I Am Sort Of Taking This Personally

Stanley Kurtz is a "slimy character assassin" because he has been poking at the Obama/Ayers/Chicago Annenberg Challenge story?  Geez, that is a bizarre over-reaction from Team Obama.  What's next, the Kewl Kids will mock his wheels at the Prom?

Here we go:

And tonight, the campaign launched a more specific campaign: an effort to disrupt the appearance by a writer for National Review, Stanley Kurtz, on a Chicago radio program. Kurtz has been writing about Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, and has suggested that papers housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago would reveal new details of that relationship.

The campaign e-mailed Chicago supporters who had signed up for the Obama Action Wire with detailed instructions including the station's telephone number and the show's extension, as well as a research file on Kurtz, which seems to prove that he's a conservative, which isn't in dispute. The file cites a couple of his more controversial pieces, notably his much-maligned claim that same-sex unions have undermined marriage in Scandinavia.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," says the email, which picks up a form of pressure on the press pioneered by conservative talk radio hosts and activists in the 1990s, and since adopted by Media Matters and other liberal groups.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves. At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies," it continues.

Kurtz's lies?  Examples, please:

Just last night on Fox News, Kurtz drastically exaggerated Barack's connection with Ayers by claiming Ayers had recruited Barack to the board of the Annenberg Challenge. That is completely false and has been disproved in numerous press accounts.

And there is more on this a bit later:

Kurtz claimed on Fox News that William Ayers recruited Obama to the
Annenberg Challenge -- a flat out lie. Ayers did not serve on the
board of the Challenge, and he had nothing to do with Barack's
recruitment.

As to the "numerous press accounts", I have no idea what they are talking about - there has been very little contemporary press coverage of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to date (neither the WaPo nor the Times had discovered it as of this morning).  As to press coverage in 1995, it was sparse; the fact of Obama's chairmanship is scarcely reported, let alone details as to how he was recruited.

Now, it is true that Ayers was not on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge - so what?  He was a prominent co-founder and worked with the Challenge for several years through his  role as co-founder of the Chicago  School Reform Collaborative.

So it is certainly plausible that Ayers recruited Obama (I would bet on it); it is implausible that Ayers had no role at all in selecting a chairman.  But did Ayers recruit Obama?  Who would know, other than Ayers and Obama, and who has asked them?  And considering Obama's past tap-dancing on this issue, who would believe his answer?

A possible resolution might be available in the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Mr. Kurtz has been riffling through for a couple of days now.  Research, evidence, new conclusions... possible?  Before this campaign flack calls Kurtz a liar, let's see some evidence, from either side [and see CLARIFICATION below].

And while we are on the topic - another reason to think that Ayers recruited Obama in 1995 is that there is an excellent chance Obama and Ayers first partnered up on education reform in 1987.  Bill Ayers was coordinating the ABC's Coalition of which Obama's group, the Developing Communities Project, was a part.  That is one more "smear" for Team Obama to contest bitterly, I suppose.

SPEAKING OF SMEARS:  Obama's "Fight The Smears" website is a blank on Ayers.  Maybe they are planning a whole new website devoted to this?

CLARIFICATION:  From Q&O:

First off, Kurtz has not made any such claim, neither in the interview cited in the email, nor in his article for the National Review. He has suggested that Obama's recruitment by Ayers was likely given the extent of their relationship, but he hasn't explicitly claimed that Obama was definitely recruited. This is why Smith hasn't seen any "hard evidence" backing up such a claim: Kurtz didn't make it.

MORE:  The LA Times blog comments; their lead:

As nation watches Denver, Obama campaign muscles Chicago station over ex-radical Ayres

In a surprising attempt to stifle broadcast criticism of its candidate, the presidential campaign of freshman Illinois senator Barack Obama is organizing supporters to confront Chicago's WGN radio station for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its main evening discussion program.

They spell "Ayers" correctly in the body - can't they make common cause with the headline writers?

John Fund has a few paragraphs on Ayers and Obama in the WSJ, picking up on the cover-up theme:

Also unexplained is the sudden sensitivity on Team Obama's part. It's already known that Mr. Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, hosted a key fund-raising party during Mr. Obama's first bid for public office and also served with Mr. Obama on the board of a Chicago-based charity until 2002. Today, the University of Illinois will finally release documents it tried to keep from the public on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the liberal school reform effort founded by Mr. Ayers and chaired by Mr. Obama. Obama campaign aides insist the two men had only a casual relationship. During a Democratic primary debate last April, Mr. Obama said that "the notion that . . . me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense."

We may know more about the relationship between the two men later this week, after reporters have plowed through the once-suppressed Annenberg Challenge records.

Comments

[Jane]

As I said on the other thread I'm listening to the podcast right now, and I just can't get over the juxtaposition of Kurtz and Rosenberg and the background noise of the Obama supporters.

[Porchlight]

Almost makes me believe there's a providential hand in all this.

Yes...and I must admit I felt the same about the Swiftees and the TANG memos in 2004.

[PeterUK]

Temple of Illusion MkI

[PeterUK]

The is the precious core of Marx's teaching.

That would be Karl"Never had day job,used to shag the help" Marx?

[JM Hanes]

scoopa:

"What does AbFab mean?" Sorry I missed this question earlier. It's short for Absolutely Fabulous.

[PeterUK]

The Barrackopolis no playing well over here.

[kim]

In his left hand, what's that stuff? Looks expensive.
=========================

[Whitehall]

Check the simularities between the CAC goals and the Port Huron Statement.

Authored by the same people?

[bad]

Whitehall

Forgive my ignorance, what is the Port Huron Statement?

[Rick Ballard]

Bad,

The Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the SDS, wherein they claim to be a whole different kind of commie that shouldn't even be called commie.

A simpler term for the Port Huron Statement is "horseshit".

[bad]

Thanks Rick

Unfortunately, its all coming back to me now.

[Pagar]

Larry Johnson points out another Ayers Anniversary today with comments from the John McCain site. Larry also has a few questions that seem to have not yet been answered about Obama and Ayers.

" 1. When did Barack Obama first meet Bill Ayers? Was it in New York City? Under what circumstances? Was it at Cooper Union when Ayers was a graduate student there and Obama at Columbia? Was it at Columbia when Ayers was at the teachers’ college?
2. Did Ayers play any role in Obama coming to Chicago as an organizer in 1985? Did the Ayers influence the Woods Fund in any way to subsidize through the Gamaliel Foundation Obama’s job? (The Woods Fund was created by the family of the Safari Coal Company, a major supplier of Commonwealth Edison, whose CEO was Thomas Ayers.)
3. Did Ayers introduce Obama the organizer to his family, his father Tom and brother John? Did they involve Obama in the school reform movement they led in Chicago?
4. Did the Ayers family help Obama become a summer associate at Sidley Austen, the father’s company’s law firm?
5. Did Bernardine Dohrn know Michelle Robinson when they both worked at Sidley at the same time? Did she or Ayers introduce Michelle to Barack at Sidley?
6. Did Dohrn, who attended the University of Chicago Law School with Judson Miner, play any part in helping Obama get a job at the Davis Miner law firm?

UPDATE: It was 40 years ago today that William Ayers was arrested at the Democratic national convention — just like the “Recreate68″ extreme-left protestors at this convention:

LUN