Palin Accuses Obama of ‘Palling Around with Terrorists’
Earlier today, and before that and before that and so on, I opined that it was my belief that the McCain campaign should go after Barack Obama as hard as it can. He has not been challenged enough by the mainstream media, I argued, and if the McCain campaign would not criticize Obama and expose his weaknesses, no one else would either.
Finally, it seems, the campaign has come to the same conclusion; after weeks of letting Democrats get away with lying, distorting and insulting McCain(’s honor), the campaign finally hit back. The one taking the lead, however, is not McCain himself; it’s his running mate Sarah Palin who does the attacking.
At a fundraiser in Colorado Palin said that “the heels are off.” She then said: “This is not a man who sees America as you see America, and as I see America. Our opponent, though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect — imperfect enough that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. Americans need to know this. … I think, OK we gotta get the word out. This is in fairness to the electorate we gotta start telling people what the other side represents.”
She referred, of course, to Obama’s relation with Bill Ayers, former domestic terrorist and now progressive radical (basically the same guy with the same beliefs, but no bombs involved). The NYT did a hilarious article on this relationship earlier today, but it’s so sad and so pro-Obama that the only ones taking it almost seriously are those already in the tank for him. All those who actually did some thinking of their own on the subject know that the Times articled is biased, and incomplete; voices supportive of Obama are cited, those critical are not. It was a whitewashing project.
But, that does not matter - the Times can go ahead with its partisan hackjobs. In the end they will have to mention the connection whether they want to or not whenever the issue is brought up by either Palin or McCain. If these two refer to the connection whenever they can, whenever the opportunity arrises, newspapers will have to report about it, and investigate the matter seriously.
Although some seem to think differently, I’m actually not anti-Obama. But there are serious problems with him, and those problems should be exposed. They should be talked about, and it should be fair to criticize him for his own behavior, and that of his friends (you choose your friends, lest we forget).
Now, the Ayers connection is one thing, the Republican ticket should now also go after Obama over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and on a variety of other issues.
Will they? I think not - but Palin may prove me wrong (something tells me that if this is going to happen, it will be Palin who does the attacking, not McCain himself; he destroyed Mitt Romney, a member of his own party, but seems unwilling to take on Democrats with the same amount of aggression).
Will Palin set the record straight?
McCain has expended his honor. He doesn’t get to say jack about mean attacks on him. What about Obama’s honor? What about Landstuhl, or being ready to lose the Iraq war to further political ends? McCain? A victim? Typical pathetic right-wing self-victimization. In Sweden we have a saying - "He who starts the game has to endure it."
"Will Palin set the record straight?"
Will she come clean on her compulsive lying, about basically everything from being an anti-pork governor to Obama raising taxes? Will she come out with her medical records? Cause that’s neat. That setting some record straight right up in there if she would do that.
By my standards the rest of the media is partisan all the time for not asking her for a press conference or asking for her medical records.
I dislike the media - not because I think it is pro-left or pro-right (because it isn’t), but because it is fundamentally opportunistic, memetic and idiotic.
About the Ayers connection that Palin so eloquently brought up - could someone point towards an assessment of the whole deal that at least tries to be impartial? AFAIK he was a man who did bad things when Obama was eight years old.
If you have some thoughts on Bill Ayers and his relationship with Obama, why wait for the McCain camp to express them? What do you think? Frankly, it’s a non-issue at this point. It was raised earlier in the campaign. Give Americans some credit. We heard it, we weighed the implications, and we decided it wasn’t an issue in the campaign. Quit beating a dead horse or say what YOU want to say. Here is my read: Ayers did not follow the non-violent approach to protesting the Vietnam war. The judicial system got involved, Ayers was dealt with according to the American system. Whether you like the outcome or not, he’s been vetted and found worthy to participate in the community. In fact, he appears to be an asset. Did eight year old Barack approve, join, or financially support Ayers in his protests? NO, he was a child. Now that he’s an adult, associating with Ayers is not "palling around with terrorists", it’s working to better the community. Remove the mote from your eye first, go and sin no more, know him by his works. Whether you apply it to yourself or to Ayers, the outcome is still the same. Good men doing good works today.
