The Times Discovers The Chicago Annenberg Challenge

[Steve Diamond is the dean of this story - do see his excellent post.]

Barack Obama wants to talk about education reform and has realized he can't duck his history with unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  Fortunately the Times is here to help:

CHICAGO — Senator Barack Obama learned how hard it can be to solve America’s public education problems when he headed a philanthropic drive here a decade ago that spent $150 million on Chicago’s troubled schools and barely made a dent.

Ahh, the old "I learned from my mistakes and occasional successes" spin I had suggested a few weeks back.  Let's watch the Times hone in on the Bill Ayers connection - regular readers will recall that Bill Ayers co-wrote the grant proposal that led to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, then worked for years with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge through a group he formed and led called the Chicago School Reform Collaborative.  There is an excellent chance that Obama and Ayers first partnered up on public school reform back in 1988, during an earlier city-wide push for hope and change in the Chicago schools.

The Times takes this up beginning at paragraph seventeen:

Mr. Obama immersed himself in education issues after his return to Chicago, where he began lecturing at the University of Chicago Law School and joined the boards of two education foundations.

Chicago received $49 million from a $500 million endowment by Walter H. Annenberg, the billionaire publisher, for school reform efforts nationwide, and the city added $98 million in matching funds for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a philanthropic campaign that financed enrichment projects at a third of the city’s 600 schools.

Mr. Obama was nominated to the Challenge board and was elected chairman in 1995, said Ken Rolling, executive director of the group, which operated through 2001. Mr. Obama continued to teach law during his five-year unpaid tenure as board chairman, and he was twice elected to the Illinois Senate.

Several board members, including two university presidents, far outranked Mr. Obama in education experience.

“Let me say the room had no shortage of egos, including my own,” said Stanley O. Ikenberry, a board member who at the time was president of the University of Illinois. “It was unusual: here you had a person trained in the law chairing a board on school reform.” Still, he said, Mr. Obama won his colleagues’ respect.

Obama's role was unusual?  Dare someone ask him whether Ayers lobbied for him based on a joint effort in 1988?

Supporters of Mr. McCain have been trying to taint Mr. Obama by highlighting his ties to William Ayers, a member of the violent Weather Underground in the 1960s, by pointing out that they worked on the Challenge project together. Mr. Ayers was indicted on conspiracy charges that were later thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct.

Mr. Obama has acknowledged that he is a friend of Mr. Ayers but has sought to minimize their interactions.

Note:  "Minimize their interactions" is awfully polite - "lie by omission" would be more accurate but improbable given the source.

Records show that Mr. Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, helped write the Challenge proposal. The records also show that he and Mr. Obama worked on the Challenge project together and that they attended some of the same meetings.

The Challenge’s overall approach — supporting many diverse education projects rather than a coordinated school improvement strategy — had been established before Mr. Obama was named board chairman, and the board came under immediate pressure to approve grant proposals quickly.

No Maoist left behind - one of the first grants went to Michael Klonsky, a Maoist and former SDS colleague of Bill Ayers.

“If you throw $10 on the table in Chicago, people are going to fight over it, and we had $50 million,” Mr. Rolling recalled.

Proposals poured in and the board eventually financed projects involving 210 schools. Some were imaginative: one, for example, connected schools with museums in the Chicago area so that students learned science from a paleontologist at the local dinosaur exhibit. But many were not.

“The project proposals by and large were awful,” one board member told an evaluation team in 1998.

Relations with school authorities were difficult. Just as the Challenge got under way, the Illinois Legislature gave Mayor Richard M. Daley control of the school district, and he began an improvement campaign based on high-stakes testing and other measures. Annenberg’s let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom approach often seemed at cross-purposes with that strategy.

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the reading and math scores of the lowest-achieving students improved in the years when the Challenge was investing in the Chicago schools.

But a final report on the Challenge concluded that the huge effort had brought little change.

“The Challenge’s ‘bottom line’ was improving student achievement,” the report said. “Among the schools it supported, the Challenge had little impact on student outcomes.”

