Unfit For The Truth

The Obama campaign has launched a 40 page response to Jerome Corsi's new book as well as a counter-smear campaign against Corsi and I am left with no doubt - thank heaven Corsi is not running for President!

But what about Obama?  Well, one of the points made in Corsi's book is that Obama has been lying by omission in discussing his relationship with unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers.  As we have noted before, Bill Ayers co-founded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge dedicated to public school reform in 1995; Obama was the first chairman of the Challenge and the two worked together on this for several years thereafter (Cites: Ayer's resume, Russo Slate article, Russo history of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, for starters; more here, and a strong hint that the Ayers/Obama collaboration on school reform started in 1987 here.)

Since Corsi is not running for anything, let's focus on Obama's lies and attempted cover-up of this relationship.  At the Philadelphia debate last April he was asked about Ayers and described him as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago...".  Close, but strangely incomplete, as was the Obama "Fact Check" produced the next day, which also made no mention of the longstanding ties between the two men [nor did Axelrod's chat with Ben Smith of Politico.]

Why the failed memory?  Corsi alleges that Obama has continued his marijuana use, so perhaps this is a useful data point.  KIDDING!  More probably, Obama considers it a distraction to discuss his ongoing relationship with a domestic terrorist which has led to not one but two failed attempts at public school reform.  Hmm, it's hard to believe that soccer moms will be thrilled to learn that when Obama works on schools he gets schooled.  That's change we had better not talk about!

And today, despite forty pages rebutting and refuting Corsi, this is all Team Obama can say about the relationship between Obama and Ayers:

LIE: “Sol Stern, a contributing editor of Chicago’s City Journal, has observed that while Ayers today ‘is widely regarded as a member in good standing of the city’s civic establishment, not an unrepentant domestic terrorist,’ the impression of Ayers’s good citizenship is incorrect.” [p 140]

REALITY: AYERS AND DOHRN ARE MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT WITH TIES TO THE MAYOR

I have no doubt that is true.  In fact, when the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was kicked off the event was a huge photo-op at Washington Irving Elementary School with the Governor, the Mayor, the school commissioner and many of Chicago's leading lights in attendance (excerpts below).   Ambassador Annenberg's daughter presented a big cardboard check for $49.2 million and I have no doubt that someone has commemorated the smiling faces of the Mayor, Ms. Annenberg and Bill Ayers; Chairman Obama may well have been in the picture as well.

Which would confirm Obama's point that Ayers was a pillar of the school reform movement, although we should also note that Ayers has not abandoned his leftist ideology - as Ayers explained to Hugo Chavez (yes, that Hugo Chavez), the purpose of education reform is to get 'em while they are young - "La  educacion es revolucion!". 

And that leaves unanswered my point that maybe we can all do a better job of evaluating the Obama/Ayers relationship if Obama stops covering up the nature of the relationship.  Obama has a plausible story to tell in his own defense.  Stop the lies.

MORE:  The Chicago Annenberg Challenge - excerpts, my emphasis:

CHICAGO -- The Annenberg Foundation today announced a five-year grant totaling $49.2 million to support Chicago school reform, calling Chicago reform "a major breakthrough from which the nation can learn." The grant, part of the half-billion-dollar Annenberg Challenge to the Nation to improve the nation's public schools, will be matched two-to-one by $100 million in local private and public dollars.

The Hon. Walter H. Annenberg, editor, publisher and former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, designed the Annenberg Challenge to energize and support promising efforts at school reform across the country. President Bill Clinton announced this extraordinary half-billion-dollar gift at a White House ceremony Dec. 17, 1993.

...Mayor Richard M. Daley and Gov. Jim Edgar joined a citywide gathering of children, parents, teachers, principals and school reform and civic leaders at Washington Irving Elementary School for the grant announcement.

