<p>LOL. It’s just as I thought. [Here</a> a very conventional older American Ayers is shown acting unconventionally, standing on the American Flag](<a href=“http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/]Here”>No Regrets – Chicago Magazine). Of course bz here has claimed Ayers was “trampling” the flag, which dishonorably evokes images of a angry man stomping bitterly and spitefully against the U.S. It was nothing of the sort. Instead, the magazine clearly staged the shot, making it intentionally provocative. Clearly the point was to draw the reader’s attention to the accompanying article, which details Ayers’s radical past and contrasts it to his very conventional present.</p>
<p>From 1967 to 1973, while John McCain was a POW. Obama was 6-12 years old.
From 1976 until he met Cindy Hensley, John McCain indulged in a string of extra-marital affairs. He was then 40-43 years old. According to Carol McCain, he wanted to be like a 25 year old again (he’d be known to be partying then, too).
Is that the comparison you want to make? Ayers is not on the ballot.</p>
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<p>No, it is the truth that I hold in high regard. I have no reaction to Ayers either for or against. My concern is in how poor of character we can be in deliberately mischaracterizing Ayers as he is today, with the aim of assaulting the honor of Obama, this, simply for the sake of politics. I think some of us are too eager to trade what I think is valuable for something that is quite worthless by comparison.</p>
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<p>Well, Diana Oughton built the bomb, and Ayers claims he did not know what happened with it. Possibly Diana detonated it to kill herself. The group did make a point that its aim was always to blow up objects, not people. And the nature of their bombings does bear out this claim. As with many radical movements, members of this group quite possibly began to go farther than even its leaders had intended. It could be Oughton wished to kill soldiers, contrary to the stated aim of the group. We do not know because the bomb was never placed. Whatever the case, we cannot reasonably claim Obama’s character is somehow sullied because of what Oughton did. But apparently reason does not have much value here. Sticking it to “Hussein the Terrorist” is all that matters.</p>
<p>It is true that at some point McCain was in a Vietnamese prison. And while I respect his service, his apparent inability to successfully complete his mission as a pilot gives me not even one reason to think he could successfully complete a mission as president. By this sort of lunatic “Wingerthink”, Guantanamo Bay is just brimming with presidential material.</p>
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<p>A period of learning about foreign affairs in Indonesia, if I recall from claims The One has made.</p>
<p>Dross - you make a lot of apologies for Ayers’ actions and those of his group, “The Weathermen”, apparently in an attempt to diminish the ramifications of Obama’s association w/ the guy.</p>
<p>Here’s what Wiki had to say about The Weathermen:</p>
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On 21 May 1970, a communiqu</p>
<p>Well, as I said, all of these bombings were against objects, not people. The police station bombing (I think there were two), was against a statute, not officers. The Pentagon bombing was also intentionally against objects. I do not excuse these actions, but to call the Ayers of today a “terrorist” because of them is just plain silly and dishonest. It tries to attach “Barack Hussein Obama” with terrorism in general, and we know the sort of terrorism it aims for. It is a patently wrong thing to do, especially since Obama was only six years old at the time.</p>
<p>By the time Obama had anything to do with Ayers, the Weatherman episode had been resolved, charges dropped, and Ayers a college professor for decades. It is with this Ayers that Obama served to help reform schools, yet McCain supporters are trying to condemn Obama for this. It is dishonest, smacks of rank evil, and I have no respect for anyone who drags their own character through such wretchedness.</p>
<p>Barack Hussein Obama’s close personal relationship with a terrorist bomber, to the point of announcing his first candidacy from the steps of Ayers and Dorn’s house, speaks to an appalling lack of political judgement. I would never want a candidate with such obvious poor judgement to have his finger on the trigger of the nuclear arsenal.</p>
<p>Dross, when you excuse Ayers’ actions as being “against objects, not people”, do you forget these plans:
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<p>Do you think that they didn’t intend to hurt “people” at a dance?</p>
<p>Anyway, that photo of Ayers placing a flag on the ground and then standing on it was not taken that long ago. Don’t you think a person running for President should reject someone who so blatantly disrespects the most cherished of American symbols?</p>
<p>…and in spite of knowing these thngs, Obama doesn’t just not reject the guy, he embraces him!</p>
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<p>This is a gross mischaracterization of what really happened. Alice Palmer was state senator at the time. Since she, like Ayers, is also an academic in education, she chose the venue in which she would introduce the young Obama to local luminaries. There was no “close relationship” here between Obama and Ayers. Ayers was and apparently still is a major player in liberal Chicago politics, and Palmer used his home to give Obama the start he needed.</p>
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<p>Well, I have to say, Obama was right on target in standing against the war, unlike John “100 years” McCain. And this suggests that under Obama, unlike under McCain, there will never be a need to use a nuclear arsenal.</p>
<p>It is really important to take a break from these fora as I have done for the most part for the last couple of weeks…</p>
<p>One gets a lot of perspective on threads like this one that are trying to tie Barack Obama to Louis Farrakhan. Doesn’t this kind of thing prove that McCain and his partisans actually want to play the race card in this campaign – even while accusing Obama of doing so?</p>
<p>This palaver just isn’t what people want to hear about – i.e. whether Obama has some occult connection to Louis Farrakhan or is actually a Muslim (he doesn’t and isn’t) or whether McCain betrayed his country by making propaganda tapes for the Viet Cong (he did, but anyone could understand the situation in which he did) or tossed over his first wife because she was crippled (he did).</p>
