by Clarence Page
Yes, that's Barack Obama's neighbor, the former Weather Underground bomb thrower Bill Ayers, captured above by my cell phone camera as he spoke to an almost- full sanctuary in a Washington DC church - with very little publicity.
"We set this up six months ago," he told the friendly audience, convened by Teaching for Change, a Washington-based school reform organization, and Busboys and Poets, a local independent bookstore-restaurant, "and I expected something like ten people sitting in a circle."
He did better than that: About 200 people and a gaggle of news media.
Unlike Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, he's not on an image redemption tour. He's not even planning a run for public office. At this particular event, he was talking and promoting his books about school reform.
After months of vilification as an "unrepentant terrorist" by Palin, Sen. John McCain, Fox News' Sean Hannity and the rest of the anti-Obama chorus, the Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago is getting his life back to abnormal.
That includes taking to journalists like me. In an exclusive sit-down interview with this Chicago Tribune columnist and Swamp blogger backstage at the District of Columbia's All Souls Unitarian Church, he wanted to make one thing clear. He wasn't "breaking his silence," as TV news promos like to say. He's been teaching and lecturing around the country without interruption, he said. He has only been silent with journalists - like me - who want to know why he hasn't given the world the apology that Fox's Bill O'Reilly has been waiting for.
"I have a hard time entering into a sound bite response to that," he said, "and part of the reason is, I think the narrative created around me and Barrack Obama is so profoundly dishonest."
He is "not a devil" or "a demon," he wants us to know. He recalled George Orwell's "1984" and the images of "Two Minutes Hate" during which images of the political fugitive character Emmanuel Goldstein would be "put up on the screen, the people would be worked up into a frenzy and they would shout, 'Kill him! Kill him!' Well, I was Emmanuel Goldstein for a minute and it was just surreal."
Ayers didn't help matters much by walking wordlessly past the news crews that gathered outside his home and office doors. Or maybe he did. Ayers, true to the traditions of professors and ex-student radicals everywhere, does not speak easily in sound bites. By staying mum he avoided adding new soundbites to be taken out of context.
"Part of the narrative around Barrack Obama was guilt by association," he said. "I expected the grown-up media to say this was irrelevant."
Ah, that's what he gets for presuming the media are grown-up.
But seriously, investigations by the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, CNN and other news organizations concluded that reports of a close Obama-Ayers relationship have been greatly exaggerated, but that has not deterred the exaggerators.
"And I was surprised that a conservative republican, Colin Powell, was the one who stood up and said, look, it's not a bad thing that you're an Arab. You can be president and be a Muslim. And it's not a bad thing to have associations. My admiration for him was never stronger."
Although other Weather Underground members committed acts that resulted in deaths, including the accidental deaths of some Weather Underground members, Ayers argues that he only committed crimes against property - property that including the Pentagon, the United States Capitol and New York City Police Headquarters.
After years of living on the lam, charges against them were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct, which should give you young'uns an idea of how messed-up politics, prosecutions and police relations were in those days, especially in matters involving J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.
After that matter was settled, Ayers and family have been model citizens for more than 20 years, except for one thing that drives a lot of people wild: He's never apologized for his acts of violence.
But what about that apology?
"You can't reach 64 years old and not have a lot of regrets," he said, launching into a non-bite answer. "Personal regrets, political regrets, All kinds of regret. But I refuse to participate in a ritualistic mea culpa when we were living in a sewer of violence. A sewer of violence. And if I'm asked to account for my little extreme acts of vandalism, which hurt property, I want to stand on the same platform with Henry Kissinger, with John Kerry with John McCain and I want all of us to say what we did.... And I would be happy to say in that context that these things were not right, these things wrong, in particular.
"But I'm not making a blanket apology because, actually, I think what we did was measured in response to things that were going on in the rest of the world. How do you respond to thousands of people who were being murdered in your name?"
He said all of this in the same calm, measured tone that he uses in the classroom or way back 39 years ago at that fateful convention where the then-Weatherman faction broke away from the radical Students for a Democratic Society (aka SDS).