But the experience gave Mr. Obama an appreciation for the multiple problems facing urban schools, Mr. Rolling said. The city has been a pioneer ever since in exploring ways to recruit, train and support teachers.

Left unmentioned - the Ken Rolling quoted here is the same Ken Rolling who tried to get the Chicago Annenberg Challenge archives locked down.

And what about an examination of Bill Ayers' hard-left educational philosophy?  I love his speech to Hugo Chavez while down Venezuela way in which he explained that "La educacion es revolucion!".  Get 'em young.

The Times won't attempt to follow the trail back to 1988 or ask the Obama campaign to explain their misrememberings and deceptions, but perhaps real reporters will.

MISREMEMBERING:  I love this candid disclosure from Team Obama last February to Ben Smith of The Politico:

I didn't get to ask Obama about his relationship with Bill Ayers today, but did ask his chief strategist (and reigning expert on Chicago's political tribes), David Axelrod, about the two men.

"Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school," he said. "They're certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together."

Their kids go to the same school!  By April The Politico knew more:

Information about the pair's connection has been dribbling out over the past few months. Obama first met Ayers in 1995, during Obama's first state Senate campaign, and the two met with a small group of local liberal activists at Ayers' house. Exact details of the meeting are unkown because Obama and Ayers have declined to discuss it.

Bzzzt!  Wrong again!  That fundraiser was in the second half of 1995, well after Obama had taken his seat as board chair.

Why the cover-up Team Obama?  Why the enabling by the Times? Why the absurd rhetorical questions with such easy answers?

UPDATE:  Steve Diamond has an excellent post.  I picked up the probable Obama/Ayers 1988 connection from him, and we both flogged it today.  I also got Klonsky from him, but he let that slide - score one for the MinuteMan (OK, I was kitchen-sinking it, but still...).  His background on Chicago school politics is helpful but beyond my pay grade.

BACKGROUND:  Lots of research links in this old post, including to this panning of Obama's school reform efforts by Alexander Russo, writing in Slate.  I'll snip this:

The story of Obama's involvement suggests that on similarly contentious fronts involving national education policy, like the No Child Left Behind Act, he might respond the same way—holding back when powerful interest groups collide, only to support the status quo of local control in the end. The candidate's Chicago record on education also raises questions about his much-vaunted ability to bring different sides together to find lasting solutions.

He did not bring people together nor did he bring real change. 

PILING ON:  WLS from Patterico's Place notes the story, as does Jeff G of Protein Wisdom.  Jeff's Big Finish:

Attempts to tether Governor Sarah Palin to Pat Buchanan (along with other supposed anti-semites) and a secessionist party have both proven unremarkable — largely because they were so easily debunked.  Attempts to tether her to cuts in funding for special needs children, or to economic mistreatment of rape victims, have, too, proven feeble — though I suspect that the goal here is to tarnish her in the aggregate by throwing anything and everything against the igloo wall and see what blubber happens to stick.

And yet here we are, months away from a presidential election, and the mainstream press has only tangentially and defensively explored the connections between Barack Obama and an unrepentant (and largely unreconstructed) domestic terrorist — even though Obama has lied both about the extent and  duration of that relationship.

And that strikes me not only as proof of a partisan bias, but also as a failure of due dilligence — and even on the more extreme end, a dereliction of its duty.

Well, yes - they don't even know if there is a story there before deciding there is no story there.

Comments

[Chris]

Obfuscation is the sincerest form of flattery at the NYT.

[bio mom]

The NYTimes is also trying to use Fannie and Freddie in a deceptive way against McCain. Despite the federal election committee data showing Obama at number 3 in contributions from them and McCain not even there at all, they have a graph up showing individual contributions from people who have had or still have some involvement with freddie/fannie and their contributions. Obama shows quite low, McCain quite high. I have written a complaint to the public editor about this advocacy journalism.

[RELIAPUNDIT]

quote:

"Mr. Obama was nominated to the Challenge board and was elected chairman in 1995, said Ken Rolling, executive director of the group, which operated through 2001."

