This is a repost of the original article published February 11, 2008. Please scroll below the story for frequent updates and new article and video links.
Following the February 2, 2008, Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday (UK) article The Black Kennedy: But does anyone know the real Barack Obama? by Peter Hitchens, two RezkoWatchers commented on the possibility that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) had received a campaign contribution from William Ayers, a member of The Weathermen, a terrorist group from the 60s. Hitchens commented:
It [Rezko] suggests very bad judgment, as do strong, persistent suggestions that Obama also accepted quite small contributions from extreme Left-wing veterans of the terrorist Weather Underground now living in Chicago.
His list of contributions shows one for $200 from a certain William Ayers. Can this possibly be the same William Ayers, now a Chicago professor, who used to plant bombs in the Seventies and has said: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough"? His partner, Bernardine Dohrn, once "declared war" on the US government.
Encounters
Dr. William Ayers, the former leader of a 1960s-era political terrorist group called The Weather Underground, is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC). His wife, Bernardine Dohrn, is with the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University Law School. Obama is a former Senior Lecturer in the University of Chicago Law School. Wondering whether the three may have crossed paths is not speculation. It is a fact that they have. Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama have appeared together at a number of gatherings and academic events.
- In November 1997, Ayers and Obama participated in a panel at the University of Chicago entitled Should a child ever be called a "super predator?" to debate "the merits of the juvenile justice system".
- In April 2002, Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama, then an Illinois State Senator, participated together at a conference entitled "Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?" sponsored by The Center for Public Intellectuals and the University of Illinois-Chicago. Ayers and Obama were two of the six members of the "Intellectuals in Times of Crisis" panel.
- Ayers, "who in the 1960s was a member of the terrorist group Weatherman and a wanted fugitive for over a decade as a result of the group's bombing campaign," is currently the Board Chairman of the Woods Fund of Chicago and Obama is a former Board member.
Alice Palmer was a popular and effective legislator, and would have retained her seat had Obama not challenged her nominating petitions. Most accounts of what took place claim that Palmer lost a special election for an open congressional seat and then changed her mind about running for reelection to the state senate. The fact is the special election was held December 12, 1995 and Alice Palmer had already announced to the Illinois Public Action Convention that she would run for reelection for her senate seat. The fact is the Hyde Parkers whom Obama was courting at the time would've remained loyal to Palmer and many told him as much at the home of Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers in late November of 1995.
Another event occurred in February 2005 that included Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama, a fairwell dinner for Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founder Rashid Khalidi (emphasis added):
Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia professor whose recent book argues that Yasser Arafat was right to reject the best peace deal he had ever been offered, opening the way to four years of bloodshed, presented a tendentious argument for a one-state solution that strained to stay within the bounds of reasoned discourse.
--snip--
Khalidi's wife, Mona, who also served in Beirut as chief editor of the English section of the WAFA press agency, was hired as dean of foreign students at Columbia's SIPA, working under Dean Anderson. In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the Arab American Action Network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada, and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. (There were also testimonials from then-state Senator Barack Obama and the mayor of Chicago.)
John Batchelor on William Ayers, February 27, 2008, Fox News Channel
Sean Hannity interviews Karl Rove on Bill Ayers, April 9, 2008
Obama's terrorist friends: the Weather Underground (from NObama08)
Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove on Obama, April 17, 2008
Hannity & Colmes on Bill Ayers
Update #1: The $200 campaign contribution cited by Hitchens is listed with the Illinois State Board of Elections campaign disclosure details for "Friends of Barack Obama" (D-2 Semiannual Report 1/1/2001 to 6/30/2001). $200 was reported for April 2, 2001. However, Ayers' name does not appear on any other Obama PAC reports—Obama for Illinois, Obama for Congress 2000, Obama 2010, or Obama for America—filed with the Federal Election Commission.
This September 24, 2007, research paper provides more information on Obama's relationship with Khalidi. This March 8, 2007, article in The Jewish Week provides more details.