...The Chicago Annenberg proposal was developed through discussions among a broad-based coalition of local school council members, teachers, principals, school reform groups, union representatives and central office staff, convened by Anne Hallett of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, William Ayers of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Warren Chapman of the Joyce Foundation. A nominating committee has been formed by the proposal's drafters to create a permanent 20-person Reform Collaborative to oversee the project. The initial networks of schools that are funded will be selected through a competitive proposal process, with specifics of the process developed by the Collaborative.

The Bill Ayers resume notes both the Annenberg Challenge and his role on the Reform Collaborative:

Co-Founder and Co-Chair, Chicago School Reform Collaborative (The Annenberg Challenge), 1995-2000.

When will Obama tell the truth, and why has he been lying?
 

Comments

[Jor]

TM, even if Obama knew Ayers because occasionally there were on the same board or at the same event -- who really cares? Seriously. Stop being an utter hack. *HACK*. You sound as credible as your hero Corsi. I eagerly await your upcoming 9/11 truth posts.

[Jor]

BTW, I also eagerly await your first post explaining why to vote for McCain instead of voting against Obama. In 2004, there was a concerted campaign against Bush instead of for Kerry -- we all saw how that turned out. .

[Topsecretk9]

I eagerly await your upcoming 9/11 truth posts.

We will leave the "9/11 truth posts" to Obama supporter Lincoln Chafee, kay?

[liontooth]

REALITY: AYERS AND DOHRN ARE MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT WITH TIES TO THE MAYOR

And 'THE MAYOR' is an anti-second amendment gun control fanatic, and the leader of one of the most heavily taxed areas in the US. Obama thinks this is good?

TM, even if Obama knew Ayers because occasionally there were on the same board or at the same event -- who really cares?

Maybe when Obama answers TM's question which was, "When will Obama tell the truth, and why has he been lying?"

[Pat Curley]

The problem as I see it with the Corsi book is that there is nothing new. I listened to an interview of him on Alex Jones a week or so ago, and it was all Rezko/Auchi/Ayers/Dohrn, etc. Worth covering, but covered extensively in the blogs back in March.

Corsi remarked how he had discovered that Obama attended a Muslim school while in the Philippines. Shocking news I suppose, unless you read Dreams from My Father, in which Obama mentioned that he spent two years at a Muslim school and two years at a Catholic school.

[Jor]

Liontooth -- Playing 6 degrees of separation is a distraction and f'n pointless. Its a nice little republican game to ignore important issues and waste time on things like Britney Spears and Parris Hilton. Obama doesn't want to play TM's hacktacular games. Anyone with half a brain wouldn't want to play them, because TM's sole purpose is to be as shrill as possible when it comes to Obama in any manner possible. There is no point for Obama to play or "tell the truth". IT IS pointless and does not f'n matter 1 bit.

[JP]

Corsi is a 9/11 Truther!! Seriously.

[Sara]

who really cares?

Jor: There are millions of voters out there who remember a time not so long ago when bombs were blowing up America and some of our biggest cities were in flames because of political terrorists running rampant. When Ayers says now that he is sorry they (the Weatherman) didn't do more, we remember, so we care. When Wright screams from the pulpit, "God Damn Amerikkka," we remember those burning cities, so we care.

I realize that it is easy to get complacent and to gradually forget with each new generation what kind of fear these American political terrorists and their bombs caused. I realize it is hard for younger people to even comprehend that Ayers, Dorhn and their compadres are very bad people. And I realize it is hard to believe that someone you have only known as a "pillar of the community" could be something else altogether when the layer of respectability is peeled away.

If you put the politics aside for a minute and really think about the implications of a potential president being influenced by a man who, as Tom notes, told Chavez: "La educacion es revolucion!" and who thinks they didn't bomb/kill enough, I think you will see why we care very much.

Obama's biggest problem is that all his mentors, friends, and advisers fall into the Ayers category. From Obama's earliest influence by Davis, thru the militant Black Liberation Theology of Wright and his mentor, Cone, to the communist revolutionary Ayers, the influences are all counter to America's. Their modus operandi of "get 'em while they're young" is just another way of saying "brainwash them" and then they won't care when the time comes to take over.