This deliberate sentence uses the passive tense, and it's very VERY VERY vague.

EXACTLY WHO NOMINATED HIM?

[Neo]

Whatz Happin'n

This isn't in his resume. The Times must be lying.

[Sue]

At least one of the members of the board thought it odd someone with a law background ranked higher than those in education. I wonder if he said more that wasn't used?

[clarice]

I thought the Times story was unusually deceptive--I said on another thread I'd use it to teach a course in propaganda, and I meant it.

[bgates]

Barack Obama’s education plan reflects his own work with Chicago’s public schools....when he headed a philanthropic drive here a decade ago that spent $150 million on Chicago’s troubled schools and barely made a dent.
I'm sold.

[bgates]

oops. Fixed?

[bgates]

.

[clarice]

bgates you are so PICKY...........

[Ranger]

Global Labor makes this interesting observation in the latest post there:

(By the way, how about that Ken Rolling - he was at the Woods Fund that helped finance Obama's position at the DCP in the mid-80s and later funneled the DCP money in the 87-88 school wars, then was recruited by Ayers and Obama join them running the CAC and most recently has been the lead Plumber trying to prevent public access to CAC records held at the University of Illinois. None of this is yet on the record, though, at the Times.

Funny how the files Rolling specificly tried to block were the ones directly dealing with how he came to be hired for the position at CAC.

An interesting coincidence that two people will no major experience in education were selected as chairman and the head of day to day operations. And those two seem to also have direct connections to each other. A nice cozy set up there. Very Chicago style.

[MayBee]

Don't you all see? Obama has learned his lesson. He has experience. You can't put a newbie like McCain in charge of education. He might make the mistakes Obama has already learned from.

[JB]

"Obfuscation is the sincerest form of flattery at the NYT. "

Don't you mean obamafuscation?

[steve sturm]

You've probably covered this, but just how did Obama's young kids (born in 1998 and 2001) go to school together with Ayers' now-adult kids?

[Semanticleo]

More Annennothingberger carp.........

Maguire;

You and McCaine have a lot in common;

Monomania........

Ahab's motivation for hunting down the white whale;

"The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; -- Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, where visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

Ahab saw all the worlds' evil personified in the mammalian mute. God had made him Grand Inquisitor, and he is determined to carry out his mandate for the good of mankind....

Here's Maguires Evil One.....

from the article;

In the two decades since Mr. Obama arrived in Chicago, its public schools have undergone a sweeping turnaround, from an education wasteland to a district that, while still facing major challenges, is among the most improved in the nation. The city has closed many failing schools and reopened them with new staffs, making it an important laboratory for one of the country’s most vexing problems.

[bgates]

Clarice, it's amazing that even while going through such contortions to protect their candidate, the Times leaves a McCain ad embedded in the text.

I'm starting to wonder if O might lose bad enough that the whole Annenberg story could come out. As much as the press loves Democratic winners, they hate Democratic losers. Remember that Newsweek hit piece on Kerry after he lost? If Obama loses by 3, they'll blame racist America, but if it's a blowout, I think they'll turn on him.

[clarice]

They'll take him apart in that event, bgates..still he'll never have to worry about money again. He'll go on lots of boards and perform as well as Gorelick did at Dannie Mae and he'll speak, write and be considered some sort of guru.

[DebinNC]

Senator Barack Obama learned how hard it can be to solve America’s public education problems when he headed a philanthropic drive here a decade ago...

How can anyone know what Obama learned from CAC when his website doesn't mention anything about CAC in his bio, in his voluminous education policy page, or in his big "education speech" in Dayton this week?

Obviously, if he were proud of his CAC tenure or learned valuable lessons from it, we'd have heard long before now.

[Appalled]

leo:

TM's single-minded persuits are a feature, not a bug. It appeals to the Sherlock Holmes or the oppo-researcher in all of us.

I actually think finding out more about Obama in an executive role in school reform is actually relevent to the campaign.

