by Mark Silva
After months of self-imposed silence, the "washed up terrorist'' of the 2008 presidential campaign - John McCain's name for Chicago's Bill Ayers - has spoken out. He did so with our friend, Peter Slevin, Chicago-based correspondent for the Washington Post.
Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and onetime radical anti-war protester in the 1960s, said that the Republicans had turned him into "a cartoon character'' this year.
Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, had accused Democrat Barack Obama of "palin' around with terrorists'' for working on civic boards in Chicago with Ayers and attending a campaign reception at Ayers' home during Obama's first bid for the state legislature.
"Pal around together? What does that mean? Share a milkshake with two straws? "Ayers told the Post. "I think my relationship with Obama was probably like thousands of others in Chicago. And, like millions and millions of others, I wish I knew him better."
Slevin reports: "Ayers, 64, said he does not "feel very victimized." Although he declined media interviews and received reported death threats, he continued to teach and write, postponing the release of one book because of the controversy.
"I didn't do anything. It's all guilt by association. They made me into a cartoon character, they threw me up on stage just to pummel me," Ayers said. "I felt from the beginning that the Obama campaign had to run the campaign and I had to run my life."
He said he had no contact with the Obama campaign. "That's not my world," he said.
"On a sunny election day afternoon, Ayers came to the door of the Hyde Park rowhouse he shares with his wife and fellow former Weather Underground partner Bernardine Dohrn. Wearing jeans, running shoes, a t-shirt and hoop earring in both ears, Ayers called out to friends as they passed by. To one couple out walking their dogs, he called out, "Palling around! You guys are palling around."
"Ayers talked about the fact that he and his wife, a Northwestern University law professor, held an open house for Obama when he first ran for the Illinois state senate in 1995. "Everybody, including you, wants to have a coffee here," Ayers said. "I don't know what the (expletive) I'm going to do."
"The dishonest narrative is that guilt by association has some validity," Ayers said, saying the performance of the media was "kind of shameful."
Ayers, calling Obama's expected election victory today an "achingly exciting moment,'' planned to join the crowd amassing at Obama's election night rally in Grant Park. He is not an invited guest.
Comments
Probable be one of Obam's senior advisors-
Posted by: Inky | November 4, 2008 9:22 PM
Blew up the Pentagon, responsible for the deaths of 2 policemen in Pennsylvania, admitted he wanted to blow up more...
This guy is a joke and needs to fade into the sunset. He should be behind bars and certainly lost his right to vote.
Posted by: Mike Z | November 4, 2008 9:40 PM
60,000 dead soldiers for a lie, Mike Z, and a million Vietnamese civilians dead because of a VIOLATION OF THE ETHOS OF THE COUNTRY THAT SAVED THE WORLD FROM FACISM. I'd say Ayers did the right thing. and they did it without hurting anyone.
Posted by: whatsamatter? sorry you couldn't STEAL another election? | November 4, 2008 10:12 PM
Billy Ayers is an American hero. The Weathermen bombings were not meant to take lives, but were in fact, acts of civil disobedience intended to preserve life. These acts were protests of social issues, and actions in which our government was functioning in contrast to the will of the people, and democracy as we know it. In essense, Billy Ayers was a leader standing up against Big Brother ideology within the US government. Based upon our current anemic economy, our country could have used a few Billy Ayers during the past 8 years of corrupt Bush administration.
Posted by: M Sanders | November 4, 2008 10:23 PM
I'm so pleased that Bill does not feel "very victimized." What trash! Those of us who served in Vietnam are incensed by Ayers' actions and his friendship with Obama.
Posted by: Daniel FitzGibbon | November 4, 2008 10:27 PM
Bernadine Dohrn was one of 10 most wanted by the FBI. Bill was responsible for a few deaths and blew up a lot of buildings . . and wished he had blown up more. Just your average, oridnary neighbors. Now he is feeling victimized? Oh Puh-lease!
Posted by: JoeC | November 4, 2008 10:31 PM
He blew up the Pentagon? Really? The whole Pentagon? Impressive.
Posted by: Farren | November 4, 2008 10:48 PM
Did the "reporter" ask him why his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, went to jail rather than testify about the Nyack, NY robbery in which 2 cops were killed? Or would that have been an impolite question?
Posted by: Jimmy G | November 4, 2008 10:54 PM
Mr. Ayers is, in fact, a "cartoon character."
While, I'm sure, he has something that resembles a Leftist Booster Club of fans, any objective assessment of his "accomplishments" for his
"cause" will show a man of limited ability producing even more limited impact.
Mr. Ayers is actually the Beaver Cleaver of the Love Generation.
