Sunday Snapshot -- He's Baack!
Much of the Sunday show discussion focused on Sarah Palin saying Barack Obama was "palling around with terrorists" because of his association with William Ayers. Surrogates for the Obama and John McCain camps were out in full force:
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO): "I mean, really, how ridiculous. American people deserve so much better. Do they really think America is going to think that Barack Obama's palling around with terrorists? What that man did Barack Obama has condemned. And by the way, he did it when Barack Obama was eight years old. Come on."
More McCaskill: "John McCain can pick up the phone today and call Sarah Palin and say, 'Don't say things like that. There's no place for that in this campaign. The American people don't want that.' ... I hope John McCain is a strong enough leader to tell at least his vice presidential candidate to knock it off" ("Fox News Sunday," 10/5).
MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R): "Barack Obama at the time was eight or nine years old, or whatever, but that's not the point, the point is this same individual, Bill Ayers, hosted some sort of political event at his home for Barack Obama when Barack was running for state legislature in Illinois when he was well into his 30's. ... It goes to the issue of what kind of judgment would allow an unrepentant domestic terrorist to host a political event for your in his home, in the terrorist's home?" ("This Week," ABC, 10/5).
More after the jump, including McCain's role in the bailout bill, Ifill on the debate and Bloomberg on a third term.
(KATHERINE LEHR)
Obama adviser Linda Douglass: "Sarah Palin herself said yesterday that most of what's in the New York Times is true, so if the New York Times has concluded they weren't particularly close after this exhaustive investigation, this is such a red herring. The McCain campaign has announced publicly that they are now going to engage in personal attacks on Barack Obama, whether they're true or not, because they want to turn the page on the financial disaster" ("Late Edition," CNN, 10/5).
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), asked if it was fair game to attack Obama's character: "Well, it is fair game. ... These questions about Senator Obama are what public life is all about these days. ... It was the New York Times on that front page yesterday who wrote about his relationship with Bill Ayres. ... If the shoe was on the other foot and John McCain had one of his earliest campaign events at the home of somebody who had formed a right-wing group, that had bombed buildings and then had been on a board with the guy for several years, you bet the Obama campaign would have been raising that question. It's just the way it is" ("Fox News Sunday," 10/5).
House Dem Caucus chair Rahm Emanuel (D-IL): "If we are going to go down this road, you know, Barack Obama was eight years old, somehow responsible for Bill Ayers. At 58, John McCain was associating with Charles Keating. At 68, he was working on behalf of lobbyists in the telecom industry pressuring the FCC. If we really want to talk who is associating with who we will go down that. I will tell you what will happen. The American people will lose in that transaction. ... 'm not in the business of giving political advice to John McCain. But I would watch when you're going to deal with associations. ... This is just a political tactic because John McCain cannot talk about the economy" ("Late Edition," CNN, 10/5).
McCain economic adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, asked if it would be fair for the Obama camp to raise the Keating crisis: "Well, as long as -- certainly, people have talked about it and that's why, you know, when Mr. Bennett came forward, who was the Democratic counsel and said Senator McCain was completely exonerated" ("Late Edition," CNN, 10/5).
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): "[Obama]'s leading in the polls. He's leading in most of the battleground states. And this is going to be a month, I think, of character assassination. And so the Republican position is to try to assassinate Barack Obama's character and try to place him in a position where the trust that he has built dissipates, the credibility that he has dissipates. ... It's a hard thing for me to listen to this when you know the major problems that this nation faces. And that's what we ought to be talking about, not slamming one's character like this" ("Face the Nation," CBS, 10/5).
Rep. Heather Wilson (D-NM), asked if she agrees that Obama does not see America as a force for good: "He goes over to Germany and talks to the Germans about America and the need to tear down the walls between the United States and our European allies as if it's all America's fault, that we're in the situation that we're in. That's not what we expect from our president. We expect someone to stand up for America and to realize that America is a force for good in the world and has been for a century. ... I think Sarah Palin believes that America is part of the solution" ("Face the Nation," CBS, 10/5).
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH): "You have seen a 26-year Senate veteran morph into an angry, desperate candidate in the last few weeks, especially in the last few days. And it just kind of makes me sad ... that John McCain and Sarah Palin are resorting to these tactics" ("This Week," ABC, 10/5).
Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL): "The important part is whether they're truthful charges or not. Not about what Barack Obama did when he was eight years old, but what occurred when he was 38 years old and was initiating his political campaign. It's about his judgment and who he associated with during those years and right on into his political campaign" ("This Week," ABC, 10/5).
PA Gov. Ed Rendell (D): "Senator McCain said he would run a decent and honorable campaign. He hasn't and it's going to get worse. First they lied about Senator Obama's position on taxes, and now they're starting to do the politics of personal destruction. ... The issues are what people are focusing on and that's why this has gone bad for the McCain campaign. And no matter what they talk about, Reverend Wright, Mr. Ayers, you name it, it's not going to wash because when this country is in trouble, people are focusing on who has got the best plans to get us out of it" ("This Week," ABC, 10/5).
Pundits and strategists also weighed in:
Dem strategist Paul Begala: "I think Governor Palin here is making a strategic mistake. This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign. ... I've written a book about McCain. I had a dozen researchers go through him. I didn't even put this in the book. But John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization. It was the U.S. Council for World Freedom. It was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. It was an ultraconservative right-wing group. The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981, when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League, the parent organization, which ADL said, 'has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and Anti-Semites.' Now, that's not John McCain. I don't think he is that. But, but, you know, the problem is that a lot of people know John McCain's record better than Governor Palin, and he does not want to play guilt by association or this thing could blow up in his face" ("Meet the Press," NBC, 10/5).
Dem strategist Hilary Rosen: "If they throw mud like that, then you go back to Charles Keating, you go back to Sarah Palin's investigation. You go back to Cindy McCain's troubles. You know, I just don't think that John McCain wants to take this nuclear strategy" ("Late Edition," CNN, 10/5).
Des Moines Register's Yepsen: "All this talk about William Ayers, is this sort of a sense of desperation. It could get carried away, and it's irrelevant to people in mainstream America, in middle America. You know, William Ayers, what do they care about -- how is that going to put gas in the tank or get somebody a job? I think it runs the risk of coming off as irrelevant" ("Meet the Press," NBC, 10/5).
GOP strategist Alex Castellanos: "Sarah Palin has become the queen on the chess board. She is the fighting piece and maybe the most powerful piece on the board for communications for the McCain campaign. And when you have the presidential candidate on one side combating the vice presidential on the other, that's probably a plus for McCain. They are trying to change the agenda. And the case, of course, is that he was only eight years old when Ayers did this, but he wasn't eight years old when he held his first political fund-raiser at the home of a domestic terrorists. And that's a little tough for him to explain" ("Late Edition," CNN, 10/5).
Karl Rove, on a McCain adviser publicly admitting the camp wants to turn the page of the economy and go after Obama's character: "I'd wonder about that. I mean, some of the best strategies are the strategies that you don't draw attention to" ("Fox News Sunday," 10/5).
NBC pol. dir. Chuck Todd: "If you look and go back to the first presidential debate where John McCain was lecturing Obama about the difference between a tactic and a strategy, and when I heard him say that, I thought, 'Boy, that is the debate going on inside your own campaign is you're a series of tactics with no strategy.' This William Ayers stuff, I talked to one Democrat who says, 'Why didn't they do this when they did celebrity?' You know, why weren't they setting this up for months? And what's happened is -- and we've said this before -- the McCain campaign chases the news cycle. They are going to look at today and say, 'Hey, they mentioned William Ayers on Meet the Press. They talked about William Ayers,' and they're going to consider that a success. But ... it's just a series of tactics, and I think they are lacking a strategy" ("Meet the Press," 10/5).
GOP strategist Mike Murphy: "The Obama campaign wants to run economy vs. character. I think what McCain ought to pivot to is, one, connect himself to middle-class worries and squeezes. He is a reformer who's going to change the way Washington works. That's built into his DNA. And second, bring up the issue of the concept of a runaway liberal one-party train here in Washington. You know, just no checks and balances at all. McCain, a partisan, can-do pragmatist vs. the idea that everything in this town being run by the Democrats with no restraint, no balance, no control, and that'll affect the economy in a bad way. I think that's a better prosecution for the McCain campaign than these character attacks or these dubious association, you know, background issues and Obama."