Full disclosure: In the words Palin inaccurately used to smear Obama, I have "palled around" with this terrorist.
In my youth I reported inside that 1969 Chicago convention in the now-demolished Coliseum where Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn broke away with others to form the violent Weather Underground. We became reacquainted through mutual friends in Chicago in the 1990s. By then she was a nationally respected juvenile justice expert and he was a school reformer who had received awards from Mayor Richard M. Daley, son of the mayor who tear-gassed both of them in the 1960s.
That's not all that's changed. We reminisced like boomer geezers about former radicals-gone-establishment, like Rep. Bobby Rush, former chairman of the Black Panther party, an SDS ally.
And there was that awesome Grant Park victory rally for Obama. "I've been in large crowds before but they're usually laced with anger, gluttony, something," Ayers wistfully recalled. "But this was just all so lovely. ... people hugging. And the cops came down ... and people were hugging the cops...."
"But there was another reason Ayers choked up and wept that night in Grant Park, he said. "I found the place where I was beaten by the cops 40 years ago.
"And I was thinking, here I am watching this beautiful (Obama) family and this very inspiring and very intelligent young man taking over the presidency and this thing that I am constantly in argument with my left-wing friends - and I am obviously on the left, too - is this: Just savor the moment. No president can deliver us into the promised land." No president is perfect, Ayers said, "But for now, just savor the moment."
Comments
What an absolute puff piece. Gee, I wonder if Page and the rest of the corrupt media would feel a little differently about Mr. Ayers and The Weather Underground if they targeted media outlets? Hmmm, would Page be so kind and understanding of Mr. Ayers if Mr. Ayers put a bomb at the doorsteps of the Chicago Tribune? And, of course, I am sure these legitimate questions will be censored because the Tribune is anything but an outlet of the First Amendment.
Posted by: John D | November 18, 2008 8:43 AM
Is there no redemption for Mr. Ayers?.. who knows. ...............
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/19/the-ayers-of-christian-redemption/
Posted by: Ohg Rea Tone | November 18, 2008 9:02 AM
Bill Ayers comments that he was only involved in criminal acts that resulted in property damage.
It has been reported that members of the Weather Underground were involved in the death of a San Francisco Police Department officer in 1970 and the deaths of two police officers and an armored car guard in New York in 1981. The Weather Underground also was involved in the fire-bombing of a New York Supreme Court judge's residence.
Both murder and arson are crimes that are not limited by the statute of limitations.
I would hope that the FBI, ATF and the New York and San Francisco police departments are still investigating these despicable criminal acts and if evidence becomes available charges are brought against whomever was responsible.
Posted by: Pat H | November 18, 2008 9:11 AM
After reading this article, I have gained a respect for this guy, that I didn't have before. When you compare what our Armed Forces were visiting upon the citizens of Vietnam and what was happening to our own men and women of our Armed Forces, Mr Ayers actions, were muted, by comparison. Wrong, no doubt, but necessary, if your government does not respond to the citizen's demands. The suggestion for his actions are spelled out in our Declaration of Independence !! It amuses me today, to hear all of these" gun-touting " patriots argue for, every man, woman and child their own arsenal, because we must be ready to defend ourselves against a repressive government and when some, do act against what they perceive as a that repressive government, than all "sh--" breaks loose !! Mr. Ayers wasn't a McVie, who did kill hundreds of innocent men, women and children. He was a man concerned about what atrocities our government was exercising against a nation that didn't warrant that kind of destruction, let alone, massacres !! I am glad President-elect Obama associated with men like Mr. Ayers, rather than the likes of the Reverand Hagee, or Phil Gramm, or even, President Bush and his fellow closet warriors, from Cheney to Chambliss !! I will not even get into Mr. Ayers' exemplary life since his " youthful indiscretions ", as one " prominent " Republican phrased his actions, which led to his breaking up of a marriage, at age 40 !!
There is no doubt that Mr. Ayers' actions were wrong, but in comparison, to what our government was doing in Vietnam, they stand out like democratic lights against the tyranny of imperialism and militarism. That is why America turned from the Bush-McCain Republicans, in the last general election. In part, the incompetent and devious Bush administrations were re-enacting the Vietnam war, and America said, once was too more than enough !!
