Annenberg, Obama, And Ayers

Unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers in in the news, linked to his friend and colleague from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Barack Obama.

The NRO editors join in while we wait for Stanley Kurtz to riffle the Challenge archives at the University of Illinois Chicago library.

Fox News got a peek at the archives:

FOX News was among several news organizations that reviewed the university’s records by appointment. In one agenda, a March 15, 1995, meeting featured Obama making introductions and Ayers giving a briefing.

But more than a year later, Obama pushed the group to be bolder in its reforms, according to the Associated Press, which also reviewed the documents. Minutes from an October 1996 gathering show Obama, a guest at a meeting of the collaborative, raised questions about what the group should be doing.

The Associates Press reports the minutes characterized Obama’s concerns as twofold: Whether the group was raising additional money and whether money was being used “to prop up existing organizations as opposed to creating fresh educational practices in the schools?”

“At the end of five years, will we have broken the mold? Not much seems to be bubbling up that is inspiring or substantive,” the minutes say, paraphrasing Obama.

The "collaborative" to which they refer was founded and led by Bill Ayers (see his resume) and did a lot of the staff work for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

And here is the AP:

The minutes of the Annenberg Challenge meetings show that during a June 1995 meeting, Ayers was credited with having "worked diligently" to support the effort. More than a year later, Obama pushed the group to be bolder in its reforms.

"At the end of five years, will we have broken the mold? Not much seems to be bubbling up that is inspiring or substantive," October 1996 minutes say, paraphrasing Obama.

Ayers and Obama clearly worked together - odd that Obama forgot.

The Chicago Tribune describes the media frenzy at the library and notes the Obama cover-up:

The UIC records show that Obama and Ayers attended board meetings, retreats and at least one news conference together as the education program got under way. The two continued to attend meetings together during the 1995-2001 operation of the program, records show.

At a Democratic debate this year when the association between Obama and Ayers was raised, Obama said: "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood. . . . He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis." Obama called Ayers' past radical acts detestable.

But critics note that Obama visited Ayers' home for a meeting at the start of his first state Senate bid in the mid-'90s.

And the Canada Free Press wonders whether criticizing Obama is a crime.  Geez, when the Canadians mock our press freedom...

The NY Times is all meta - they are happy to bash the shadowy group besmirching their candidate but are unwilling to note the long. strong tie between Ayers and Obama by way of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  When last we looked, Jim Rutenberg of the Times was utterly unaware of (or at least, unwilling to report) that tie; now, his final paragraph warms up their readers for revelations to follow:

The fight may move to another front this week.

The University of Illinois at Chicago is in the process or releasing documents detailing Mr. Obama’s involvement with a non-profit education project started by Mr. Ayers.

It's almost like reporting!

The WaPo also focuses their coverage on Obama's bold, non-Kerryish push-back.  Here is a bold, colorful quote from an Obama operative who WON"T BE BULLIED:

Obama campaign lawyer Robert F. Bauer replied: "If someone rides up to a convenience store with a sawed-off shotgun and a prior record, I'm not intimidating anybody by calling the cops. . . . If this [Republican] campaign is going to be run in McCarthyite fashion by lawbreakers in an illegal way, they are going to pay a price."

Boy, talking about Ayers and riding around with shotguns - wise?

The WaPo aids the mainstreaming of Bill Ayers and lays the groundwork for Obama's alibi:

Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical organization that claimed responsibility for a dozen bombings between 1970 and 1974. He is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on public school reform.

However, the rest of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge link will have to wait for another story - as of this reporting, the Ayers/Obama tie is still quite tenuous in WaPoWorld:

Ayers did hold a gathering for him in 1995 when Obama first ran for the Illinois Senate, and he later contributed $200 to his reelection campaign. But Bauer said that hardly constitutes launching the political career of a University of Chicago Law School lecturer and the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, who had just published his first memoir, "Dreams From My Father."

The WaPo website hosts the AP story noting the Chicago Annenberg Challenge but their featured A1 story is silent on that connection.  That is actually funny, in a head-bangingly predictable sort of way.

Comments

[bad]

Every time I see "the collaberative" I mistakenly read it as "the collective."