[JM Hanes]

So, Jor, why are you supporting McCain?

[Lesley]

Corsi a truther? That fact alone would normally give Corsi instant street cred amongst some of our friends on the left. Anticipating nasty cognitive dissonance meltdown......

[Xenos]

Oh yea, Ayers is so obviously guilty and a terrorist and such a bloody threat, which is why his conviction... wait, his prosecution... wait, it must be all the people killed by his bombs... wait...

Oh, he destroyed a statue honoring the police who caused the Haymarket riot and killed their comrades in the course of firing on a labor rally? Good for him, then! Somebody ought to knock that statue down every May 1, just as a matter of principle.

Enjoy your long weekend, dandelion.

[JB]

REALITY: AYERS AND DOHRN ARE MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT WITH TIES TO THE MAYOR

Barack's plan here is to maintain that "'reality' is what I say it is", THE FACTS be damned.

How well is that going to sway the undecideds?

[kim]

Everytime Obama/Soetoto speaks extemporaneously another dot is connected in the big picture. Corsi's just coloring between the lines. You've got a big fat liar, and a fake, there, Jor. What are you going to do about it?

And Xenos finds precious symbolic comfort in Ayers' pusillanimity. What would it take to impress you? Three thousand dead?
======================================

[Sara]

Oh I will Petunia, but I suggest you do alittle more indepth research into Ayer's organization. Here is just one little snippet from Wiki that also covers his wife, Dohrn, to give you a starting point:

The Weathermen, as they were known colloquially, conducted a series of bombings against the US government throughout the early 1970s, bombing several federal buildings. Dohrn is a principal signatory on the group's "Declaration of a State of War" (1970) that formally declared war on the U.S. Government, and completed the group's transformation from political advocacy to violent action. Dohrn also co-wrote and published the subversive manifesto Prairie Fire (1974), and participated in the covertly-filmed Underground (1976).

After the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, the accidental detonation of a bomb being made that killed three of the members, all members of Weatherman went underground and the group took on its last and most famous title, the Weather Underground. The Weathermen and Weather Underground were suspected in various bombings — police cars, the National Guard Association building, the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon. Dohrn allegedly participated in many of the group's revolutionary activities.[9]

In late 1975, the Weather Underground put out an issue of a magazine, Osawatamie, which carried an article by Dohrn, "Our Class Struggle", described as a speech given to the organization's cadres on September 2 of that year. In the article, Dohrn clearly stated support for Communist ideology:[10]

[Sara]

And your description of blowing up a statue doesn't even begin to describe the activities of the group that Ayer's was running with and participated with:

In June 1969, the Weatherman took control of the SDS at its national convention, where Ayers was elected "Education Secretary".[4]

Later in 1969, Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot.[7] The blast broke almost 100 windows and blew pieces of the statue onto the nearby Kennedy Expressway.[8] The statue was rebuilt and unveiled on May 4, 1970, and blown up again by Weatherman on October 6, 1970.[9][8] Built yet again, the city posted a 24-hour police guard to prevent another blast.[8] He participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago that October, and in December was at the "War Council" meeting in Flint, Michigan.

The following year he "went underground" with several associates after the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, in which Weatherman member Ted Gold, Ayers' close friend Terry Robbins, and Ayers girlfriend, Oughton, were killed when a nail bomb that was under construction exploded. Kathy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson survived the blast. Ayers was not facing criminal charges at the time, but the federal government later filed charges against him.[1]

While underground, he and fellow member Bernardine Dohrn married, and the two remained fugitives together, changing identities, jobs and locations.

Despite your snark, these two were not just kids playing with fireworks. Theirs was serious business with every intention of killing and destroying as much as possible. For pete's sake, they declared war on the United States.

[Xenos]

Reds under the bed! Ooooooh! Scary!

