friend that you find out tried to kill innocent people in his or her past and when you ask them if they'd do it again they say, "I wish I had tried harder to kill them". Something like that wouldn't make you reassess that relationship?

[Celest]

Seems Ayers is saying 'Hold on, not so fast' about how close he was with Obama.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/14/ayers.interview/index.html

But in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Ayers told anchor Chris Cuomo that he doesn't know Obama any better than "thousands of other Chicagoans" and that "a secret link" between the two men is a "myth."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6243589

[Brugdor]

Seems Ayers is saying 'Hold on, not so fast' about how close he was with Obama.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/14/ayers.interview/index.html

But in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Ayers told anchor Chris Cuomo that he doesn't know Obama any better than "thousands of other Chicagoans" and that "a secret link" between the two men is a "myth."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6243589

This guy clearly can't decide which story he wants to stick to. How about if we just go by some of the things he has written in the past that contradict the "I'm just a victim of a right wing conspiracy" nonsense that he seems to be claiming now.

http://www.slate.com/id/1008160/

Ayers omits any discussion of his famous 1970 statement, "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at." He also omits any discussion of his wife Bernardine Dohrn's famous reaction to the Manson killings, as conveyed by journalist Peter Collier: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!"

Much more at link

[Solwyn]

This guy clearly can't decide which story he wants to stick to. How about if we just go by some of the things he has written in the past that contradict the "I'm just a victim of a right wing conspiracy" nonsense that he seems to be claiming now.

It took awhile to go through the links... but even now I'm not sure what you're arguing.

Are you arguing that he's a whacko or that he's tied to Obama? Seems to me that everyone here is arguing that he's not tied to Obama, and you're arguing that he's a nutjob.

[Brugdor]

This guy clearly can't decide which story he wants to stick to. How about if we just go by some of the things he has written in the past that contradict the "I'm just a victim of a right wing conspiracy" nonsense that he seems to be claiming now.

It took awhile to go through the links... but even now I'm not sure what you're arguing.

Are you arguing that he's a whacko or that he's tied to Obama? Seems to me that everyone here is arguing that he's not tied to Obama, and you're arguing that he's a nutjob.

I'm arguing both actually. He's a nutjob that's more closely tied to Obama than Obama has admitted.

[Celest]

Then come up with something a bit more substantial to show how close the link is because what you are grabbing at is fairly insubstantial.

[Brugdor]

Then come up with something a bit more substantial to show how close the link is because what you are grabbing at is fairly insubstantial.

I don't feel it is. Ayers described the Obamas as "family friends", Obama wrote a review of his book that appears on the jacket, they served together on that board, Ayers hosted that fund raiser for him, etc and so on. Clearly they weren't just two ships passing in the night. This is like Obama saying he never heard Rev Wright saying those types of things about America that he did. I think Mr. Obama has some memory issues.

[Celest]

Gaspus. Still doesnt demostrate a close relationship. Nor does it demostrate that Obama had any early knowledge about Ayer's past.

Again, I not an Obama apologist or anything of the like but to continue to hammer on this connection without anything that actually demostrates a close relationship between the two is just stubbern bullheadedness.

[Brugdor]

Gaspus. Still doesnt demostrate a close relationship. Nor does it demostrate that Obama had any early knowledge about Ayer's past.

Again, I not an Obama apologist or anything of the like but to continue to hammer on this connection without anything that actually demostrates a close relationship between the two is just stubbern bullheadedness.

What exactly would you consider to be proof that they were more than passing acquaintances?

[Doombot]

EVERY single time I see this topic... I think of this...

I Was Only 19

[Brugdor]

EVERY single time I see this topic... I think of this...

I Was Only 19

Interesting...never even heard of that group.

I would have thought it would remind you of something like this or maybe this or even this. 

[Celest]

Definately something more then 'He had cofee at my house that one time years ago'. Show where they went out and did things. Got together and caught the game. Where they invited eachother to their family functions. You know, show the things that they did together that are typical between 'close family friends' because right now you are just pointing to one thing many years ago(which again brings up the question about whether Obama even knew about Ayer's past) and one statement by Ayers(which he contends was used out of context).

[Brugdor]

http://www.zombietime.com/prairie_fire/

Ok just to be clear this is being linked because it's a great in depth study of the political beliefs of William Ayers. While the writer does link to numerous pages that cover his ties to Obama his primary focus is to disprove the lies that Ayers is spreading now about who he is and what he believes. I'm also not saying that anyone here is buying into what he's saying now. It's simply a measure to keep anyone from believing what he's trying to sell himself as these days.

As the writer points out, some on the left have switched gears from saying that Obama and Ayers weren't/aren't friends to giving excuses about Ayers to say he is not now or wasn't ever that bad of a guy. The writer takes passages straight out of one of the books Ayers wrote to prove that argument is completely false. I'm also not saying that anyone here has switched to that argument.