More Murphy: "This will be a kerfuffle, it'll do a little damage to Obama, but fundamentally this campaign's going to be about the economy. So Obama will take some damage on this, but then it's going to pivot back to real life" ("Meet the Press," NBC, 10/5).
I'M (NOT) JUST A BILL
There was reaction to Obama's ad calling McCain "erratic", as well as discussion of whether McCain helped or hurt the bailout bill process.
McCaskill: "It's just talking about what John McCain did the last two weeks. He was erratic. One day, no bailout. The next day, a bailout. One day, 'I'm suspending my campaign.' The next day, 'I'm not.' One day, 'I'm going to debate.' The next day, 'I'm not going to debate.' The next day, 'I go ahead and debate.' One day, 'I'm not going to leave Washington until we have a deal,' and then he's on a plane out of Washington after the deal's kind of blown up. ... There has been a lot of erratic behavior" ("Fox News Sunday," 10/5).
House Min. Whip Roy Blunt: "I don't think he was erratic at all. ... John McCain, in, I thought, a very selfless and cool way, began to talk to Republicans and others about why this had to be done. ... He was in contact with me every day about who he could call, who he could talk to. I think he came back and changed the discussion. ... He came back and did a lot of good. I didn't see him as erratic at all. In fact, I saw him as very purposeful, very selfless in what he was trying to do and dedicated to it" ("Face the Nation," CBS, 10/5).
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): "Senator McCain was engaged in this. He was respectful. He certainly moved this debate forward and his leaving the campaign trail and coming to Washington was a game changer in this debate because it is what forced everyone to start putting all of their issues on the table" ("Late Edition," CNN, 10/5).
Lieberman: "He helped. When he came back, there were only four Republicans in the House who were going to support that rescue plan. At the end, 91 of them voted for it" ("Fox News Sunday," 10/5).
Feinstein: "Senator McCain kind of parachuted in. He said he was halting the campaign. He was not going to do the debate. He plunged in at a time of very sensitive negotiations. The negotiations fell apart at that moment and they had to begin again" ("Face the Nation," CBS, 10/5).
Pfotenhauer, asked why McCain voted for a bill that included pork: "I think it was a very clear signal of the seriousness of the problem that we were facing, the potential fallout. I mean, clearly he's built his career on opposing this types of special interest provisions, although they were tax provisions primarily, not overspending provisions. But the bottom line is he basically felt like the financial risk, the fallout potential for the economy if this did not go forward, if the hemorrhaging was not stopped, was so severe that it justified or warranted a vote" ("Late Edition," CNN, 10/5).
QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
VP debate moderator/PBS' Gwen Ifill talked about the debate and the criticism of her book.
Ifill, on Palin ignoring some of her questions during the VP debate: "She blew me off, I think, is the technical term. ... The understanding was that we were going to have a debate. ... There are two people on the stage. And their jobs ... are to debate each other. The moderator's job is to control their debate. ... She decided she was going to give a stump speech to the American people, there's very little a moderator can do other than say, 'No, no, no, listen, I asked a question. Please, please answer.' ... 99 percent, I would say, was all about her. Ninety-nine percent of the analyses afterwards were about her. It was if Joe Biden wasn't part of this deal. And if she wasn't challenged on the things she said that were not completely correct, or she wasn't challenged on changing the subject and then answering the questions by her competitor, I had another job to do at the table."
More: "What I discovered this week, in an uncomfortable way, is that when they throw everything in the mix to change the subject, you can get in the way. I got in the way of it this week. ... It was also interesting to realize that if changing the subject from the stakes of the vice presidential debate meant talking about the moderator instead of talking about the candidate, they would do that"
Ifill, on the 10/4 "SNL" skit: "I got to say, being played by Queen Latifah is not a bad thing."
Ifill, on not responding to the attacks about her book: "I kind of kept my head low, actually. ... I did not respond to it because it didn't take much to figure out what the book was really about. I mean, it didn't take but a couple of mouse clicks to discover that what they were saying about the book wasn't true and that, in fact, I wasn't writing the book they said. ... I hadn't even written the Obama chapter yet because I don't know how it ends. ... It wasn't really much worth fighting about. I figured it would be a 24-hour kerfuffle. But it was instructive about how often you can get in the way of somebody else's plan" ("Meet the Press," NBC, 10/5).
THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM?
And NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) appeared on "Late Edition," where he was asked about seeking a third term.
CNN's Blitzer: "Last April you said you weren't going to seek a third term, but now you change your mind. Tell us why."
Bloomberg: "Well, the city is going to have problems. I don't know that it's going to be a crisis. I hope it's not. What we're doing is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. I think New York has a great hand to play. We've been responsible. We've worked hard to diversify our economy, to make it a great place for people to live and businesses to thrive. But we're going to have some things that are going to require somebody that's independent to stand up, and I think that I've been prepared for this, I've worked hard in doing it. We've started a lot of projects. I'd like to see them through."
More Bloomberg: "There's nothing magical about any one candidate. The public's going to have a choice a year from this coming November after I've gone through a lot of the tough economic times to decide whether they want me or whether they want somebody else. But, you know, when like at my two daughters, I want to be able to say to them, your father didn't walk away when the going looked like it was going to really be tough and your father was going to devote four more years of his life to helping other people. It's the most satisfying thing in the world, and I want to be able to like what I see when I look in the mirror. I could have an easier life, but I don't think I could ever have a more satisfying life than what I've done for the last seven years" (CNN, 10/5).
ROUNDTABLE ROUNDUP
The "This Week" roundtable discussed WH '08 and the bailout bill.
Time's Tumulty: "The same day as the debate, John McCain essentially pulled out of Michigan, which is ground zero for this bad economy. McCain has never really developed an economic message. All he's talked about is tax cuts and earmarks, and I think in a week where you vote for a $700 billion bailout package, especially the earmark message just doesn't take you anywhere" (ABC, 10/5).
The "Fox News Sunday" roundtable discussed the bailout bill and WH '08.
Fox's Hume, on the bailout bill: "McCain could have tried to lead some kind of populist revolt against it and so on. He chose not to do that. I think that was responsible. And I think Barack Obama, although he was a bit of a bystander in this, nonetheless came out on the right side in the end and stuck up for this thing."
Weekly Standard's Kristol: "Obama and McCain don't differ much on how to deal with it. They both supported the bailout. They're both going to support reasonable efforts to stabilize the financial system. That's not an ideological issue. I think McCain has to neutralize the economic issue as best as possible, go after Obama as not ... ready to be commander in chief, raise the associations issue. I think that's legitimate" (10/5).
The "Late Edition" roundtable discussed WH '08.
CNN's Crowley, asked how concerned the camps are about an "October surprise": "I think that's more mythology than it is anything else. I think the surprise probably was more a September surprise, and that was the economy. I don't see anything changing that story line."
CNN's Henry, on the "SNL" skits of Palin: "If [McCain] picked Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, I think we would all agree it wouldn't be on 'Saturday Night Live.' ... She's being lampooned in a way that probably does hurt" (10/5).
The "Meet the Press" roundtable discussed WH '08. Highlights included in the Ayers section above.
From 1996 to 2002 Todd Palin -- Alaska's "First Dude" and Sarah's husband -- was the member of a political party that advocated seceding from the country and whose leader called America a "damned country," said he was an Alaskan and not an American, and refused to be buried under the American flag.
Looks like Sarah Palin is palling around with a traitor, and is even in bed with one.
Lieberman is such a hack. First of all, Sarah Palin is married to a former member of a party that advocated secession for Alaska, making him a traitor.
And McCain was holding political events with Charles Keating, who ran his Savings and Loan illegally and resulted in thousands of people losing their life savings and a multi-million dollar bailout by the federal government.
The ties to the unAmerican and corrupt are much tighter on the GOP side than on the Dem side, but Lieberman wouldn't know because he's lost his perspective.
No one cares about Obama's unethical, unpatriotic, and/or possible illegal escapades. Let's focus on his current (and strong) ties to ACORN. You know, voter fraud and the housing market crash. Please, ABC, NBC, CBS: do your job and report on this! (Readers, google OBAMA and ACORN to see over 1,000,000 links.)