Does Obama, outside of whatever limited association he has with local political types, indicate in any way that he is a communist, or an anarchist, or get out and support these movements? He knows these people because they are active in his community - association with them is unavoidable.

If Obama is a crypto-commie he has got to be the most pathetic, milquetoast version of lefty that it is beyond a joke.

And my point is not that Ayers' radicalism is OK because it is so weak he can not be bothered to kill anyone, you dolt. The point is that he is really not very radical at all, except in the fevered musings of ill-informed fools like yourself.

[kim]

Oh, that's right, I forgot; he actually did try to kill people.
====================================

[kim]

Under the bed? No, that's the CO2 monster. The reds are on the internet. Next is the Russian troops. Then the irregulars to rape and pillage. Look to your kit.
===================

[Xenos]

"For pete's sake, they declared war on the United States."

Political theatre is just lost on some people, I suppose.

Why, do you think, the FBI never prosecuted these people? Could it be, just maybe, that there was too much evidence of agents provocateurs who were doing most of the bombings that the WU were accused of?

[kim]

Heh, Xenos doesn't object to Obama/Soetoro's run to the muddle.
=========================================

[kim]

Xenos, a recent thread featured testimony from the child of an enlisted man whose folks were at the Ft. Dix dance. You oughta read it. The ice you are on is thin. Obama has already fallen in and is thrashing, I say death panicked, in his search for identity.
=========================================

[kim]

There are witnesses to leftist outrages of that time, just as there are witnesses to Kerry's behaviour, in the Delta, in the US, and in Paris.
===============================

[kim]

With Stalinism loosing holocaust, AGAIN, it is the wrong time to bring up Obama and milquetoast and leftism.
======================================

[Pagar]

Good Morning to All!
Those who don't see any connection to Communists when they look at Obama's record
might want to try to figure out why the Communist Party of the USA is so solidly behind Obama?

[kim]

Besides, this race, or the next, is going to focus on education, anyway. It's about time.
==========================

[kim]

They are kinda lickin' their chops, aren't they, P?
==============================

[Xenos]

Obama has fallen in? Wishful thinking, there.

If all you guys have is "his stepfather is a radical" (hint, Kim, our country was founded by anti-colonial radicals, based on political theories that were, for their time, even more radical than that of Ayers, Obama Sr., or Soetero), then this is going nowhere for you.

Talk up Corsi all you like. The man is a professional liar, as is his publisher. There is pushback this time, and it just won't take.

[Xenos]

P: the white supremacists all support McCain. That proves McCain is a racist? I think not.

More guilt by minimal, or even non-association.

[Sara]

Xenos, I was on a college campus where the SDS and then the Weatherman were active. A few years later we were a military family when the Weather Underground was blowing things up and killing people.

You are the uninformed one and the one who sounds like the dolt to make light of Ayers, Dorhn and their radical agenda.

As to Obama's communist roots, they start with his communist parents and work their way thru his whole socialist agenda.

What is scary is that there are people like yourself that are so blind and have so little connection to history that you don't get it.

The fact that he got off on a technicality doesn't change the fact that he and his wife should be serving life sentences not given a platform to brainwash those like yourself.

But since you are nothing but a "talking point" troll, I don't think you are here to take advantage of what you could learn if you were serious. It is all moot anyway because your guy won't win.

[Soylent Red]

the white supremacists all support McCain.

Actually almost none do. McCain isn't tough enough on immigration.

Find me the website where a white supremecist org mirrors one-to-one the views of McCain, as does the CPUSA for Obamessiah.

Who, BTW, is possibly a Muslim and whose wife hates whitey.

[Sara]

BTW, changing the subject to blame the messenger isn't a successful strategy on this blog.

[kim]

Xenos and his 'for their time'. You get a flag for that one.
================================

[DebinNC]

Mrs. Obama on "pie" redistribution:

"The truth is, most Americans don't want much. Folks don't want the whole pie.Most Americans feel blessed to thrive just a little bit. But that's out of reach for them." The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so someone else can have more."