[SWarren]

Quite a gloss-over article by the Times. So Obama and Ayres first met in 1988?

Still obfuscating? This would be just after Ayres returned from Columbia U. with an Ed.degree in 'curriculum evaluation'

I still think they met in NYC, where Ayres shared his dreams of indoctrinating youn g minds on "social justice" and his plans for the 'la education revolucion' and it was Ayres who got him set up as an organizer with the $25,000 Woods grant.

[MayBee]

How can anyone know what Obama learned from CAC

Excellent point.
But the Times knows, because that's what they want him to have learned, and that's what they want us to learn. Obama didn't have failure that he's trying to hide, he had a learning experience that....he's trying to hide.

[clarice]

**Fannie Mae**

Hey, remember when Hillary took O apart in the debate and he then made a speech where she claimed he was giving her the bird? Many claimed it was simply an inadvertent gesture..Here are two speeches he gave at the same time in which he did the same thing..It wasn't inadvertent--look for the spinning hands "tell"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoOFp-RDpvM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhkq11UExcw

[Sue]

Clarice,

That is wild. He did it on purpose.

[Enlightened]

Oh wah. Cleo is on the poo-flinging squad today I see - Team Bambi must have had a vey bad night.

[clarice]

I think it's clear that he did, Sue.

[kim]

And now Leo's pushing Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc fallacies to try to prop up Obama. Hasn't anybody told you, or the Times, that Obama's work was a huge waste of money and counterproductive?

Obama knew it; that's why it's not on his resume. I predicted a long time ago that education was going to be a winner issue for the Repubs, and now the Old Grey Lady has stumbled down the stairs into the pit of the Annenberg Challenge.
=============================

[Barney Frank]

Sue,
Could you post a link to clarice's vids?
I tried following her links and found nothing. Thanks.

[Barney Frank]

He'll go on lots of boards and perform as well as Gorelick did at Dannie Mae

clarice,
I still hold out hope Gorelick (and Frank Raines for that matter) will get their just desserts for the Fannie Mae fraud. Bernie Ebbers and Worldcom had nothing on those grifters. The justice dept. investigation continues I believe.

[Sue]

I think it's clear that he did, Sue.

In the exact same spot in the speech, he makes the exact same movements? That just happen to flip Hillary the bird? It's very clear. I didn't realize it happened the 2nd time.

[Sue]

Clarice's links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoOFp-RDpvM>1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhkq11UExcw>2

[clarice]

Here, Barney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoOFp-RDpvM>Finger

hFinger II

[Neo]

It's real cute that with the slow motion Obama sounds like Bill Cosby.

[Neo]

It's pretty amazing that the NYT didn't mention that Obama seems to have left out this job from his resume ... I wonder why ... this would be an excellent comeback for Obama to all those complaints by McCain and Palin that he never had executive experience or handled a payroll.

[clarice]

Well, Barney--we'll see. Gorelick IIRC fronted for the phony audits of the organization.
Raines is getting a divorce. He lives down the block and his house was for sale for over $11 million. There's a sign out front that says its under contract. I hope someone gets the money he and Gorelick and the others stole . (Didja notice how much of that was finneled back to Dems? A lot but heck it was small potatoes compared to their own haul.)

[Neo]

You've probably covered this, but just how did Obama's young kids (born in 1998 and 2001) go to school together with Ayers' now-adult kids?

Quite possibly Ayers kids are "Challenged" ?

[bad]

Quite possibly Ayers kids are "Challenged" ?

Ayers for Palin!!!

[Tom Maguire]

You've probably covered this, but just how did Obama's young kids (born in 1998 and 2001) go to school together with Ayers' now-adult kids?

The fu continued with an UPDATE to the Politico piece first mentioning the kids:

UPDATE: There's been a bit of confusion about Axelrod's line on the kids, who -- as the Guardian's Daniel Nasaw noted -- aren't the same age. Obama's kids went go the the University of Chicago Lab Schools, where Ayers kids, who are much older, had gone. However, Bernardine Dohrn is still active at the school, and an Obama aide said that was the connection.