<p>Right now we have a campaign going on between a junior senator from Illinois whose probably one of the smartest presidential candidates in a long-time who is also extremely adept politically. He’s looking more presidential every day and he spends a lot of time talking about the issues. Of course, the best the people seem to be able to do against him is trump up a bunch of lies and garbage or irrelevancies, such as this thread.</p>
<p>Inflation just jumped tremendously, the situation with Iran is changing daily, Iraq is going to be a delicate issue no matter what happens, and McCain keeps coming up with the often lying attacks he does. He’s acting as if nothing of importance is happening to this country or the people in it. While Rome burns, McCain fiddles.</p>
<p>I hope that McCain keeps doing exactly what he is doing. He’ll just come off as the grumpy old man that he is. Someone who sold out his principles to get the nomination, who has lost a lot of the dignity that he amassed for himself previously.</p>
<p>And apparently his followers are pretty much following the same standard.</p>
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<p>I think it entirely reasonable to assume that Oughton DID wish to harm people. But it is not reasonable to assume Ayers wished this, especially since such behavior lay outside his stated plan and pattern. Even of his more incendiary rhetoric he says ‘everyone knew that the language was rhetorical, issued to match the times. No one thought I was serious’.</p>
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<p>Well, if you look at the image closely, you will see he is not standing on it, but behind it. So if the flag holds such magic for you, there ya go. It is clear to me, and would be to any reasonable person viewing that photo, that the thing was staged for effect. It was just an image to set a radical tone to a former radical who has become quite conventional, even so that today he frequents Starbucks.</p>
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<p>Why not? He is not a terrorist but is apparently very good at school reform, something Obama undoubtedly cares about a great deal. I think it is pragmatic and wise that Obama should lay aside nonsense that took place when he was six (for crying out loud!) and that has been resolved by the Federal system for decades on end, so that he can help get badly need skills working to solve problems.</p>
<p>I guess I don’t see how Ayers’s obviously staged photo means the man is evil, so evil that no one should listen to him. Based on what I have read, he did some dumb things when he was young. He now denounces terrorism in all its forms, but he does not regret standing radically against the United States when it terrorized so many innocent people in a country in which it had no business in the first place.</p>
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<p>Sounds like the perfect representative of America to me. Go McCain, I say.</p>
<p>bh - you characterized McCain as “lying” in your post above and, while that is not true, I heard Obama just a few minutes ago totally mischaracterize (lie about) McCain’s energy plan to the crowd he was addressing in Michigan. It was infuriating! </p>
<p>It just reinforced my view (which has evolved over the past few months) that Obama is as slimy as they come. I just don’t see how he can say the things he does w/ a straight face - and expect voters w/ an ounce of intelligence to believe him!</p>
<p>I just really can’t understand the support he has - wait - I take that back - I think he has support because he “represents something” to some people. He himself even said he has become a “symbol”. </p>
<p>But isn’t what a candidate “IS” more important than what he “represents”??</p>
<p>ID: foreign culture, ID, foreign culture. It’s McCain who had the affairs.</p>
<p>First his name is Barack Obama not the one, and second if you read Obama’s book you will see how before he even went into politics he was repulsed by the race-baiting of Farrakhan. Seriously the only similarities are that they are both of african ancestry</p>
<p>dross - spoken like a true cynic! </p>
<p>Must be depressing for you to wake up in America every morning.</p>
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<p>Depressing? Why, not at all. I am just laying it out as I see it. If Americans at first do not choose a guy when he is running with principles, and then they decide to choose him when he takes the low road, well, that guy is by definition the right guy for America. His values correspond with theirs.</p>
<p>Dross - your characterization is ridiculous - first of all, McCain is not in any way “taking the low road”, especially when compared to Obama who has garnered some of HIS support by out-and-out LYING!</p>
<p>Secondly, for voters to have their eyes opened & decisions influenced as a result of political ads, that doesn’t mean that they in any way are choosing a candidate “when he takes the low road”.</p>
<p>To adhere to your assessment, one would have to accept the following premises to be true:
- Voters didn’t at first choose the candidate when he was “running w/ principles”,
- A candidate “took the low road”,
- Voters then “decide to choose him when he took the low road”.</p>
<p>I contend that none of those premises are true, thus you have presented a fallcious argument; and the suggestion that Americans’ values somehow correspond w/ a candidate who takes the low road is an invalid conclusion.</p>
<p>Voters, especially the Independents & previously undecided, are still making up their minds about for whom they will vote. To do so as more & more becomes known about the candidates, and as more complete pictures about who they are & what they stand for become evident, in no way implies that one or more of the candidates are in fact “taking the low road”. (Obama’s lies notwithstanding, of course!).</p>
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<p>That’s the great thing about being The One. A convenient explanation for everything, all neatly typed on campaign letterhead, accepted with fawning naivete by admirers and media alike.</p>
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<p>A couple of weeks ago, some anti-choice group got a permit to set up some sort of demonstration at a major intersection in a nearby town, thinking they could change people’s minds about abortion with these huge posters of aborted fetuses. The town had erected temporary signs, warning motorists of the demonstration, saying that there were graphic displays ahead, and if you wished not to see them, you should pick another route. So as I sat at a traffic light, I rolled my window and told one of the protestors thanks for reminding me to make another donation to Planned Parenthood (on top of the one I make annually).</p>
<p>I think in light of Obama’s birthday today, I shall commit $10 to his campaign for every highlighted blue “The One” that is posted on this thread. I haven’t donated in a while, but hey, it is his birthday.</p>
<p>Provocation doesn’t usually work to gain support for one’s position.</p>
<p>BTW - I’m up to $60.</p>