Finally, it was despicable of the Bush-McCain Republicans to try and dirty Senator Obama's reputation by a incidental association with Mr. Ayers !! It was just another volley of cheap shots and low blows, by the masters of gutter politics. Senator Obama was 9 years old when Mr. Ayers was expressing his constitutional right and to try to convict Senator Obama, of guilt by association, was the typical, desperate act of a failed candidacy, of Senator McCain and Governor Palin !!
My only regrets, concerning this re-visitation of the whole corporate war element, Vietnam and Iraq, is that our citizenry didn't respond to our government's deception and the illegality of this immoral action, still going on In the Oil Fields of Iraq. We stood by and idly watched thousands and thousands of innocent people being murdered and forced out of their homes and their country and we said very little, about these crimes !! Maybe, with the election of President-elect Obama, we will not see the likes of these immoral wars, such as President Bush has championed and reveled in !! It is my deepest wish, that we have learned a terrible lesson !! Give peace a chance !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | November 18, 2008 9:14 AM
what is this rebel doing in a church? The churches have lost their way totaly, they should maintain christian neutrality and uphold their alegence to Gods purpose and his rule over mankind.
Read Mat.6:9,10; Dan.2:44;Rev.21:1-4
Posted by: Karl Boecker | November 18, 2008 9:22 AM
Still think this is a build up for Ayers to be in the Obama White House-
Posted by: Inky | November 18, 2008 9:24 AM
The event was also cosponsored by DC Voice.
Posted by: SJ | November 18, 2008 9:34 AM
This column is riddled with lies. The Tribune "investigated" the Ayers-Obama relationship. That's absolutely false. We really don't know the extent of the relationship so how can Palin's description be "false." The Weatherman never hurt anyone? Does the Tribune even care about the truth? No wonder your paper is going out of business.
Posted by: dantana | November 18, 2008 9:47 AM
Ref-
This column is riddled with lies. The Tribune "investigated" the Ayers-Obama relationship. That's absolutely false. We really don't know the extent of the relationship so how can Palin's description be "false." The Weatherman never hurt anyone? Does the Tribune even care about the truth? No wonder your paper is going out of business.
Posted by: dantana | November 18, 2008 9:47 AM
Agree the Tribune is on on its last leg, wonder if it will ask for a baillout-
Posted by: Inky | November 18, 2008 9:58 AM
A related issue is Obama’s membership in Generation Jones (between the Boomers and Generation X). I’ve seen numerous very credible experts (including Clarence Page) emphatically insist that Obama is part of GenJones; if Obama’s generational identity is of interest to you, click this link…it goes to a page filled with lots of articles and videos of famous people discussing Obama’s identity as a GenJoneser, and the many implications of this for his Presidency: http://www.generationjones.com/2008election.html
Posted by: Jennifer Williams | November 18, 2008 10:06 AM
How many innocent people did Ayers kill?
How many innocent people did Johnson/Nixon kill?
Posted by: C.Morris | November 18, 2008 10:51 AM
John D,
In your hypothetical fantasy above are the media outlets guilty of waging an unjust and pointless war that kills thousands of young American boys every week? Many of whom who were forced to fight because they were drafted into service?
Posted by: justaskin | November 18, 2008 11:54 AM
Justaskin, an unjust and pointless war happens to be your opinion. I do not believe fighting murderous thug communist dictatorships to be pointless and unjust. But even if one were to believe it was OK to bomb buildings because one is against a war, why then were the NY Police targeted? Why was a NY judge and his family targeted. And, let's look at that last one. The family home of a NY judge, a home in which CHILDREN were asleep, was targeted by the Weather Underground. So, if one is against a war (and this instance the Vietnam War), then why target a family?
Also, the Weather Underground performed criminal activities and bombing attempts AFTER the Vietnam War ended. There was no war in the early 1980s. It's always a wonder when reality and truth smacks a leftist right in the face!