Lies clarified by more lies.

[DrJ]

Bernardine Dohrn is still active at the school, and an Obama aide said that was the connection

Hey, that's the connection to have!

Isn't Dohrn at Nortwestern? That's a good bit removed to Chicago. What exactly does her involvement entail? Serving on the board? :)

[bgates]

What exactly does her involvement entail?
When they need to demolish old buildings, she plants the charges.

[bad]

What exactly does her involvement entail?

When its done she sticks a fork in it.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the reading and math scores of the lowest-achieving students improved in the years when the Challenge was investing in the Chicago schools.

So Team Obama HAS reviewed the CAC material. Why isn't the CAC executive experience on Barack Obama's resume?

The only information about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge I can find on Barack Obama's campaign website is posted by his supporters.

[bad]

Here's a PTA mom in the New York Times talking about Obama's education choices.

Let us not even touch the term “community organizer,” so buffeted about, by both sides, like a balloon at a rock concert. Let us just say that if Mr. and Mrs. Obama — a dynamic, Harvard-educated couple — had chosen public over private school, they could have lifted up not just their one local public school, but a family of schools.

LUN

I posted this on another thread before the education thread materialized.

[Neo]

In defense of the Times (God forbid), the writer of this piece, SAM DILLON, seems to right mostly education pieces so he many not be "up to speed" on the politics of all.

[DrJ]

the reading and math scores of the lowest-achieving students improved in the years when the Challenge was investing in the Chicago schools.

Unsurprisingly, this is completely non-responsive. Improved by how much? In comparison to what control group? When those are included, the CAC was judged to be a failure.

Interesting that Team Obama now is starting to talk about the topic.

[Neo]

.. seems to right write ..

[DrJ]

I was going to give you a dig for that, Neo, but let it pass.

[GMax]

Didja notice how much of that was finneled back to Dems? A lot but heck it was small potatoes compared to their own haul.)

Actually I dont begrudge them funneling their own personal contributions to the democrats, that is part of free speech.

But I am pretty sure that FNMA and FHLMC funds went to the Democrats and that really really frosts me. It aint their pigbank.

[M. Simon]

It's OK my girly man leo,

The NYTs has covered it. It is now a valid topic for conversation.

BTW when are you going to man up and apologize?

[M. Simon]

50+ days left to go and the hits jusyt keep on coming for ∅. Lucky he has supporters like girly man leo.

I'm betting that 75,000 is the largest venue he will ever see again. I think by Nov he will be lucky to draw 100 girly men to his rallys.

[bad]

Here are EXPENSE FIGURES from the $49.2 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

$151,124 1995 from 1996 Program Report, pg 57
$340,559 1996 from 12-96 Program Report, pg 38
$622,150 1997 prop budget Prog. Rep. pg 37
$1,506,176 1998 tax return, pg 1
$1,808,325 1999 tax return, pg 1
$1,862,572 2000 tax return, pg 1
$1,844,123 2001 tax return, pg 1
$19,492 2002 tax return, pg 1
__________________________

$8,154,521 Total Expenses (non Grant)

That's a huge amount of cash that wasn't given as grants toward the education of disadvantaged minority children.

LUN

[clarice]

I expewct a lot ot that went to UIC and made Ayers a big player in that school.

[clarice]

There certainly is hypocrisy in the Obamas' school decision, OTOH no more than most of the Dems who live in DC and have school age children. Virtually everyone of them as well as liberal luminaries like Marion Wright Edelman send their kids to private schools.

OTOH this woman is whining and silly. My kid ain't no pioneer for someone else's social experiement. I worked hard to get him the best education for his talents and interests and I think that's what every parent should do, even if it means home schooling or fighting for vouchers and charter schools or living in an apt rather than a giant house..Educating your kids as well as you can is an important parental responsibility.

[bad]

Educating your kids as well as you can is an important parental responsibility.

YES, YES, YES!!!

We volunteered as reading tutors during the school day.

