February 22, 2008
THE COMPANY YOU KEEP:
Obama once visited '60s 'terrorists' (Ben Smith, Feb 22, 2008, Politico)
In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious – and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.
Now, as Obama runs for president, what two guests recall as an unremarkable gathering...
The point being what sort of person you have to be to find it unremarkable. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 22, 2008 8:47 AM
“When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the living room of those two legends-in-their-own-minds, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn,” Warren, wrote on her blog in 2005. “They were launching him--introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread.”
A wonderful endorsement from a couple of unrepentant (former) terrorist bombers.
Posted by: Genecis at February 22, 2008 11:36 AMThis story would be a bit bigger if the missive Ayers published on 9/10/01 had come out a few weeks earlier (or later). Ayers is of the stripe of Mumia! or even the Unabomber - who is the sine qua non of the hard left. Smelly, isolated, delusional, rage-filled. "Must make a statement - must kill in my statement".
And Barack Obama's first reaction isn't even to just slink away from such nonsense (much less confront it), but to try to dialogue with it. Why?
Perhaps (to be generous) because he wants to understand them. Perhaps because he believes they have a point. Either option reveals a grave intellectual defect, even for someone from Harvard Law.
Posted by: jim hamlen at February 23, 2008 9:20 AM