Posted by: John D | November 18, 2008 12:18 PM
Dantana and Inky: There's a difference between "we really don't know the extent of the relationship so how can Palin's description be 'false.'" and "the extent of the relationship has been answered by both Ayers and Obama, but we don't like those answers because what we want is for Obama to be a terrorist and we won't accept any other answer that DOESN'T state that he's a terrorist."
Palin's description can be "false" if she says Ayers and Obama were "pals" whereas the reality is that they were "acquanitances" who cooperated for the purpose of a specific committee and then nothing particularly more than that.
I'm not "pals" with every guest in my home, many of whom come in as "and guest" of people I invite or who come to my home as delivery or service people. Why should we assume Obama had more of a relationship with Ayers based on the same kind of status in his home?
You people truly don't listen to anything other than what you want to hear.
Posted by: Op109 | November 18, 2008 12:33 PM
John D,
I didn't bring up the red herrings you tossed out. Unless you have evidence that Bill Ayers was placing the bombs at the places you mentioned, your analogy is irrelevant. Lets talk about what you said instead. How did Vietnam threaten the USA before we invaded? Domino Theory?? Yeah that turned out to be true. Just look at all of Communist SE Asia....wait!
Posted by: justaskin | November 18, 2008 12:35 PM
Justaskin, all the communist countries in SE Asia? Hmmm, we have/had Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar/Burma. Granted not a whole lot, but a few.
Also, you seem to believe that since Ayers didn't place all the bombs, then he is just a hunky-dorie guy. Under your belief system, then bin Laden is cool because he isn't directly associated with all the Al Qaeda attacks. In fact, he wasn't personally involved in any of them -- onsite. Fact is, Ayers was involved in some of the bombings or bombing attempts (let's not forget that because Ayers and his goofy gang were incompetent terrorists not all of their attempts were successful). Ayers has never repented or felt bad about anything his merry little band of goofballs did. In fact, he has been quoted several times wishing they had done more and were more successful.
But, justaskin, you haven't answered any of the questions, such as the targeting of those that had nothing to do with the Vietnam War for which was the alleged basis of their protests or the fact the Weather Underground continued doing its nasty little things well AFTER the Vietnam War ended. But then I am not surprised, Those on the Left never do answer questions nor deal with reality and facts.
Posted by: John D | November 18, 2008 2:34 PM
Lies in the article, continued misrepresentation of what Ayers should still be in jail for and his radical terrorist group - too bad Bush didn't go after this terrorist in the war on terror. America tries to defend the rights of people - and if you ask those that we have helped will tell us thank you - ask the Jews, the French, the English, the South Vietnamize, Cambodians, and even most Iraqis are much happier free than under dictatorships. Those that disagree may want to go try living in those dictator countries - good luck to ya, without the good ol' USA protecting you.
Posted by: DaveF | November 18, 2008 10:25 PM
From this very post:
"But I'm not making a blanket apology because, actually, I think what we did was measured in response to things that were going on in the rest of the world. How do you respond to thousands of people who were being murdered in your name?"
So under Ayers' thinking it will be perfectly acceptable to wage a war against his pals when they divide Jerusalem and give the radical islamic groups like hamas and Iran, to name but a few, new territory to attack Israel?
It's OK right, as people will be murdered "in our name," thanks to the actions of Obama?
Posted by: Tom | November 18, 2008 10:35 PM
Terrorists and criminals have very bright futures ahead of them. They become college professors at American Universities. Then we wonder why we have problems. John D., I agree with you wholeheartedly. Bravo.
Posted by: Patrice | November 18, 2008 10:37 PM
Maybe now that he's our president-elect you could try to spell his name right?
Posted by: wtf | November 19, 2008 12:41 AM
Protesting is one thing, but I thought killing, bombing, etc. were illegal! Oh, that's right, Illegal doesn't mean illegal all the time, like smuggling drugs into the country, because 2 border patrol agents are in prison for shooting that guy in the back end as he ILLEGALLY climbed the fence! They should have aimed for the front! With the prison sentence they received you'd think they killed/bombed....Our poor grandchildren!
Posted by: sherry | November 20, 2008 9:10 PM