[bad]

Perhaps Ken Rolling and Barack Obama's reluctance to discuss the Chicago Annenberg Challenge can be found on page 10 (page 11 pdf file) of the 1998 Annual Report.

1999 GOALS AND ISSUES

1. Secure an extension of the contract with the Annenberg Foundation through the years 2000 and 2001 to complete the program and grant making work of the program.

snip

4. Complete matching fund requirements by December 31, 1999.

CAC was only supposed to operate through 1999. Someone was unable to complete the task on time despite salaries, expenses, and evaluations totalling more than $8 million.

LUN

[clarice]

I think it's rather standard to try to show you did so much and that the grantor should extend the grant.

[reliapundit]

tommy:

who got better results - improving local education, the obamessiah and ayers and their $160 million,

or the hockey om who joined the PTA!?

[oMan]

It boggles my mind to think that a recent law graduate with no business experience, no professional training in educational matters, and only one short and mediocre period of "community organizing" (on non-educational issues), could be nominated to, let alone elected to preside over, the board of trustees charged with distributing well over a hundred million dollars in largesse. This is the kind of gigantic political prize for which a lifetime of big favors would need to be paid in exchange. Yet, in this case? Nothing at all. Stunning and mysterious. But not to worry, the Grey Lady will dig deep and tell all.

[M. Simon]

The NYTs has done us a favor: it is now a topic of legit discussion no matter how poorly they covered it.

[Dan Friedman]

The Times is a slimy creature, spawned in the sewers around Times Square and living on its belly in two inches of good NYC water. At some point, the thing was mated with a big city rat, so it carries disease and thrives on filth too. It sheds its skin periodically, but never changes its stripes.

[PeterUK]

"It boggles my mind to think that a recent law graduate with no business experience, no professional training in educational matters, and only one short and mediocre period of "community organizing" (on non-educational issues), could be nominated to, let alone elected to preside over, the board of trustees charged with distributing well over a hundred million dollars in largesse."

Moreover,Obama had the ego to accept.Whilst abortion is "above his pay grade" apparently disbursing well over a hundred million dollars was not.

[MayBee]

I read every word you all write about the CAC, and am soooo impressed by your research.

I just wanted to say that.

[bad]

Thanks Maybee

My goal is to generate interest in the subject.

[PeterUK]

Yes bad, remarkable work.

[bad]

Thanks Peter

You are my laugh therapy every day.

[bad]

The 1998 Annual Report To The Annenberg Foundation begins with thanks to the Annenberg Foundation.

What should not get lost in the following detailed report of statistics, numbers, lists, reflections, goals, successes, failures, barriers and plans for the future, are the hope, dreams, and belief in the potential of people to improve the lives of others...The grant places major responsibility on a set of people in Chicago to act responsibly and effectively on behalf of and for its citizens and future citizens.

Who were those people in Chicago charged with acting responsibly and effectively on behalf of and for Chicago citizens and future citizens? They need to be whapped as even the NYTs notes the Chicago Annenberg Challenge accomplished nothing.

[qrstuv]

Cleo: It's really quite simple. Just try this quick thought experiment:

Mr. X, a candidate for US President, a member of a major political party, has omitted from his resume his ONLY executive experience, a position in which he oversaw the spending of $50 million dollars (plus at least the same amount in matching funds). The purpose of the project was to improve public schools. The conclusion at the end of the project was that no improvement had occurred.

Researchers looking at the paperwork for this project find that grants for teaching math were denied, but grants with political themes were granted.

Now substitute some Republican name for X in the preceding. Would you regard this as something worth looking into? Yeah, I think you would.

[Pagar]

Bad, and all who have made it possible for the rest of us to understand a little about CAC, I too would like to thank you all. I don't understand why this whole affair hasn't gotten far more attention.
Obama, as late as last night is still trying to pass Ayers off as just a guy in the neighborhood who has never influenced his life.