Is this Ayers "terrorist" in jail? Have we precluded him from serving on charitible boards? Of course not. Is he free to walk the streets of this nation, of Chicago? Of course he is. I guess by association, everyone in Chicago is a "pal of terrorists" perhaps everyone who was under ten years old in the sixties and has talked to someone who was in their 20s or 30s then is fraternizing with terrorists. Ridiculous.
Did Obama appreciate american values? I did not think so; if he did, he probably did not become a muslim. It is OK for me to be a muslim because I don't represent anyone, my vision may not affect anyone as long as I go by the law.
The New York Times article, which prompted Palin's remarks, actually concluded that "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."
CNN Political Ticker evaluated Palin's "palling" charges and concluded, "False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now palling around, or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are....CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved."
Back in February, the Washington Post reported in a fact check, But the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one.(Washington Post, 2/18/08)
As part of a larger project where I'm compiling a long list of all the lies and smears spread about Obama, here are 30 lies about Ayers and Obama.
Tonight's Hannity's America featured more of these absurd lies about Obama and Ayers in Hannity's infomercial for idiocy, including an amazing interview with legendary anti-Semitic crackpot Andy Martin:
LIE: "My view is that the community organizer was really a sham event. Bill Ayers was testing him."(Andy Martin, Hannity's America, October 5, 2008, "Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism")
TRUTH: Bill Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's community organizing job. It's pure lunacy to imagine that Ayers was "testing" Obama.
LIE: Obama's "community organizing is a grand scheme perpetuated by none other than William Ayers."(Sean Hannity, Hannity's America, October 5, 2008, "Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism")
TRUTH: Obama's community organizing was not a vast conspiracy for revolution devised by Bill Ayers.
LIE: "They live half a mile from William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist" and "Just a half a mile from those homes is Louis Farrakhan."(Hannity's America, October 5, 2008, "Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism")
TRUTH: It's true, of course, that Obama lives in this same neighborhood, as do tens of thousands of other people who presumably are also guilty by geographical association. The logic of this argument would be, if you live half a mile from a sex offender, then you agree with child molesters.
LIE: Obama and Ayers "appeared together at various public engagements...it would seem that they are more than just a little bit friendly."(Sean Hannity, Hannity's America, October 5, 2008, "Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism")
TRUTH: Appearing on a speaking panel is not a sign of friendship. There is no evidence that Obama had any role in ever inviting Ayers to speak.
LIE: In 1995, Ayers and Dohrn "hosted a political coming out party for a young Barack Obama."(Sean Hannity, Hannity's America, October 5, 2008, "Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism")
TRUTH: This was an event for Alice Palmer, not a "coming-out party" for Obama. Obama was invited by Palmer to the event.
But long before tonight's Hannity, the right-wing has been spreading a series of lies about Obama and Ayers.
LIE: "Bill Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist."
TRUTH: Bill Ayers is not, and apparently never was, a terrorist. The conventional definition of a terrorist is someone who tries to kill innocent people for political purposes. As Factcheck.org noted, In fact, nobody died as a result of bombings in which Ayers said he participated as part of the Weather Underground. (Factcheck.org)
LIE: "I'm sure he's very patriotic, but his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question....Because, if you're going to associate and have as a friend and serve on a board and have a guy kick off your campaign that says he's unrepentant, that he wished he'd bombed more. And then, the worst thing of all, that I think really indicates Senator Obama's attitude, is he had the incredible statement that he compared Mr. Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist -- an unrepentant terrorist, with Senator Tom Coburn. Senator Coburn, a physician who goes to Oklahoma on the weekends and brings babies into life.' (John McCain, April 20, 2008, ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos)
TRUTH: Obama was not friends with Ayers. Ayers did not kick off Obama's campaign. And Obama was not comparing Ayers' actions with Coburn. Obama was pointing out that he works with people even when he disagrees with them.
LIE: "Obama's oldest friend in politics is a murderer and unrepentant terrorist. Why are they friends?"(ExposeObama.com email, Sept. 7, 2008)
TRUTH: Ayers isn't Obama's oldest friend in politics.
