The Handiwork of Obama's Terrorist Associate Bill Ayers

If you're not an Obamaniac who's firmly buried your head in the sand to keep from hearing any truth about Barack Obama's domestic terrorist associate Bill Ayers, you might be interested in Joseph Morrison Skelly's piece at the National Review today.

Though liberals would rather the American people just ignore this whole issue as a "distraction," it is rather an issue of paramount importance to the election. It is a matter of judgment, discernment, and moral strength--qualities which are essential to national leadership and, when lacking, usually have disastrous consequences for a nation.

Skelly examines some background about Ayers' organization, the Weather Underground. His chief source is a book called Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity by Dan Berger. It should be noted that Berger and his book do not indicate disapproval of Ayers or his actions.

Among some of the interesting details shared by Skelly and Berger:

Bill Ayers, for example, was a founding member of the Weather Underground, which split off from the radical Students for a Democratic Society in June, 1969. He was one of the signatories of the organization’s first manifesto, which asserted that “the main struggle going on in the world today is between U.S. imperialism and the national liberation struggles against it.” Taking its call for “a white fighting force” quite literally, the group’s leaders launched a spasm of violence, including street fighting, riots, beatings, pipe bombs, and attacks on the police, all culminating in the infamous Days of Rage in Chicago in October. They tried to organize a new version of the Brown Shirts, in other words.

Some of Ayers' more notable "community work":

In February 1970 the Weather Underground firebombed the home of John Murtagh, a New York City judge, with his entire family barely escaping the conflagration. On March 6 a massive nail bomb intended to kill and maim soldiers at Fort Dix, NJ prematurely detonated in a townhouse in Greenwich Village, killing three members, Ted Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins, while two others, Katy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson, managed to elude capture.

Still more of Ayers' efforts to make America a better place:

On May 10 the National Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C. became a target, and in October a “Fall Offensive” commenced with attacks against the Long Island City Courthouse in Queens, NY and the Marin County Hall of Justice in California. There was no let up in the following years. On February 28, 1971 the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, DC was hit; in May, 1972 the Pentagon was bombed, causing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage; and in May 1973 the 103RD Precinct of New York’s Finest was targeted. There were dozens of other attacks against federal offices, state corrections facilities, and corporate headquarters.

Ayers' woman, Bernardine Dohrn, is no better:

A few years earlier, after being elected one of the national leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society, she proudly described herself as a “revolutionary communist.” During the Days of Rage she was apprehended and “charged with battery, mob action and resisting arrest.” She was a fugitive on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for more than a decade.

Skelly's piece points out that Obama's obfuscation that he didn't know about Ayers' radical crimes, that Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," is hogwash.

While Obama was just a kid when Ayers was blasting his way across the American political landscape, Obama was 19 years old when Ayers and his babe came out of hiding and hit the national headlines in 1980. And Obama was 20 when Ayers' Weathermen comrades murdered two cops and a Brinks security guard in Nyack, New York in 1981; Obama was in college less than 40 miles away when it happened.

When Obama began to work with Ayers in the mid-1990s, he had to have known about Ayers' terrorist past--and apparently didn't care. At least not enough to motivate him to respond as most reasonable people with a moral compass would have: walk away from this guy and have nothing to do with him.

A man--like Obama--who would work on the boards of organizations with someone like Ayers, who would serve on panels and projects with someone like Ayers, who would go to the home of someone like Ayers and let him help you launch your political career...a man who would associate with a despicable terrorist like Ayers lacks serious judgment about who he associates with, and gravely questionable commitment to America's well being.

Skelly hits the nail on the head:

A person with a sound moral compass would have never developed a relationship with the two former terrorists in the first place, but would have immediately distanced himself from them. A person with a strong moral foundation, never mind a candidate for president of the United States, would have never sought to ingratiate himself with the likes of Ayers and Dohrn, a man and woman who have committed evil acts, who have admitted as such, and who have never repented for their transgressions.

Skelly's piece is four web pages long, but it is worth the read. In fact, it should be required reading for every voter.

However, there is a significant number of Americans who unfortunately will refuse to remove their heads from the sand of self-centeredness long enough to absorb these implications.

You don't have to be one of that number.