[capitano]

So now the spin is that those lovable lugs, Ayers and the Weather Underground, never intended to hurt anyone and the fact that Ayers never personally killed anyone was by design. Keep digging Barack, keep digging.

[Pofarmer]

Let's not take him out before the end of the convention. O.K.?

[Rick Ballard]

From the NRO cite:

"The mainstream media has been derelict on the Obama/Ayers relationship."

What calumny! I believe that the mainstream media has done an outstanding job in keeping the relationship under cover. If left alone, I'm sure that they could have made it right through the election without ever mentioning the fact that a terrorist was instrumental in getting Obama his first position of executive responsibility. I find the suggestion that mainstream media is not wholly on the side of Team Obama to be without factual substantiation. They are doing their job according to their understanding of the purpose for their existence and it is cruel and heartless of those right wingers at NRO to suggest otherwise. Damned running dog capitalists.

Pofarmer,

Today is the day. The commie will have the nod before sunset and RW will be reviewing resumes for her 2012 campaign team before midnight.

[GMax]

running dog capitalist

Hey I resemble that remark!

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Wow, double ouch.

From the Canadian Free Press reprint of a Capital Research Center article.

By the way, presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain isn’t much better on First Amendment issues. The Arizona senator has long been a fan of so-called campaign finance reform that limits free speech. But even though McCain hates the low tax group, the Club for Growth, which has been harshly critical of his policy positions, as far as I know he hasn’t tried to have the group or its backers prosecuted.

Barack: Love - 40.

[capitano]

Reading the Chicago-area blog comments on the Ayers connection, I keep seeing complaints from older Lefties that Ayers and the Weather Underground's emphasis on violence corrupted the non-violent protest movement. But even more interesting is the recurring complaint that Ayers escaped prosecution because of his family's money and influence.

I wonder how many homes the Ayers family had in those days.

[Danube of Thought]

Great Scott--following the Biden announcement, and after two nights of the convention, The One has dropped four points in Rasmussen, and now trails by one.

The people are not going to elect a guy they don't know, and no one really knows this guy. And anything they learn in the next couple of months is not going to be good for him.

[Jane]

I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a repeat of Greta with Stanley Kurtz - it certainly sounded like he had a bombshell in his hands. Nothing about it anywhere else.

Then when I learned they are building a replica of the Acropolis for tomorrow night's speech it just seems to me that the election is over. Obama is like a kid who gets a last wish before he dies at this point - or he is the most clueless oaf in the universe.

[kim]

It's beginning to look like human sacrifice.
==========================

[kim]

Where's James Earle Jones when we need him?
=============================

[clarice]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/08/a_funny_thing_happened_on_the_1.html

[clarice]

Forum

[clarice]

C'Mon Stanley--spit it out already! I did note one of the two articles I read about the 1,000 files indicate that Obama did cite the CAC chairmanship in his resume a long time ago. I do so wonder why he dropped it when he ran for President.

I am starting to pick up something else--he and his staffers seems surprised that anyone cares about Ayres' background. Are they really this clueless?

[Captain Hate]

Then when I learned they are building a replica of the Acropolis for tomorrow night's speech it just seems to me that the election is over. Obama is like a kid who gets a last wish before he dies at this point - or he is the most clueless oaf in the universe.

This is beyond stupid; maybe for the tv cameras it might look scaled correctly but for the people in the stadium it will be like being at a Spinal Tap concert. This is like something out of a mockumentary. Again, are there any adults associated with this individual saddled with huge self-image issues?

[MayBee]

I do so wonder why he dropped it when he ran for President.

I wonder why he thought he could get away with it.
It's as if he was confident people couldn't find out much about his past.

[hrtshpdbox]

..but for the people in the stadium it will be like being at a Spinal Tap concert.

That is too funny (and too true). I've heard that now Springsteen and Bon Jovi will not be playing, and I'm disappointed; that would have been another grand mistake.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

I am starting to pick up something else--he and his staffers seems surprised that anyone cares about Ayres' background. Are they really this clueless?

This is the Axelrod-effect. Axelrod trained Mayor Richard M. Daley in effective countermeasures to deploy against critics. The primary countermeasure is "play dumb". The secondary countermeasure is "pretend like you never knew anything about it".

