Dear Clinton Campaign Let's Do Talk About William Ayers

As another diary pointed out, the Clinton campaign is going "nuclear" or at least negative on Barack Obama for taking money from a former member of the Weather Underground

The donation, all of $200 was from William Ayers.  An admitted former member of the Weather Underground

But who is William Ayers now?

William Ayers now teaches juvenile offenders in the Chicago Juvenile court system.  From a review of his book A Kind and Just Parent:

William Ayers brings a reporter's eye and an activist's heart to this well-written and profoundly disturbing book, A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court. Ayers, who teaches offenders in Chicago's juvenile court system, is a brilliant storyteller, the damning fly on the wall. His book portrays the lives of his students--both within the juvenile temporary detention center and on the "outside." Ayers puts their stories into historical context; argues passionately about the roles of media, poverty, and neglect; refutes the idea of teenager as "superpredator"; and challenges parents--all of us--to ask the question, "Is this good enough for my child?" when determining the standard to use when we think of justice for kids.

From Ayers Biography at his website

William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and founder of both the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society, teaches courses in interpretive and qualitative research, urban school change, and teaching and the modern predicament.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Bank Street College of Education, and Teachers College, Columbia University, Ayers has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the political and cultural contexts of schooling, and the meaning-making and ethical purposes of students and families and teachers.  His articles have appeared in many journals including the Harvard Educational Review, the Journal of Teacher Education, ...  He lives in Hyde Park, Chicago with his partner, Bernardine Dohrn, and his father.  

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but what exactly is WRONG with taking money from one of the preeminent scholars in the field of education?

Okay, he has a checkered past.  But don't we all have a past, Hillary?  I mean you WERE a College Republican.

Don't we all have a past, Mark Penn?  I mean, you WERE (or are) a union buster and worked to help Union Carbide after their negligence lead to the deaths of thousands of people in Bopal, India.
Don't we all have a past, Mark Penn?

People sailing a sinking ship made of glass probably ought not throw stones at someone like Bill Ayers.  If they do, it makes the conciliatory gestures seem, well, like they're Xeroxed.

•  tips for William Ayers

  by gossamer on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:10:18 PM PDT

  •  Nah

    Brilliant scholar. Pissant political thinker. If he hasn't figured out that the all-or-nothing BS of the '60s was a mistake by now, then it reflects how broken he is, IMO.

    by maxomai on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:52:25 PM PDT

    •  Actually

      I kind of like his notion of national service -- that it should be something everyone has to do and that they should have to do it every ten years or so for life.  So the president of Union Carbide, every ten years, has to take off and perform some term of national service.

      And I certainly don't think he hews to an "all or nothing BS of the 60s"  whatever that is. He wouldn't have contributed to Obama if he did.

      by kaleidescope on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:04:23 PM PDT

    •  from another book of his

      Ayers discusses his reservations about the use of violence to achieve an end to violence (reservations he held then as well), but he is unrepentant in believing that America was the aggressor against North Vietnam and that right-minded people have an obligation to resist unjust wars.

      I always get the imrpression from Ayers that he has outgrown the all-or-nothing stuff but believes it was right to stand up against an unjust war.  

      I know some people who weren't even alive in the 60s who think the same way.

      by gossamer on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:04:46 PM PDT

      •  A lot of us stood up against an unjust war

        ...the Weather Underground wanted to expand it.

        When the peace movement said "Bring the troops home!" they said "Bring the war home!"  

        We said "No more Vietnams!" they said
        "Two, three, many Vietnams!"

        Apparently the educator has at least learned to change his practice.

        A little remorse would be even better.  

        That said, tarring Obama with the past crimes of some of his supporters is despicable and preposterous.  

        by Albanius on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:56:36 PM PDT

•  Well it'd be

  nice if Obama offered a defense of him instead of letting his campaign retaliate with redbaiting of its own, but maybe I'm expecting too much.

  by david mizner on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:10:48 PM PDT

  •  I wouldn't call Obama's response "red-baiting"...

    it was simply pointing out the hypocrisy of Clinton's criticism.  I don't know too many socialists/marxists who don't criticize the Weather Underground's tactics, and who don't think that a lot of what passed for activism in the 1960s and 1970s was misguided and counterproductive, to say the least.

    Also, Obama did not distance himself from Ayers.

    by seabrook on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:15:40 PM PDT

    •  If someone launches

      a disgusting guilt-by-association-with-a-radical-leftist attack at you, the decent response is not to launch one back.

      Pointing out hypocrisy? So if Clinton launched at attack on, say, Obama's kinky sexual habits, Obama could justifiably do the same to Clinton in the name of pointing out hypocrisy? No, sorry, red baiting is wrong even if it's done in defense. There's nothing "new politics" about Obama's response.

      by david mizner on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:24:10 PM PDT

      •  I see that

        but to me this is quite like the plagiarism kerfluffle. It's just silly.