[kim]

Keep your fork, there's pie.
=================

[Sara]

So those who work hard because they want more than a little bit should have to give over what they earned so that those who only want a little bit can get theirs too? WTF?

[Jane]

Wow - some of you guys are really up early - or late as the case may be. Did you spend the night watching the Olympics? By 1:00 AM I'm so hepped up I can't get to sleep.

At any rate, it's Friday, a time when all those tales people don't want noticed seem to come to light.

I can hardly wait!

Good Morning everyone - time to get up and enjoy the day!

[Xenos]

Maybe I am confused... when did Ayers get off on a technicality? Granted, he was a fugitive, but when the Weathermen killed three people in the armored car heist he and his wife had already been purged from the group for not being radical enough.

Did Ayers plant bombs? Yes. Were these bombs intended to hurt people, and did they in fact hurt people? No. Is he a political extremist? Of course.

But how does that attach to Obama? Their association, such as it is, looks pretty innocent. Obama regularly engages with people he does not agree with, in order to promote reconciliation. He does it on the right, he does it on the left. Big deal.

As for Obama's father and stepfather, please. His father was an anticolonial academic, a pretty heroic figure in his field because he was prescient about the stupidity of "African Socialism" and thereby ruined his career by being politically incorrect. His step-father was an executive in a nationalized oil company. Obama's mother was an anthropologist/communist! Ooh! Are you suggesting he is some sort of manchurian candidate from the academic left?

[Captain Hate]

Obama doesn't want to play TM's hacktacular games. Anyone with half a brain wouldn't want to play them

Was Jor's point that Obama only has half a brain? That would explain a lot.

[kim]

You're fooling with intent, Xenos. Just the sort of flim flam we've come to expect from Obama. Flim. Flam.
===============================

[R C Dean]

Generally speaking, whenever I hear that someone is part of the Chicago establishment and has close ties to Mayor Daley, the next words I expect to hear generally have something to do with grand juries or bail being set. This may not be the best way to reassure voters that Obama is all that.

[Crook County]

If Xenos/Jor is the best poster that the Obama camp can pay for then our muslim community organizer with the properly inflated tires is in big trouble!

[Xenos]

Maybe I am just a fool, but that fact that someone does not kill anyone is pretty good evidence that he did not intend to kill anyone. You claim some better source of understanding what his intent was.

Lets paly this game with McAin, shall we? His list of murderous associates runs quite long, I assure you.

[Jane]

Maybe I am just a fool

Ahhhhhh grasshopper - now you get it!

[Xenos]

Or how about Corsi's associates? Like professional liar Bud Day? Or the white supremacists and cryopto-kkkers at the Council of Concerned Citizens?

Enough with harassing you mooks.

[qrstuv]

"Maybe I am just a fool, but that fact that someone does not kill anyone is pretty good evidence that he did not intend to kill anyone."

The law sees it a bit differently. If you try to kill someone, the charge is ATTEMPTED MURDER.

You are a fool. Moreover, you're incoherent.

[kim]

I bid you Bud Day, Sir.
==============

[kim]

qrstuv, I wuz gonna swear I never touched him; he just fell down.
=======================================

[centralcal]

Jor: "There is no point for Obama to play or "tell the truth". IT IS pointless and does not f'n matter 1 bit."

Then what are YOU doing here, son? It is all so POINTLESS and does not f'n matter 1 BIT!

Yep, that pretty much sums you up.

[Rick Ballard]

Maybe all Captain Zero has is a 'C' squad? The ObamaJugend do not impress. Peddling the Copperhead brand is a really tough row to hoe when the ground is reality.

[bio mom]

You miss the point lefties. The most potent charge against Obama IS that he is just a pol who is from the corrupt Chicago political machine! So if you use ties to the mayor as your argument that Ayers is mainstream, that really underscores the point, doesn't it?!

I have donated to the Right to Life committee and hope they use it to run ads against Obama over his infanticide support.