LIE: Ayers was "Obama's boss."(Jerome Corsi, p. 147)
TRUTH: The chair of a foundation board is not the boss of the members.
LIE: Jerome Corsi claimed Alice "Palmer would never have introduced Obama to the Hyde Park political community at the Ayres-Dohrn home unless she saw an affinity between Ayers and Dohrn's radical leftist history, her own history of far-leftist politics, and the politics of Barack Obama."(p. 137)
TRUTH: The event wasn't held primarily for Obama. It was Palmer's own announcement that she would run for Congress. Obama was there as Palmer's endorsed successor for her Senate seat, but there's no evidence that he had any role in deciding to hold it at Ayers' home.
LIE: Jerome Corsi claims about Obama: "either he did not know Ayers and Dohrn are still radical leftists--in which case he is implausibly naive--or Obama did know, which would confirm he joined with Ayers and Dohrn because Obama too continues to believe, albeit silently and secretly, in the Far Left's radical agenda."(p. 140)
TRUTH: Obama probably knew Ayers was a leftist, but he didn't care. Obama believes in the notion of a free society, where you work with people you disagree with.
LIE: "Even today, Ayers appears to hold the same radical political beliefs he did in the Weather Underground, and Obama had to know that was also the case when he first met Ayers in 1995."(Jerome Corsi, p. 147)
TRUTH: Corsi doesn't explain how Obama "had to know" Ayers' views on politics when he first met him. Telepathy? Mind-reading?
LIE: David Freddoso calls Obama's distant connection with Bill Ayers "a remarkable relationship for a presidential nominee to have."(p. 122)
TRUTH: It reality, it's not remarkable at all. The notion that people should resign from foundations and refuse to speak in public in order to avoid any connection to a former radical never convicted of a crime is absurd.
LIE: "The major media simply have not reported on Obama's two years at New York's Columbia University, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers."(Tony Blankley, September 24, 2008)
TRUTH: Thousands upon thousands of people lived near Bill Ayers in Manhattan. Obama didn't know Ayers.
LIE: Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval. (Stanley Kurtz, Wall Street Journal)
TRUTH: Kurtz has no evidence to support his claim. Ayers was one of several people involved in starting the group, and was not its guiding spirit. According to the New York Times reporting, Obama was recruited by other CAC leaders who knew him through the Joyce Foundation.
LIE: Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda. (Stanley Kurtz, Wall Street Journal)
TRUTH: Kurtz has no evidence that Obama and Ayers worked as a team. Ayers attended six meetings of the group along with Obama.
LIE: "Obama is hanging around with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. By the way, Bill Ayers advertised himself as being a communist with a small c just when he was beginning to
partner with Obama on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (Stanley Kurtz, Hudson Institute, Washington DC, October 1, 2008)
TRUTH: Contrary to this McCarthyist attack, there's no evidence that Obama ever knew that Ayers supposedly called himself a communist, nor is that a good reason for Obama to end his work on school reform and charitable activities.
LIE: "who provided Obama with the only executive experience he has ever had in his young life? Bill Ayers, unrepentant domestic terrorist, communist revolutionary... (Joseph Farah, World Net Daily, October 2, 2008)
TRUTH: Ayers did not provide Obama with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge job. And Obama has also had executive experience in community organizing, running a voter registration drive, as well as running his campaigns. The New York Times reported, "In fact, according to several people involved, Mr. Ayers played no role in Mr. Obama's appointment. Instead, it was suggested by Deborah Leff, then president of the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based group whose board Mr. Obama, a young lawyer, had joined the previous year."(Scott Shane, New York Times, October 4, 2008)
LIE: "Barack Obama is friends with Ayers, defending him as quote 'respectable and mainstream.'"(American Issues Project ad, August 2008)
TRUTH: David Axelrod described them as "friendly," not friends. Obama didn't call Ayers respectable and mainstream (although Ayers now is); Obama's campaign on his website posted an op-ed in the press that described Ayers that way.
