Obama did not know his past

[krawhitham]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Ignorance_of_Ayers.html

Top Obama advisors tell CNN that, when they first met in the mid-1990s, Obama didn't know of Bill Ayers' radical past. It's the first time they've said that, as far as I know.

"In 1995, William Ayers held kind of a get-to-know you event at his place where he was introducing Barack Obama to the political culture there in Chicago when he was running for the State Senate for the first time. David Axelrod said that at that meeting Senator Obama was not aware of Ayers' radical background. Is that true?" CNN's John Roberts asked Robert Gibbs, who said it was true.

On one hand, there's nothing to contradict that line, and some plausibility. Ayers had faded from notoriety until, in an interview that -- through bizarre coincidence -- appeared in the September 11, 2001 New York Times, he spoke cavalierly about his bombings. He also had moved into a prominent civic role in Chicago for which it's hard to think of an easy parallel for somebody with that kind of past. He is, for whatever reason, kosher in Chicago. (An analogy would be the Mayor of Phoenix having G. Gordon Liddy on an advisory board, say.)

On the other hand, Obama's not that young. He started at Columbia University, for instance, in 1981, when their names were certainly in the New York tabloids, which haved always loved the story of upper-middle-class radical cop killers. Kathy Boudin's role in a botched, fatal 1981 Brinks roberry was huge news. Bernardine Dohrn was imprisoned in 1982 for refusing to testify against fellow Weather Underground members. And Ayers' past was hardly a secret in Chicago, where he was regularly quoted as an ex-radical and ex-fugitive.


http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Ignorance_of_Ayers.html

[msallied]

1. Well he probably didn't know who he was then.

Shit, I didn't know who he was until earlier this year. lol

[treestar]

2. I'm a little older than Obama

and I'd never heard of him. I've heard of the Weather Underground, but couldn't tell you what they did.

Granted Obama is smarter and probably was better informed, but still, not everyone follows every tidbit in the news.

[salbi]

7. I'm the same age as Obama, grew up in Chicago, and I didn't know who he was

I lived in Chicago until the early 90's and I didn't know who Ayers was until recently. I'm the same age as Obama and while I wasn't quite the political junkie I am now, I have always followed the news and don't remember strong Chicago media coverage of him anytime in my adult life.

[soleft]

3. It's also not that uncommon a name - even if he had heard the

name William Ayers. If he seemed like an upstanding citizen, he not necessarily thought he was THAT William Ayers.

[Hope And Change]

4. Isn`t the title misleading?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

5. Whether he knew his past or not, did he endorse it by merely being in the same room?

Or speaking to him? Everyone at the University of Chicago where Ayers teaches, all the students and professors who might find themselves on the same campus at the same time, in the same hallways, libraries or cafeterias at the same time endorse Ayers as well? Ayers' students are terrorists?

Was each member of Congress a virulent segregationist just because they shared the same room and hallways as the likes of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms who promoted segregation in their pasts?

[Retrograde]

9. if you use desperation logic, yes

Just by being in Chicago at the same time is an endorsement, doncha know?

I'm a decade older than Obama, and I remember the Weather Underground (formerly the Weathermen, until they decided that name was sexist). However, if you asked me to name any members the best I could come up with -before the media started plastering Ayers' name all over the place - would be Bernadette What's-her-name, and I may have confused her with an Irish radical of that era.

[Captain Hilts]

6. That is completely believable. nt

[johnaries]

8. Hell, I'm older than Obama and the only Weather Underground

I knew about was this one: http://www.wunderground.com/