“Just a Guy in My Neighborhood”
When Hillary Clinton accused Barack Obama of associating with former domestic terrorists, still radical leftists, such as William Ayers, Obama answered that Ayers was “just a guy in my neighborhood.” Nothing more to the story, that should have been the end of it, or so Obama implied.
“Just a guy in my neighborhood” was, however, far from the truth. Ayers and Obama were allies, served on the board of an organization dedicated to radicalizing Chicago suburb students, shared an office for three years and Obama reviewed Ayers’ book favorably. Which would have made sense for friends and political allies to do.
The entire Ayers episode shows two things to me: Obama’s inherent dishonesty and secrecy, and his true, early allies. These allies were not moderates, or even reasonably moderate liberals. They were not even liberals as such, they were radical progressives. These were the men and women Obama worked with for years, whose views he at least publicly endorsed, and who helped kick start his political career.
Whether he still subscribes to their views remains to be seen.
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“Whether he still subscribes to their views remains to be seen.”
I think it’s pretty clear he doesn’t subscribe to their anti-American views.
OK for me the Ayers issue has been a minor to moderate issue. I don’t believe Sen. Obama holds to the more radical views of William Ayers. I do believe that Sen. Obama struggles with “where the political center is” and how to gauge a set of viewpoints that are coherently and well stated and yet far from the center.
It seems he uses his own internal GPS (“he’s an Education professor concerned about inner city kids and their education”) and that tends to dampen any sense of how the American public might view a guy posing for a picture standing on the American flag or a guy who in a previous life blew up government buildings and now thirty years later isn’t wholly apologetic but instead says “we didn’t do enough”. We went through this same process with Rev. Wright. The difference now is that Mr. Ayers is not now going before the national media and forcing Sen. Obama’s hand. Fortunately for Sen. Obama, Bill Ayers is staying quiet.
Well said, c3.
Michael: maybe not antiAmerican in that extreme manner, but there is a clear difference between most conservatives and liberals in defining “American” or “anti-American.” For conservatives, the view tends to be that America is a great country, always was, still is, and forever shall be…but there are improvments needed around the edges. Liberals tend to be far more critical to the point of seeming that they feel core change is needed, and that doesn’t play well with conservatives.
I remember hearing about a stump speech Obama made where he said something (which was probably just a gaffe, but still to conservative ears it sounded like a Freudian slip)…it was something along the lines of “We live in the greatest country in the world…now I ask you to join with me to change it.” That pretty much sums up the way that Obama’s ‘anti-Americanism’ comes across to people like myself- they want sweeping, fundamental changes rather than just fixing what’s broken.