Bill Ayers Obama:William Ayers Obama Palin Attack Debunked

“is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

FOX News and various media outlets have always said that there were no links between Obama and William Charles “Bill” Ayers who was an American activist in the 1960s and 1970s and is now a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, holding the honor of Distinguished Professor.FOX News debunked Palin’s claims by writing:

New York Times: A Review Of Records And Interviews Shows That Obama And Ayers “Do Not Appear To Have Been Close” And Obama Has Never Expressed Sympathy For The Radical Views Or Actions Of Ayers. A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.” [New York Times, 10/3/08 ]

Time: Making An Issue Of Obama’s Relationship With Ayers And Dohrn Is “Absurd.” “Those have been the options in the debate. But the truth is a third option: Ayers and Dohrn are despicable, and yet making an issue of Obama’s relationship with them is absurd.” [Time, 5/29/08 ]

Washington Post: Obama-Ayers Link “Is A Tenuous One.” The Washington Post reported in a fact check that “the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one.” [Washington Post , 2/18/08]

Chicago Sun Times: Obama’s Connection To Ayers Is A “Phony Flap”. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote in an editorial, “But Ayers, it is also true to say, has since followed in the footsteps of the great Chicago social worker Jane Addams, crusading for education and juvenile justice reform. His 1997 book, A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court, has been praised for exposing how Cook County’s juvenile justice system all but eliminates a child’s chance for redemption. Is Barack Obama consorting with a radical? Hardly. Ayers is nothing more than an aging lefty with a foolish past who is doing good. And while, yes, Obama is friendly with Ayers, it appears to be only in the way of two community activists whose circles overlap. Obama’s middle name is Hussein. That doesn’t make him an Islamic terrorist. He stopped wearing a flag pin. That doesn’t make him unpatriotic. And he’s friendly with UIC Professor William Ayers. That doesn’t make him a bomb thrower. Time to move on to Phony Flap 6,537,204.” [Chicago Sun-Times , 3/3/08]

Noam Scheiber Of TNR: “I Don’t See Evidence Of Any Relationship” Between Obama And Ayers. Noam Scheiber of The New Republic wrote, “Ben says Ayers and Obama were, at best, casual friends. Even that seems to overstate things, though. I don’t see evidence of any relationship. The only concrete connection we know of is the meeting, which was attended by a number of local liberals; their contemporaneous membership on the board of a local organization; and a $200-donation by Ayers to one of Obama’s state senate campaigns. (Obama also once praised something Ayers had written about the juvenile justice system.) I’m not saying they couldn’t have been casual friends; just that there isn’t much evidence for that at this point.” [The New Republic, 2/22/08 ]

George Packer: The Obama-Ayers “Media Flap Is An Absurd And Opportunistic Piece Of Guilt By Association” That “Deserves To Die A Swift And Ignominious Death.” “Now George Stephanopoulos, Hillary Clinton, and a legion of Republican strategists are tying Bill to Obama because they sat on the board of a foundation together. What if they did? And what if they’re friendly neighbors in Hyde Park? Bill and Bernardine are also friends with an old friend of mine who has a sterling reputation as a juvenile-court judge. Does that prove anything, other than that they’ve had successful careers in education and law, respectively? This latest media flap is an absurd and opportunistic piece of guilt by association. Unlike Obama’s membership for many years in the church of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or his comments last week in San Francisco, it raises no questions about his beliefs, only about our trivial political culture. It deserves to die a swift and ignominious death.” [New Yorker, 4/18/08 ]