Waving the Bloody Shirt

Opinion Journal
My Friend Bill Ayers
Once wanted by the FBI, he's since become a model citizen.
By THOMAS FRANK

Waving the bloody shirt" was the phrase once used to describe the standard demagogic tactic of the late 19th century, when memories of the Civil War were still vivid and loyalists of both parties could be moved to "vote as they shot." As the years passed and the memories faded, the shirt got gorier, the waving more frantic.

In 1896 the Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan as their leader, a man who was born in 1860 and had thus missed the Civil War, but who seemed to threaten the consensus politics of the time. In response, Republican campaign masterminds organized a speaking tour of the Midwest by a handful of surviving Union generals. The veterans advanced through the battleground states in a special train adorned with patriotic bunting, pictures of their candidate, William McKinley, and a sign declaring, "We are Opposed to Anarchy and Repudiation."
The culture wars are the familiar demagogic tactic of our own time, building monstrous offenses out of the tiniest slights. The fading rancor that each grievance is meant to revive, of course, dates to the 1960s and the antiwar protests, urban riots and annoying youth culture that originally triggered our great turn to the right.

This year the Democrats chose Barack Obama as their leader, a man who was born in 1961 and who largely missed our cultural civil war. In response, Republican campaign masterminds have sought to plunge him back into it in the most desperate and grotesque manner yet.

For days on end, the Republican presidential campaign has put nearly all of its remaining political capital on emphasizing Mr. Obama's time on various foundation boards with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weathermen, which planted bombs and issued preposterous statements in the Vietnam era. Some on the right seem to believe Mr. Ayers is Mr. Obama's puppet-master, while others are content merely to insist that the association proves Mr. Obama to be soft on terrorism. Maybe he's soft on anarchy and repudiation, too.

I can personally attest to the idiocy of it all because I am a friend of Mr. Ayers. In fact, I met him in the same way Mr. Obama says he did: 10 years ago, Mr. Ayers was a guy in my neighborhood in Chicago who knew something about fundraising. I knew nothing about it, I needed to learn, and a friend referred me to Bill.

Bill's got lots of friends, and that's because he is today a dedicated servant of those less fortunate than himself; because he is unfailingly generous to people who ask for his help; and because he is kind and affable and even humble. Moral qualities which, by the way, were celebrated boisterously on day one of the GOP convention in September.

Mr. Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where his work is esteemed by colleagues of different political viewpoints. Herbert Walberg, an advocate of school vouchers who is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, told me he remembers Mr. Ayers as "a responsible colleague, in the professional sense of the word." Bill Schubert, who served as the chairman of UIC's Department of Curriculum and Instruction for many years, thinks so highly of Mr. Ayers that, in response to the current allegations, he compiled a lengthy résumé of the man's books, journal articles, guest lectures and keynote speeches. Mr. Ayers has been involved with countless foundation efforts and has received various awards. He volunteers for everything. He may once have been wanted by the FBI, but in the intervening years the man has become such a good citizen he ought to be an honorary Eagle Scout.

I do not defend the things Mr. Ayers did in his Weatherman days. Nor will I quibble with those who find Mr. Ayers wanting in contrition. His 2001 memoir is shot through with regret, but it lacks the abject style our culture prefers.

Instead I want to note that, in its haste to convict a man merely for associating with Mr. Ayers, the GOP is effectively proposing to make the upcoming election into the largest mass trial in history, with all those professors and all those do-gooders on the hook for someone else's deeds four decades ago. Also in the dock: the demonic city (Chicago) that once named Mr. Ayers its "Citizen of the Year." Fire up Hurricane Katrina and point it toward Lake Michigan!

The McCain campaign has made much of its leader's honor and bravery, but now it has chosen to mount its greatest attack against a man who poses no conceivable threat to the country, who has nothing to do with this year's issues, and who cannot or will not defend himself. Apparently this makes him an irresistible target.

There are a lot of things to call this tactic, but "country first" isn't one of them. The nation wants its hope and confidence restored, and Republican leaders have chosen instead to wave the bloody shirt. This is their vilest hour.


From BarackObama.com Fight the Smears

The Truth about Barack Obama and William Ayers
Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques.

Here’s the truth: The smear associating Barack to Ayers is “phony,” “tenuous,”– even “exaggerated at best if not outright false.”

William Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with whom Barack served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990’s.

According to the Associated Press, they are not close: “No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago …”

Smear groups and the McCain campaign are trying to connect Obama to acts Ayers committed 40 years ago – when Barack was just eight years old.

Here’s what the New York Times reported on the connection:
But 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, whom he has called “somebody who
engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

Barack has publicly denounced Ayers’ radical actions from the 1960’s:
Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does
all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were
active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.


Major publications report--

The New York Times:
“The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false,” said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman. Mr. LaBolt said the men first met in 1995 through the education project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and have encountered each other occasionally in public life or in the neighborhood. He said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Hyde Park.

The Chicago Sun-Times:
McCain misleading public in role Ayers played in Obama political career. If McCain continues to insist that Obama launched his political career from Ayers’ Hyde Park living room, he is misleading the public by overplaying the size and significance of Ayers’ early support.
*Obama’s campaign really was launched when he got the backing of then state Sen. Alice Palmer (D-Chicago), who wanted him to replace her as she was planning a run for Congress. Palmer’s backing gave him entrée into local influential political circles.

The Detroit Free-Press:
A television commercial running in Michigan and several other battleground states by the American Issues Project insinuates that U. S. Sen. Barack Obama sympathizes with terrorists because of his acquaintance with William Ayers, a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This ad is a close cousin of Jerome Corsi’s Obama Nation book, a tome full of fabrications, half-truths, and delusions, penned by the Swift Boat architect himself about the Democratic presidential candidate.

… Ayers was never convicted of a crime. He went on to earn a doctorate, write 14 books and earn the distinction of “Senior University Scholar” and “Distinguished Professor.” People grow and evolve. It is no surprise that University of Chicago Law Professor Obama would cross paths with Ayers in civic organizations as well as in their neighborhood of Hyde Park.

CNN Fact check wrote about Palin’s claim that Obama is palling around with terrorists, “Verdict: 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.”

A life-long Republican, philanthropist William Ayers is survived by his wife, Leonore, who endorses John McCain's 2008 candidacy. As I see it, this controversy serves one purpose--character assasination of Barack Obama through guilt by association. There is no there, there.