        I don't thing the Obama campaign is suggesting that the Clinton pardons of the former Weatherground members was wrong, just that it's a double standard, and a silly criticism to be leveling. Obviously, Bill Clinton didn't think it was wrong to pardon these people; how can it be wrong to accept $200 from one?

        I feel sorry for Ayers and hope that he doesn't suffer any repercussions from having his past dredged up by Senator Clinton's campaign in their last gasp efforts to find something, anything, to attack Obama with.

        by elmo on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:46:07 PM PDT

      •  Is the Obama campaign...

        ...even doing that? Because last I checked, they were attacking Clinton from the left, not the right.

        by maxomai on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:47:11 PM PDT

      •  David, let's talk about the response itself.

        I agree with you that red-baiting in defense is not acceptable, in general.  But I didn't read the Obama campaign's response as red-baiting, especially considering that it is a matter of public record that Bill Clinton made the pardons that he did.  They weren't saying that Clinton shouldn't have made those pardons, according to my reading of the response.  They were simply saying that the Ayers criticism is ridiculous considering that he did make those pardons, so if the right is going to use this issue, they will use it against Clinton just as quickly as they will use it against Obama.  

        It is true, Obama's response was trying to push back and undermine Clinton's credibility -- they were playing the "Clinton will say or do anything to get elected or score points" card.  They certainly didn't just take the hit and turn the other cheek.  

        But coming from this socialist, I didn't see the response as red-baiting.    

         

        by seabrook on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:24:02 PM PDT

•  I think this is what Obama means when he says:

  'Let's stop re-fighting the battles of the 60s.'  

  by seabrook on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:12:00 PM PDT

•  What BHO's campaign is

  telling HRC's campaign is that they are going to war armed with a butter knife and BHO's camp is waiting for them with the 7th infantry, if they want to present frontal battle they are not going to like the results.

  If all that roveian crap of attacking your opponent strengths and that only works if your opponent has nothing on you or is not willing to use it.

  by IamTheJudge on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 02:29:56 PM PDT

•  A question of judgment

  If Obama had accepted a campaign contribution from Osama bin Laden, I suspect that most people here would be indignant.  What Hillary has called into question is his judgment in accepting a contribution from a former avowed enemy of the the U.S. government, and a former terrorist who, together with his wife, Dohrn, was part of the Weather Underground.  Real people actually died from the plans they hatched.  Obama is as unapologetic as they were, begging that he is too young to remember that era, only not too young to have consorted with them in their later incarnations as scholar and lawyer.  Millions of Americans were opposed to the war in Vietnam; hundreds of thousands marched to stop it; only this handful were willing to resort to extreme violence directed at their fellow citizens.  "Checkered past," indeed.  Strange how far some people are willing to go to excuse and protect Obama from his own (youthful) follies, but at some point their moral relativism becomes absurd.

  by TheShoveler on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:11:06 PM PDT

  •  If Osama bin Laden

    managed to rehabilitate to the point of teaching youth, being a college professor, and author, and becoming a contributing member of society, then what?

    Or is criminal rehabilitation no longer a liberal value?

    by arielle on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:18:42 PM PDT

  •  Who died, other than members of the group?

    Seriously.  Document this shit.  

    A bomb blew up in Manhattan that killed 3 members of the group, but other than this, no civilians died.  

    The Weather Underground always warned people when they planted bombs, so there was only property damage.

    I'm not defending their actions, I find them counterproductive and misguided.  But this kind of accusation is not fact-based, and plays into the hands of freepers.  

    by seabrook on Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:29:34 PM PDT

    •  Brinks (n/t)

      by TheShoveler on Sat Feb 23, 2008 at 06:05:56 AM PDT

  •  Bin Laden vs. Ayers

    Bin Laden, takes unrepentant personal glory for killing thousands of Americans in multiple unprovoked and unwarned attacks of cowardice.  Shows NO penitence for it and vows to do more and worse.

    Ayers, kills no Americans (THREE of his own group members blew themselves up through their own actions) in forewarned unprovoked attacks of cowardice.  He is to this day penitent and endeavors to do right by the wrongs he committed.

    Ayers has rehabilitated his life in the last 40 years.  But THAT virtue doesn't count when you're a Clinton or Edwards supporter and the donor is one of Obama's.  

    Strange how far some people are willing to go to excuse and protect Obama from his own (youthful) follies, but at some point their moral relativism becomes absurd.

    try again, no one need "excuse and protect Obama," because theres no folly in taking a donation of $200 from a guy like Ayers.

    by gossamer on Sat Feb 23, 2008 at 09:31:57 AM PDT