The problem here is that what works in Chicago doesn't work in Washington. In Chicago, Axelrod can lean on many figures to brush all the evidence either under the rug, or dismember it into many disconnected pieces that discovered alone are useless. These methods are employed in Washington, but the number of special interests is far greater and therefore the protection and isolation of damaging information is a market itself.

Obama and Axelrod need the Clintons to extend the Chicago Way into Washington. Team Obama is completely destroying their chances to win in failing to cater to the Clintons, expire her campaign debt, and absorb her supporters.

The elephant in the room is that the Clinton supporters maintain interests that conflict with the policy goals of an Obama Administration.

[Danube of Thought]

My God, Captain--you actually made me laugh out loud. I can still picture the eighteen-inch Stonehenge being lowered to the stage, and the argument that followed (it was supposed to be eighteen feet).

Jane, a very special good morning to you. You have already made my day.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

As I watch Obama events it's as if I'm watching Monty Python run for the White House.

If only we could be so lucky.

[Danube of Thought]

"The elephant in the room is that the Clinton supporters maintain interests that conflict with the policy goals of an Obama Administration."

I think a bigger elephant is that, wholly apart from policy differences (I can't think of any), the Clinton supporters want her to run against a Republican incumbent in 2012.

[clarice]

I don't think they're playing dumb on this one.. I think they honestly had no idea how much Ayres' would offend the voters. I think the CAC was dropped from the thin resume because even those dopes knew a failed exercise of executive power was worse than no experience as an executive at all.

[clarice]

The last time I saw a replica of the Acropolis was when Mr Gerleman made us make them out of matchsticks in 7th grade social studies. I hoped to never see one of those again!

[MayBee]

even those dopes knew a failed exercise of executive power was worse than no experience as an executive at all.

Good point. But the whole "friendly 'cause their kids go to school together" ruse was especially bold.

[Jane]

I wonder if they will duplicate the cats. Thousands of cats roam around the Acropolis at all times. Too bad we can't help them out with that.

Has Kurtz posted anything about the CAC since yesterday?

[clarice]

I keep checking and nada..

[clarice]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/worshipme.jpg

[kim]

To hide the polling of the delegates underneath the Breakfast Bar, can there be any other reason than fear that the Supers may surprise?

It's as if Jack-in-the-Box catered the breakfast. Watch Super Surprises pop up in faces from underneath the English Muffins.
======================================

[Ranger]

Both Instapundit and Hot Air have links to some pretty bad polling data for Obama. It explains why the Obama campaign is so desperate to kill this Ayers ad. Obama is tanking with "conservative Democrats." That's exactly the demographic that the Ayers issue resonates with. I imagine that the more play Obama's friendship with Ayers gets, the lower those "conservative Democrat" numbers will go.

[clarice]

That's what I'm hoping, ranger..and that the independents are not amused either by this playing in the sandbox with murderous thugs.

[bad]

I have a confession. I wasn't cynical enough about Obama. But I'm getting over it.

[kim]

"He recognized that I was appreciably larger than he was" Charlie for Secretary of State!
=================================

[TMF]

"Unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers in in the news"

Correction. Its on FOX, and a few blogs. And it will stay that way

[MikeS]

I'm a little concerned about the "Parthenon" stage at Invesco. It is a little disconcerting to imagine Obama rising up out of the ground as if being birthed by the goddess Athena, though it would make a great supplement to the Celebrity ad.

Hope to God McCain just goes with a big flag.

[bad]

TMF

Check out the link under my name.

[eaglewingz08]

Gee all that brainpower and not one of them thought about Charter schools as a possible innovation? Imagine that.

[clarice]

Swiftboats weren't much in the news in late August of 2004 either, were they..but word got out thru the under news as it is again.

[Danube of Thought]

"Its on FOX, and a few blogs. And it will stay that way."

You can smell the fear, and it's as sweet as it can be.

[clarice]

charter schools=no unions. Asked and answered.

[bad]

I'm a little concerned about the "Parthenon" stage at Invesco.

I am too. Poor Obama, someone might consider it foreign or exotic.

[Danube of Thought]

"The release of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge documents turned the sterile special collections room at the university's Daley library into a media frenzy. Television crews hovered at the room's entrance. Librarians scurried to copying machines to fulfill the requests of a roomful of reporters."