LIE: "I can't understand why somebody who wants to be president of the United States, I'll be perfectly honest with you, would want to associate or not condemn the actions of people in the past."(Paul Ragonese, April 27, 2008, Fox News' Hannity's America)
TRUTH: Obama has condemned the past actions of Bill Ayers and called him somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago. (April 16, 2008 debate)
LIE: "Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval."(Stanley Kurtz, Wall Street Journal)
TRUTH: Kurtz has no evidence to support his claim. Ayers was one of several people involved in starting the group, and was not its guiding spirit.
LIE: "Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda."(Stanley Kurtz, Wall Street Journal)
TRUTH: Kurtz has no evidence that Obama and Ayers worked as a team. Ayers attended six meetings of the group along with Obama.
LIE: About Bill Ayers, "Barack Obama really couldn't bring himself to say 'you know, I really don't like that guy.' That was too much for him to say. He had to talk about what a decent guy he is and what a good professor."(Jim Geraghty, "Hype: The Obama Effect")
TRUTH: There is no record of Obama during the campaign calling Ayers "decent" and "a good professor." In fact, Obama really did bring himself to criticize Ayers, denouncing him during a Democratic debate as "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago."
LIE: "Obama was feted at a fundraising event" at Ayers' home.("Hype: The Obama Effect")
TRUTH: Obama never had a fundraising event at Ayers' home.
LIE: Barack Obama and Bill Ayers had a close working relationship...the two of them were running the foundation together. (Stanley Kurtz, Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends, September 29, 2008)
TRUTH: Kurtz has no evidence of a "close working relationship" beyond attending a few meetings together. The notion that Obama and Ayers were the only ones running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is absolutely false.
LIE: "The most important smoking gun is that Barack Obama was funding Bill Ayers' radical educational projects."(Stanley Kurtz, Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends, September 29, 2008)
TRUTH: This is false. Obama was the president of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, not its dictator. There's no evidence that Obama made any funding decisions. Moreover, it would have been completely unprofessional for anyone, including Obama, to ban Bill Ayers from receiving funding for educational projects because of alleged radical activities decades earlier which Ayers was never convicted of. Kurtz has no evidence that projects were judged based on anything other than their merits. This is a pure smear by association.
LIE: Emails "give us strong evidence that there may have been a cover-up in Bill Ayers' role choosing Barack Obama."(Stanley Kurtz, Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends, September 29, 2008)
TRUTH: This is a fabrication. The email Kurtz is referring to shows absolutely no kind of cover up. In fact, it shows exactly the opposite. In his blog, Kurtz quotes the entire email Ken Rolling wrote to CAC founders Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett and notes that Sam Dillon, Education Reporter for the New York Times, was working on an article. Rolling wrote about Dillon, He is trying to understand how Barack got 'picked' for the CAC board, by whom, why, etc. - I have avoided that question head-on though I believe Barack was Debbie Leff's/Joyce nomination." This email reveals no kind of cover-up, and the New York Times article found several sources that said Obama was not picked by Ayers.
LIE: "There is a secret group in the Obama-Biden campaign tasked with shutting off any leaks from the record that links Barack Obama to his longtime adviser and mentor Bill Ayers, professor of education at the University of Illinois and unrepentant Weatherman terrorist and fugitive from the 1970s....There is a substantial independent report from a major Democratic source that confirms Diamond's suspicions. The source confirms the unit is led by Bill Ayers himself and likely includes Tom Hayden and other members of 'Progressives for Obama.' Most critically, the Democratic source says this unit has direct access to media adviser David Axelrod of the Obama-Biden campaign."(John Batchelor, Human Events, September 12, 2008)
TRUTH: There is no "secret group." Hayden reports, "I am not part of any effort, personal or organized, trying to protect Obama against any leaks." The notion that Ayers is leading the "unit" is laughable. According to the University of Illinois library, "all papers have been available since August 26" about the school reform group that Ayers and Obama worked on. Diamond, the source cited for the existence of the "unit," declares, "I have no evidence of such a unit." Diamond added, "I told Batchelor that I would not speak to Human Events yet he made up a quote from me and placed it in his article."
McCain doesn't have a campaign any longer. People are concerned about the economy and nothing else. He has to try anything and hopes something sticks. But unless he sells his 7 houses and 13 cars and Sarah Palin sells that bridge to nowhere for real and uses the money to take care of few American's bills, he is twisting in the wind.
