Obama: Here come the Ayers stories...
Posted: Friday, April 18, 2008 9:11 AM by Mark Murray
Here are the predictable Weather Underground stories. The LA Times: "The evidence linking Obama, who was born in 1961, to the two former militants, now in their 60s, remained thin, despite the appearance of a slickly produced, anonymously issued five-minute video titled ‘Obama's Terrorist Connections’ on YouTube that sought to exploit the alleged tie. Obama and Ayers moved in some of the same political and social circles in the leafy liberal enclave of Hyde Park, where they lived several blocks apart. In the mid-1990s, when Obama was running for the Illinois Senate, Ayers introduced Obama during a political event at his home, according to Obama's aides. Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, later contributed $200 to Obama's state campaign.”
“Obama and Ayers met a dozen times as members of the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a local grant-making foundation, according to the group's president. They appeared together to discuss juvenile justice on a 1997 panel sponsored by the University of Chicago, records show. They appeared again in 2002 at an academic panel co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library."
The Boston Globe also does the Ayers story -- but from the how-it-became-news angle. "The news that Obama held a campaign event at Ayers's home in 1995, and served with Ayers on a Chicago community board, was either damning or innocuous, a worthy disclosure or a sure sign of the decline of political journalism. But the Obama-Ayers story itself is a case study in the ways that news jumps between blogs and traditional media, the lingering power of network news, and the persistence of Internet conspiracy theories. In fact, it was hard yesterday to tell which got more scrutiny: the link between Obama and Ayers, or the link between ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Sean Hannity of Fox News."
The AP does its own fact check of the Weather Underground connections. "Clinton's implication that Ayers made hurtful comments connected with the terrorist attacks is wrong. By coincidence, a story about Ayers and what he called his fictionalized memoirs appeared in The New York Times on the day of the attacks." On Obama's accusations: "Obama correctly sketched out the details of Bill Clinton's acts in the case. However, senior Obama strategist David Axelrod went too far Thursday when he said the two cleared by President Clinton had killed people. They were not convicted of that."
"The Service Employees International Union launched an ad that hits the hot-button issue of record gas prices and highlights Obama's energy proposals and his stand of not accepting campaign cash from federal lobbyists."
Hey, Paul Krugman and David Brooks can now agree on one thing: They both don’t care much for Obama. Krugman’s critical piece today isn’t too surprising. "[L]et’s hope that once Mr. Obama is no longer running against someone named Clinton, he’ll stop denigrating the very good economic record of the only Democratic administration most Americans remember."
Brooks’ criticism is a bit more surprising, given his earlier praise of Obama. But remember that Brooks has always been a BIGGER fan of McCain than Obama. “General election voters are different from primary voters. Among them, Obama is lagging among seniors and men. Instead of winning over white high school-educated voters who are tired of Bush and conventional politics, he does worse than previous nominees. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have estimated a Democrat has to win 45 percent of such voters to take the White House. I’ve asked several of the most skillful Democratic politicians over the past few weeks, and they all think that’s going to be hard.”
“A few months ago, Obama was riding his talents. Clinton has ground him down, and we are now facing an interesting phenomenon. Republicans have long assumed they would lose because of the economy and the sad state of their party. Now, Democrats are deeply worried their nominee will lose in November. Welcome to 2008. Everybody’s miserable."
Like Clinton did, NBC/NJ’s Aswini Anburajan reports, Obama appeared on the Colbert Report last night, filming a taping with the mock conservative talk show host at East Carolina University in Greenville. Colbert quizzed Obama on last night's debate, saying that he had to "take issue" with Obama for calling the questions "manufactured political distractions."
Obama told him, "Well, Stephen I think the American people are tired of these political games and petty distractions.”
To which Colbert replied: "Sir, speaking for the news media, speaking for the news media, we are not tired of it. It allows us to ask the same questions over and over again. It's a lot less work." It was the only funny line of the entire exchange, which proceeded to have Obama repeat a part of his stump speech about why "distractions" didn't help Americans get health care, better jobs, etc.