Hey--it's on Fox and a couple of blogs, right? Nobody really cares about Obama lying about his relationship with an unrepentant domestic terrorist.

[Extraneus]

I'm not sure if anyone has posted a reference to Andy McCarthy's comment from yesterday at the Corner, Bill Ayers: Unrepentant LYING Terrorist , but it says a lot about Ayers that at least I didn't know. For example,

First of all, "that moment in the townhouse" he's talking about happened in 1970. Three of his confederates, including his then girlfriend Diana Oughton, were accidentally killed when the explosive they were building to Ayers specifications (Ayers was a bomb designer) went off during construction. As noted in Ayers' Discover the Networks profile, the explosive had been a nail bomb. Back when Ayers was being more honest about his intentions, he admitted that the purpose of that bomb had been to murder United States soldiers:

That bomb had been intended for detonation at a dance that was to be attended by army soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plan been successfully executed. Ayers attested that the bomb would have done serious damage, "tearing through windows and walls and, yes, people too."

Apparently he's now saying they never intended to kill anyone, just damage property. Unless you already know all about Ayers and Dohrn, I think the whole McCarthy comment is worth reading.

[clarice]

Yes, bad, I saw the trib article and I think there's one on USA today--but still no big new details. It's hard to review and write this up carefully so I expect Kurtz' article won't come out until later this afternoon. I'm going to do my swim and some errands and check back later.

I see three stories in this--what do you all think?
(1) The lie about the guy in the neighborhood
(2) the failure at executive leadership
(30 funneling money to folks with aewful backgrounds who were trying to but did not succeed in the one successful effort to improve Chicag's public schools.

At the same time (a) per Mickey Kaus other big city Dem mayors following DC 's Mayor Fenty are attacking the unions, realizing that change is not possible with the unions calling the shots;
(b) the Dem draft platform is calling for more partnerships with organizers remarkably like the failed CAC project.

[Porchlight]

I seem to recall reports of Obama and his staff being surprised at the blowback from the "bitter clingers" remark, too. I agree with Clarice that they really are that isolated in their Hyde Park leftism and clueless about the rest of the country.

That's been my mom's argument, by the way (she is a moderate Dem and my parents went to grad school at UChicago) - in a prog precinct like Hyde Park, Obama *is* a moderate. And Bill Ayers *is* just another guy in the neighborhood - it being a highly unusual neighborhood. So it's hard for Obama and his confreres to understand the uproar.

[Sue]

This is where we are, folks. And this woman, and people like her, will examine the resume of Obama and find him wanting? I don't know why I am forever shocked that people think this way.

[bad]

From the Chicago Tribune: LUN

UIC spokesman Mark Rosati said the library restricted access after receiving a call in early August from a "former representative" of the Challenge's board, who raised questions about the university's authority to make the documents public.

I wonder who was questioning authority as a "former representative." And were they still wearing their peace sign when they made the call.

[Porchlight]

I'm a little concerned about the "Parthenon" stage at Invesco.

I predict that it's going to look ridiculous and that the late night shows and Stewart/Colbert et al are going to have a ton of fun with it. Spinal Tap/Stonehenge will probably come up. I also agree that this is Barack's last hurrah; hope he enjoys it because it's all downhill from here.

BTW sorry if it's been mentioned, but did anyone else notice that the convention stage looks a lot like the lower part of a hot air balloon, with the podium squarely in the center of the "basket"? Hit and Run's pic at VIMH was what reminded me (plus my daughters were watching The Wizard of Oz last night):

Hot air balloon

[MayBee]

Gad, Sue. I hate introspective people. They are the least self-aware of all.

Actually, it's really easy to imagine all kinds of things when you don't have to live with the emotional consequences of the reality of it.

[GMax]

Fox and a Few Blogs

New meme

This is the corollary to the old meme ( to wit:)

Kerry got Swiftboated

They are stuck on stupid near as I can tell

[Porchlight]

UIC spokesman Mark Rosati said the library restricted access after receiving a call in early August from a "former representative" of the Challenge's board

If true, that is a relief to hear - I was really bothered by the idea that it was someone in the library who had sent out the alert. Even so, I still don't understand how the "former representative" got wind of Kurtz's plans to look at the records.