Palin can smile and wink and McCain take the sarcastic tone he loves to sport and none of it is going to help them win. Unless they change their whole campaign to mirror Obama's, which is not helping rich oil companies and rich people, but helping middle-class Americans live better, their run for the White House is lost. We need a real change which the McCain/Palin ticket isn't.
You can tell when a campaign gets desperate when they start ignoring the fact the COUNTRY is in dire economic STRAITS and instead of telling how THEY will solve our problems, they send their 2nd rate VP nominee to throw mud at Obama with useless trivia. Don't you get it McCain? We want to hear about how you are going to help US, we do not want to see your smoke and mirror show, especially when you yourself claimed in April '08 that you were against negative campaigning. If you want to win this one John, you'd better refocus! And get Palin off the trail, she is disasterous for your campaign, especially when she slings her insignificant trash. I see your polls dropping, bad strategy.
This %^$% is ridiculous! I am so sick of Sarah Palin! Who is she to disqualify Obama as being fit for the presidency? Who is she to call him unpatriotic!
I am a second generation of the 1960's counterculture... and guess what, our numbers are strong! Obama was only eight years old when this happened, and I was yet to be born. The fact that Ayers violently protested the Vietnem War does not make Obama guilty by association.
Remember, the extreme right also likes to resort to violence, and has been labeled as domestic terrorists. Think bombing abortion clinics and killing doctors who provide abortions.
Obama is above this and the polls show it!
It's really pathetic when you have to tell a 72 year old man to GROW UP! John McShame is acting like a spoiled evil child that pouts & tells lies when they don't get their way! He has really gone down to the slums!
If there's one thing I hate is hippocracy! McLiar & his VP Dick Cheney..(with liptstick) are a disgrace..they have no solutions for the economy & have no ethics or morals! If he thinks people are as stupid as he is..(5th from the bottom of his class) then he'll find out just how wrong he is!
Shame on you McLiar...how do you even sleep @ night?? It's time to think about retiring, it seems what's left of your brains have already retired!...LIAR LIAR McCAIN'S DEPENDS ARE ON FIRE!!
OBAMA/BIDEN 08
It's really pathetic when you have to tell a 72 year old man to GROW UP! John McShame is acting like a spoiled evil child that pouts & tells lies when they don't get their way! He has really gone down to the slums!
If there's one thing I hate is hippocracy! McLiar & his VP Dick Cheney..(with liptstick) are a disgrace..they have no solutions for the economy & have no ethics or morals! If he thinks people are as stupid as he is..(5th from the bottom of his class) then he'll find out just how wrong he is!
Shame on you McLiar...how do you even sleep @ night?? It's time to think about retiring, it seems what's left of your brains have already retired!...LIAR LIAR McCAIN'S DEPENDS ARE ON FIRE!!
OBAMA/BIDEN 08
It's really pathetic when you have to tell a 72 year old man to GROW UP! John McShame is acting like a spoiled evil child that pouts & tells lies when they don't get their way! He has really gone down to the slums!
If there's one thing I hate is hippocracy! McLiar & his VP Dick Cheney..(with liptstick) are a disgrace..they have no solutions for the economy & have no ethics or morals! If he thinks people are as stupid as he is..(5th from the bottom of his class) then he'll find out just how wrong he is!
Shame on you McLiar...how do you even sleep @ night?? It's time to think about retiring, it seems what's left of your brains have already retired!...LIAR LIAR McCAIN'S DEPENDS ARE ON FIRE!!
OBAMA/BIDEN 08
It's really pathetic when you have to tell a 72 year old man to GROW UP! John McShame is acting like a spoiled evil child that pouts & tells lies when they don't get their way! He has really gone down to the slums!
If there's one thing I hate is hippocracy! McLiar & his VP Dick Cheney..(with liptstick) are a disgrace..they have no solutions for the economy & have no ethics or morals! If he thinks people are as stupid as he is..(5th from the bottom of his class) then he'll find out just how wrong he is!
Shame on you McLiar...how do you even sleep @ night?? It's time to think about retiring, it seems what's left of your brains have already retired!...LIAR LIAR McCAIN'S DEPENDS ARE ON FIRE!!
OBAMA/BIDEN 08