Here’s are the facts as I’ve seen them compiled thus far:
Obama was part of some sort of social gathering at Ayers house in the mid-1990s after meeting him first as part of the Annenberg Challenge.He was on a board (as chairman) with Ayers, though reports of what position Ayers has had on this board seems to be conflicting. Some say it was a full position, but the NYT article (which even Fox News cites, by the way….interesting) says he was just there to brief the members on school issues.Obama read an child juvenile court-related book by Ayers (per the NYT article).The McCain camp got something else that we don’t know? Because if not, continuing down this line of thought lessens my consideration for their ticket. It’s October now, so lets see that surprise, yes? Or will this just be another ‘whitey’ video, leaving us hanging while promising more to come?
Fact, please, not fear mongering. If there’s something, where is it? Release it now, because if it’s seriously that bad, Obama would be destroyed, even a month out.
Palin’s pastor had said some pretty unpleasant things and she has had a run with some pretty anti-semitic people. Yet Obama refrains from ads and the media aren’t making PARTISAAAAN investigations. Probably because a republican’s faith-related associations are untouchable, but the average liberal has to explain to poor little frightened salt-of-the-earth John Q that no, he does not support domestic terrorism the minute a rumor rears its head.
DB, by your estimation then, if Woodward and Burns had chosen not to investigate a little break in at the DNC then we could have said that the American people looked at the facts and decided that they had no relevance as to the ethics and conduct of Richard Nixon. The obvious problem there is that the media determines which facts are important to investigate, not based on any real standard of probable cause but rather their desire to either help or hurt a particular candidate or public official. Sometimes there’s a truly partisan bias involved in that calculus, other times it’s based on how sensationalized the story might be and how much public interest would be piqued.
Have any of you actually read anything from the one journalist who’s attempted to investigate the Ayers/Obama relationship, Stanley Kurtz? If nothing else, the attempts at coverup that he ran into are damning in themselves. I don’t see that there’s any evidence that Obama sympathizes with Weathermen anti-Americanism, but his judgment in associating with Ayers is certainly questionable (somehow I don’t get why the rest of the US is supposed to feel comforted that Ayers has been embraced as mainstream by the ultra-corrupt Chicago political class.)
Michael Merrit- that ‘gathering’ at Ayers’ home wasn’t a neighborhood block party, it was the frikkin launch of Obama’s political career. Please don’t tell me that you think that if a GOP candidate had his first political fundraiser sponsored by David Duke, Timothy McVeigh, or Eric Rudolph that we’d be seeing articles in the NYT describing an association that consisted of ’some sort of social gathering’ or that a candidate in that case would be taken at his word for saying that these were just ‘guys who lived in his neighborhood.’
Again, I’m not trying to claim that Obama has the same animus toward US that Ayers does- just that it’s unthinkable to many people that one would trust someone like that to have the best interest of the citizens at heart, or that one wouldn’t question the judgment of working on a board to develop education initiatives with someone who holds to a radical ideology that even espouses violence.
But beyond all of that, what Kurtz has uncovered so far is an abysmal failure in that education project, and at the end of the day that actually may be why some were so eager to deflect attention from it. After all, this was actually one of the few ‘accomplishments’ of Obama and the Chicago Annenburg Challenge was even deemed a failure by it’s own internal evaluators. After funnelling more than $100 million in taxpayer dollars to ‘external partners’ in the communities, there was NO improvement in education scores.
When asked about what he may have to scale down or change in an Obama presidential administration due to the economic meltdown, Obama specifically said that he would not alter his plans for education. Great! Maybe he’ll do for the whole country what he did for Chicago schools.
Oops, that was supposed to be Burnstein in my first sentence above.
And I meant to include links to the WSJ piece by Kurtz, and I highly recommend also reading the extensive coverage by Steve Diamond (here’s one, but also check out the many links on the sidebar of that page, and his recent articles concerning info that he gave when interviewed for that NYT article) and Tom Maguire
Great. If there are failures in the education projects, why not go that route?
