THERE WAS NO LINK BETWEEN AYERS' REMARKS AND 9/11.
This was the question: MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, if you get the nomination, you'll have to -- (applause) -- (inaudible).
I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."
This what happened
This what really happend http://rawstory.com/...
While that statement is true, it does propose a relationship between Ayers' comments and the Sept. 11 attacks that simply does not exist. The juxtaposition of bombings decades apart perhaps led some viewers to conclude Ayers was referring to the 9/11 attacks when he was quoted by the New York Times saying "'I don't regret setting bombs ... I feel we didn't do enough."
Stephanopolous repeated the quote, which appeared in the Times the morning before the attacks in his question, and Clinton ran with the connection in her answer. Ayers interview was published in the Arts section of that morning's newspaper, meaning the interview happened well before the attacks took place.
Clinton took what one contemporary editorial referred to as the "gross coincidence" that Ayers comments appeared on the same day as the attacks and used it for a political attack.
On his own blog, Ayers reprinted a letter he wrote to the Times after the attacks saying their article was misleading. In it he described his book
as a "condemnation of terrorism, of the indiscriminate
murder of human beings, whether driven by fanaticism or official
policy."
Regarding the attacks, Ayers wrote:
All that we witnessed September 11—the awful carnage and pain, the heroism of ordinary people—may drive us mad with grief and anger, or it may open us to hope in new ways. Perhaps precisely because we have suffered we can embrace the suffering of others and gather the necessary wisdom to resist the impulse to lash out randomly. The lessons of the anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s may be more urgent now than ever.
STEPHENOPOUS and GIBSON SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR THE DELIBERATE MIS CHARACTERIZATION!!! THERE IS NO LINK BETWEEN AYERS' REMARKS AND 9/11!
Link to Ayers' article which appeared on 9/11/2001 on the NEW YORK TIMES. . http://query.nytimes.com/...
No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: September 11, 2001
''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings. And he still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure in the radical student movement.
Now he has written a book, ''Fugitive Days'' (Beacon Press, September). Mr. Ayers, who is 56, calls it a memoir, somewhat coyly perhaps, since he also says some of it is fiction. He writes that he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. But Mr. Ayers also seems to want to have it both ways, taking responsibility for daring acts in his youth, then deflecting it.