[2 articles] Ayers reflects on Obama in new afterword to memoir
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h1HEjutqu_JaEhRe84DLh4FQOLWQD94EDAQO0 By DEANNA BELLANDI 11/14/08 CHICAGO (AP) Bill Ayers, the Vietnam War-era radical who was a campaign headache for Barack Obama, says in a new afterword to his memoir that the two were neighbors and family friends. Ayers' reflections appear in a new paperback release of his 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the new afterword Thursday. Now an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Ayers helped found the Vietnam-era radical group the Weathermen, which carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol. During this year's presidential campaign, Republican John McCain's camp accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because of his past connections to Ayers. In addition to a meet-the-candidate event Ayers hosted more than a dozen years when Obama was starting his political career, Ayers and Obama served on a Chicago school reform group and a foundation board. Obama has denounced Ayers' violent past and said Ayers was never involved in his White House campaign. In the afterword, Ayers does not elaborate on the description of "family friends." "In 2008 there was a lot of chatter on the blogosphere about my relationship with Barack Obama: we had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fundraiser at my house, where I'd made a small donation to his earliest political campaign," Ayers writes. Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt declined immediate comment on Ayers' new writings. Ayers has declined previous interview requests from The Associated Press and did not respond to an e-mail request for comment Thursday. Ayers lives just a few blocks from Obama on Chicago's South Side with his wife, former fellow radical Bernardine Dohrn. Now a law professor at Northwestern University, Dohrn was a fugitive for years with her husband until they surrendered in 1980. Charges against him were dropped because of government misconduct, which included FBI break-ins, wiretaps and opening of mail. Ayers has downplayed his relationship with Obama. "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," Ayers said in a recent Washington Post interview. Ayers writes that Obama's enemies saw their connections as a chance to "deepen a dishonest narrative about him." "That he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist, a sympathizer with extremism," Ayers writes. Ayers said it was "more than guilt by association," something he called "a deep and ugly tradition in our political life." -------- Bill Ayers: Barack Obama a 'family friend' http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-bill-ayers-barack-obama-book,0,1806710.story Read what Ayers had to say today on 'Good Morning America' By Rex W. Huppke | Tribune reporter November 13, 2008 In a new afterword to his memoir, 1960s radical William Ayers describes himself as a "family friend" of President-elect Barack Obama and writes that the campaign controversy over their relationship was an effort by Obama's political enemies to "deepen a dishonest narrative" about the candidate. Ayers describes phone threats and hate e-mail he received during the campaign, and he bemoans Obama's guilt by association. During the campaign, Ayers' friendship with Obama was a favorite subject of conservative bloggers and talk show hosts who insisted the two were closer than the candidate was admitting. Ayers' new description of the relationship seems to contradict Obama's statements. Obama had dismissed Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" and "somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know." A campaign spokesman told The New York Times last month that Ayers and Obama hadn't spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Obama became a U.S. senator in January 2005. Obama himself denounced the "detestable acts" Ayers engaged in during the Vietnam era. In the updated version of his 2001 book "Fugitive Days," Ayers calls into question one of the more incendiary quotes attributed to him during the campaign: "I'm nowadays often quoted as saying, 'I don't regret setting bombs. I wish we'd set more bombs. I don't think we did enough.' "I never actually said that I 'set bombs,' nor that I wished there were 'more bombs.' ... I killed no one, and I harmed no one, and I didn't regret for a minute resisting the murderous assault on Viet Nam with every ounce of my being." He was particularly disturbed by a newspaper headline published in 2001: "No regrets for a love of explosives." "That's neither my narrative nor my sentiment," Ayers wrote, "but the idea was seized upon by the neocon media machine: I was an unrepentent and violent terrorist." Ayers wrote the new afterword on July 4, "in the heat of the summer presidential campaign, with all its attendant bells and whistles and spin, all the diversion and dissembling that happens every four years when the big election carnival rolls into town." Now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on public school reform, Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical organization that claimed responsibility for a dozen bombings from 1970 to 1974. He'll appear Friday on "Good Morning America" to promote the re-issue of his book this week. The Tribune obtained a copy of the updated material. In it, Ayers -- who did not respond to requests for comment -- summarized his relationship with Obama: "[W]e had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I'd made a small donation to his earliest political campaign." Ayers lamented that his relationship with Obama became an issue. "The more serious point is that Obama was asked once more to defend something that ought to be at the very heart of democracy: the importance of talking to many people in this complicated and wildly diverse society, of listening with the possibility of learning something new, of speaking with the possibility of persuading or influencing others. ... In a robust and sophisticated democracy, political leaders, indeed, all of us, would seek out ways to talk with many people who hold dissenting, even radical, ideas." Obama was criticized by Sen. John McCain throughout the campaign for suggesting that, as president, he would sit down with the leaders of rogue nations like Iran and attempt to have substantive discussions. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