Update #2: "Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman, said Ayers 'does not have a role on the campaign.' Ayers said he had no comment on his relationship with Obama," Timothy J. Burger reported February 15, 2008, for Bloomberg News.
Update #3: Former intelligence officer Larry Johnson commented February 15, 2008:
At a minimun this reminds us that there is a pattern of bad judgment by Obama. He goes in on a land deal with Tony Rezko even though he knows Rezko is a target of a Federal investigation. And his explanation? A mistake in judgment. Now this. Anyone thinking of running for President should know they cannot take money from a terrorist and they cannot serve on a board with a terrorist. Period. But this simple lesson apparently escapes the brilliant constitutional law professor.
This much we do know. Obama does not deny having a relationship with William Ayers. Obama has never repudiated the terrorism of William Ayers. If you think this is a record Obama can run on in the fall and survive you are living in an alternate universe. It is time to get some clear answers to tough questions before the Democrats sell their soul to someone whose lapses in judgment will come back to haunt them in the fall.
Update #4:: Fleaflicker, Bring the War Home: The Ayers Tapes, No Quarter, April 18, 2008.
Update #5: Thomas Lifson at American Thinker pointed out an oddity April 18, 2008, on his blog:
Obama spoke about his relationship with Bill Ayers in the ABC News debate Wednesday night, I was struck by this usage [emphasis added]:"This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis."
"On a regular basis" means keeping to a schedule. Weekly meetings to exchange ideas, or maybe a semi-annual retreat to compare notes. But it leaves plenty of room for the occasional phone call, a luncheon now and then, or maybe even a get together with other Hyde Park radicals every once in a awhile.
It does not rule out exchanging ideas. Which is quite interesting, isn't it? Obama could have chosen much stronger language to distance himself from the unrepentant terror bomber, but he didn't.
Update #6: Also see RezkoWatch articles about Allison S. Davis and his connection with Obama and the Woods Fund of Chicago.
Update #7: Transcript: Obama Frustrated Over Focus of Democratic Debate, Lou Dobbs/CNN, April 17, 2008.
Update #8: FBI Freedom of Information: Weather Underground Organization (Weatherman) (420 pages in six parts): "In 1976, the FBI's Chicago Field Office prepared a summary which described the activities of the Weather Underground Organization, also known as Weathermen. This organization described itself as a revolutionary organization of communist men and women. The FBI's analysis of its motivations, beliefs, and international travels are outlined in this summary."
Update #9: RezkoWatch's role in the Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)-Bill Ayers story recognized by Big Media. See Joanna Weiss, How Obama and the radical became news. Story highlights the path from blog to mainstream, Boston Globe, April 18, 2008; picked up by the International Herald Tribune.
When Obama became a presidential contender, it was conservatives who picked up on the story. On Feb. 2, the conservative British writer Peter Hitchens mentioned Ayers in a piece titled "The Black Kennedy: but does anyone know the real Barack Obama?" in the London Daily Mail. A week later, a mention of Ayers appeared in an anti-Obama blog known as Rezko Watch.
Soon, the story turned up in the mainstream American press: in the Bloomberg news service, a Washington Post blog, and the New York Sun.
Update #10: Katy of the Caracas Chronicles blog wrote April 17, 2008:
How many people separate Barack Obama from Hugo Chávez? Yesterday's debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton gives us the answer: two!
Barack Obama ... sat on the board of the non-profit Woods Fund of Chicago with '60s radical and University of Illinois professor Bill Ayers, a friend of the Bolivarian Revolution and father of...
Chesa Boudin, a Rhodes scholar, one of the founders of chavista think-tank and PSF echo chamber Centro Internacional Miranda, who has an office in Miraflores Palace and is a key advisor of... Hugo Chávez, autocrat extraordinaire.
In fact, if Ayers himself has a personal relationship with Hugo Chávez, then that's one degree of separation.
More on Chesa Boudin here and here.
Also see The Ayers-Dohrn resource list.