"Addressing Ayers specifically, Obama stated

“Now on this Ayers thing….Here’s the bottom line, this guy did something despicable 40 years ago…Here’s a guy who does something despicable when I’m eight years old…He and I know each other as a consequence of work. He’s not part of my campaign, he’s not an advisor of mine. He’s somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know.”

LUN
The web site is
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/
they always have good info, I don't see elsewhere and have done several good posts on Ayers.

[bad]

Thanks Pagar

Obama is a trip isn't he? If he thinks Ayers is a stand-up guy and worthy of association then he ought to be honest and defend the man.
Instead he pretends to find him despicable and not to know him except when he has to as a good citizen working for the children of Chicago. Is there anyone he'll stand up for other than himself?

[DrJ]

bad,

Obama is a trip isn't he?

Just like Bill Clinton, but not as good at lying. And probably not with the same zipper problem. Just as corrupt, though.

[kim]

Bill would get angry, but Obama gets nasty. You didn't see Bill getting publicly petty, which seems to be Obama's default position.
====================================

[kim]

Notice he says 'worked on education issues that I know' rather than 'worked on education issues with me'. This guy is a piece of work.

The nice thing is that someone this dishonest is also dishonest with himself. That's a fatal, hubritic, flaw. This guy will be a basket case within a month, you watch. He can stand success when it's handed to him; when he's got to work for it, he'll collapse.
====================================

[DrJ]

You may be right, kim. It will be an interesting couple of months.

[Neo]

After all the faux outrage by Obama today about the "pig" thing and the posting of this NYT story, it occurred to me ..

has any checked to see if the Obama site has modified his "resume" to include the barest of an entry on CAC ?

I can hear it now that McCain and especially Palin lied about Obama not having any executive experience.

[DrJ]

I can hear it now that McCain and especially Palin lied about Obama not having any executive experience.

We've had some discussion about this, but I still say that by definition a board chair is not an executive position unless that person is also an executive director or CEO. Obama was not. He could not sign a check for the organization, though he could approve an expenditure.

[kim]

Wait'll people running for Congress start deserting him. Neither he nor Biden have helped any of them out so far, and it doesn't look like he's going to be able to get out of the rust belt to do so.

Palin hitting the hustings with Republican candidates is going to be a very popular move. She'll add luster galore. Didn't I see a list recently of 25 close House races? One a day for her would be a nice lead in to her debate, and yapping with the Congressional candidates is going to further her education.
=======================================

[DebinNC]

There's nothing in his official bio that I saw. On his education issues page there's only this:

"Obama has been a leader on educational issues throughout his career. In the Illinois State Senate, Obama was a leader on early childhood education, helping create the state's Early Learning Council.

[kim]

I can't wait for the first crowd to boo him. That mouth makes it almost inevitable. That and his complete lack of insight to the rust belt people.

Blue collar people have only been Democratic because of unions. Culturally, they are red-staters. Obama hasn't a clue about them.
=======================================

[catnip]

I visit this site at the occasional behest of Instapundit, so don't know how thoroughly the Annanberg Challenge and the rather arbitrary distribution of grant money has been discussed here.

Did you all listen to Milt Rosenberg's interview of Stanley Kurtz right after Kurtz was given access to the CAC papers at the university library? You can download and listen to the interview. It's archived here:

http://wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44075&Itemid=467

[M. Simon]

catnip,

We were all over it. Live blogged it in fact.

[ajacksonian]

Sen. Obama applies for the top executive spot for the Nation and leaves off his only executive experience. And then has to think very carefully if 'school reform' is something he can even *touch* without that unmentioned executive experience coming back to hit him?

Then the entire 'Ayers just being a guy in the neighborhood' deal, after working with him on the Challenge and for a couple of years on the Woods Fund? Most people term that as a 'long term public relationship over 15 years'. And just what is the match-up between CAC grants and Woods Fund grants? Any multi-dippers in the lot?

And how does the Rezko group of backers that shows up for Sen. Obama in the 1990's compare with the individuals and organizations applying for CAC and Woods Fund grants? Amazing that the CAC records would not be public to help clear up just how long that Rezko group has been around, if for nothing else.