Posted by: K.Connell | November 4, 2008 10:55 PM
I wonder how high the stack of recruiting letters Adam Gahdan and John Walker Lindh have recieved from Universities wanting their services once back in society.
What a joke.
Right wing terrorists get the death penalty (as they should)
Left wing terrorists get University jobs.
Posted by: JD | November 4, 2008 11:04 PM
Notice how this thread isn't overrun with Obama propaganda. Many blogs has been overrun with rabid anti-Conservative, pro-Obama stuff since the election heated up. Many of the post under many different names all sounding the same like they originate from one person. Now suddenly it's quiet. I think there has been an orchestrated campaign by the leftist to drawn out and oppose any Conservative posts with lots of disinformation and nasty stuff. I wonder if the media is in collusion with the left on this too? I wonder if these bloggers have been paid. I could blog at 3:00am about something that not everyone would be equipped to talk about and low and behold up pops a propagandist with all kinds of readied disinformation all of it completely ill informed.
Posted by: Kathleen | November 4, 2008 11:52 PM
Going to Australia. See everyone in 4 years.
Posted by: RLS | November 5, 2008 12:03 AM
Now Ayers knows a little better how Linda McDougal and Monica L must have felt.
Footnotes to history, doormats of the Republican Party and their hatchet men.
I've often wondered why Ayers just didn't give a press conference earlier and say, e.g., he attended some meetings of some dumb board with Obama.
If I attended a coffee or two at Barbara Currie's house with Obama, that doesn't transfer my beliefs or associations to him.
(Come to think--there does seem to be a high correlation, but that is just Hyde Park's peculiarly insular mindset, the town part not the gown part of Hyde Park.)
Anyway, he did do bad things in the past, no question.
But, bottom line: trolls, find some target other than Ayers. Or Wright. Or Prof Khalidi, or.....
You just don't get it. You've had your heads handed to you tonight, and you still think you're going to diminish Obama by that tired guilt by association gambit???
Just another sign of the bankruptcy and impotence of the Republican Party.
Posted by: ornery | November 5, 2008 12:07 AM
Make it 8 years RLS!
Posted by: James | November 5, 2008 1:37 AM
RLS, are you aware that pro-Bush Australian prime minister John Howard was thrown out in Dec. 07?
Posted by: Betty Constable | November 5, 2008 7:27 AM
Bill Ayers has, if anything, been whitewashed. Even McCain dubbed him a "washed-out terrorist." From what I can see, however, Ayers is still very much the communist revolutionary he was during his Weather Underground days. In 2006 he, along with wife Bernardine Dohrn and former SDS leader Jeff Jones, co-edited Sing A Battle Song, a compilation of manifestoes, communiques, and poetry from the 1970-1974 period of their group. What is one to make of this other than a celebration of their days in the Weather Underground?
Posted by: michigander | November 5, 2008 9:06 AM
You had to have been there! So if some of you don't get it, look at it this way. Say the Iraq War was killing 100 soldiers every day and you saw the bodies coming off the plane. The reporters were not "embedded", but right on the ground, so we saw the day by day fighting. It was a tumultous, sad and depressing time and what people did by civil disobedience was the only recourse many people had.
Posted by: Donna | November 5, 2008 9:12 AM
So, Bill has received death threats? Well, that more consideration than he gave to people that he targeted. The coward never gave anyone he targeted a heads up. No one made Ayres a cartoon, he did that all by himself.
Posted by: vla | November 5, 2008 9:22 AM
Incredible....still have Ayers apologists.... The tollerant left can tollerate folks like him but try to call out Repubs for standing up for our country and expecting people to behave in a way that respects and promotes in a positive light. The HATE from the left amazes me every day that tells others to tollerate them but have NO tollerance of anyone who thinks differently. To the left out there: show respect to others as you would have them respect you.
Posted by: paul anthony | November 5, 2008 11:56 AM
why would the press care to talk to him now?
Posted by: Brad | November 5, 2008 3:45 PM
Say what you will about Ayres, but he had his day in court. And guess what: he was acquitted. If you were truly upset, you can go waste your life by annoying the awful prosecutors that fouled that case up. Other than that, I advise you to not make more whine with your sour grapes.
Posted by: Batski B | November 5, 2008 5:05 PM
That so many people can take up for this guy is the reason we woke up with "that one" in office. This country has lost its mind, though they'll wake up once BHO starts working on the country with his genius intellect. This must be the midset the Nixonians had after Watergate. I do like the image of them sharing a milkshake, though. I hope some cartoonist runs with it.
Posted by: InspectorMauriceEscargot | November 5, 2008 6:31 PM