If there’s little evidence to suggest Obama support Ayers’ views, why go down that route? Surely it’s more likely to backfire than not?
There’s so much more to criticize him on. Instead, Obama opponents instead zero in on, "Ooh, look at that. Obama. Racial terrorist Ayers. Add them together and what do you get?"
It is at best a dishonest approach. That McCain’s camp seems to be buying into such a strategy is disheartening to me.
Michael, Stanley Kurtz DID go that route. That is mainly what he focused on, the utter failure of the project they worked on together. But it’s undeniable that the story has these other undertones too, and the fact that the Obama campaign seems desperate to cover up the extent of his involvement with Ayers (and when they first met, for example) doesn’t pass the sniff test. Coverups never do- there’s got to be something more there, even if it’s similar to Rev. Wright where Obama just displayed terrible judgment in forming a close and longstanding relationship with someone who holds dangerous radical views because he felt he could work with that person on a few areas of agreement. Perhaps the Obama campaign doesn’t think there’s room left under the bus, so they’re hoping to keep this from reaching the point where Obama will have to admit to a longstanding political relationship but now denounce it.
I will add though, Michael, that I have no idea why the McCain campaign hasn’t started shouting from the rooftops about the failed education project. Obama seems to want to make that a centerpiece of his proposed changes, and it seems perfectly logical then to ask if the ‘change we can believe in’ for education is going to be more of the same failed attempts to pour money into a corrupt and broken system, enriching political donors along the way.
TALK IS CHEAP … CHECK OBAMA’S RECORD !!! A candidate’s track record, and associations are always a legitimate issue when running for President. Let’s take a look at the qualifications, judgement, and experience of Obama, who is running for President. Obama had 25 years to fulfill the potential he displayed as a rising start at Harvard Law School … and, how did he live up to that potential? … He chose to align himself with anti-American racist, Jeremiah Wright for TWENTY YEARS … along with Ferrahkan, Rezko, Ayers, and others. As a community organizer, he registered thousands of voters in Chicago … then, when he ran for the state legislature, he took away their votes, by disqualifying his opponent (a black woman) on a technicality. As a U.S. Senator, he voted present 160 times … he never called a meeting on the Afghanistan committee he chaired (although he NOW says we must shift all our military from Iraq to Afghanistan). He claimed Foreign Policy experience from a 9 day whirlwind photo op to 6 countries. And, he spent almost half of his tenure neglecting his responsibilities as a U.S. Senator, so he could run for President. Senator McCain served America honorably for 22 years in the military. He proved his love for America, as well as his honor, integrity and character, by refusing early release as a P.O.W., even while being tortured. He served America as a ‘contributing’ U.S. Senator, working across the aisle, for 20 years. If Obama’s Twentyfive year track record shows he lacks judgement, and can’t be trusted, who cares what he says about Health Care and the Economy! What Obama never learned is Character. He simply can’t be trusted … ask Jeremiah Wright, a friend of 20 years, who Obama betrayed for personal ambition … and, you Obama supporters really think he won’t betray you If he gets elected??? If he gets elected, you Obama supporters will be facing a HUGE disillusionment !!!
BREAKING NEWS:PALIN TEAMS CLAIMS DEBATE POINTS HANDICAPP:PALIN Camp now claims 5+ Debate points for the mentally disabled under [11CFR110-- Sec.110.13].Citing:Warning signs of ADHD:1) Failure to listen to instructions:-Couric: I’m just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation. -Palin: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.2) Inability to organize oneself (Incoherent responses)-Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with? -Palin: Well, let’s see…..(you know the rest)3) Leaving projects unfinished (Bridge To Nowhere)4) Trouble paying attention to and responding to details
- Couric what publications she had read to stay informed and to understand the world?
- Palin- “I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media,” Palin replied. Asked for examples, she said, “Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.”
5) Talking too much (blabbering, blathering ) Insert any answer 1 thru 4 here_____________.As respectfully submitted Pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 56, Candidate Sarah Palin respectfully moves for summary judgment in this action. In support of this motion, plaintiff relies upon the accompanying memorandum and the statement of undisputed material facts.Signed,THE REPUBLICANS