The MSM is more than willing to go after Gov. Palin's children and her alleged 'scandal' involving an in-law relative who tasered a 10 year old and then cry 'foul' saying the 10 year old asked for it... and the adult in that set-up? Free pass.

And Sen. Obama's relationship with a domestic terrorist and organized crime backing his career? They can't touch those because any connection *is* a connection and establishes them for Sen. Obama. Trying to get State procedures used to protect a family in Alaska is a 'scandal', while ties to domestic terrorists and organized crime who both back you politically is a non-event?

I don't particularly like Sen. McCain, and his quick'n'easy washing of his public record has me perplexed, done by those who should know better. Those actively trying to mis-represent Sen. Obama and his attempts to hide his past which *should* be public record and *isn't* is very disturbing. Sen. McCain at least has a public record and can be called to account on it. Sen. Obama?

I can dislike Sen. McCain as a politician and still admire his career even when in conflict with it.

Sen. Obama has shown no such sterling qualities as being open on his record or talking about it: it has been whitewash from day one. And that tells me much about the man and his record. And those pushing him forward...

[drjohn]

Why the enabling by the Times?

I love those rhetorical questions.

[Pagar]

Bad,
If anyone is still looking at names in CAC files here are some posts that may help.
From TheRealBarrackObama.wordpress.com a link to New Zeal.blogspot.com and an excellent piece on who backs Barrack Obama from the Socialist Side

"Barack Obama did not rise to prominence solely on his own merits.

His career has been supported for many years by a socialist network, based in Chicago, but now reaching into every state of the US.

The network is an activist matrix led by former members of the '60s radical organisation Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)and supporters of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS)."

Also, a chart I haven't seen, at least, of SDS members.

LUN

The USA Survival Org has a lot of other links at their site also.

[Neo]

David Axelrod said ..
“Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school.”

Ayers children are something like 31 and 28. Obama's kids are something like 10 and 7. It seems that Obama's kids went go the the University of Chicago Lab Schools, where Ayers kids had gone.

[HillaryForPresidentNowForSarahAsVP]

Obama is really the Manchurian candidate of the Communist Party of the USA and Democratic Socialist of America.

Obama started his political career at the house of William Ayers at Hyde Park.

For the mapping and details, visit:

www.discoverthenetwork.org

[hamilton]

I wonder who else is associated with the Challenge Annenberg Challenge? Who else was on that board that might have worked closely with BO? What other groups are tied to the Ayres family? What is Chicago United? And who is Walter Annenberg, the source of the money behind all this?

Yeah, I didn't think you folks wanted to know any of that.

When you throw the names of the rest of these people into the story it kind of dilutes the delusional paranoia that you are wallowing in. Please try to make the same logical case that Stanley Ikenberry, Richard Daley, Walter Annenberg are defacto terrorists for working with Ayers. Or The University of South Carolina for that matter - that hotbed of radical lefties - where Ayres is a professor and frequent lecturer. Or the mayors office of the City of Chicago! They named Ayers "Citizen of the Year" for God's sake. Or the McArthur Foundation, Field, Joyce and Spencer Foundations - terrorists all! Or the Chicago Tribune and Bank of America! They funded Ayers also! We are surrounded by crazy lefty terrorists. The only solution may be to nuke ourselves in order to save ourselves!

Seriously, try to show a little healthy adult skepticism, no matter how badly you dislike BO. I can find similar negative associations for John McCain if I like, but I try to look at them with the same healthy adult skepticism. Do I think McCain squelched efforts to find the last of the POW's? No. But many vets and their families make a strong case that he did. You will find it if you want to.

[sbw]

Hamilton, spoken like someone who doesn't care to understand.

Get beyond the mere membership of the CAC board and ask yourself how someone as irrelevant as BO got the job as CAC chair. Learn a little bit about the flow of cash through CAC. Who proposed the grants? Hmmm. It was Bill Ayer's committee. How were the grants structured? Hmmm. Partnerships with special friends.

You've been bamboozled! And you don't care.