Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain (FRANK RICH, 10/04/08, NY Times)
[T]he G.O.P. is now the party of whiners. That rebranding became official when Republican House leaders moaned that a routine partisan speech by Nancy Pelosi had turned their members against the bailout bill. As the stock market fell nearly 778 points, Barney Frank taunted his G.O.P. peers with pitch-perfect mockery: “Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country!”Talk about the world coming full circle. This is the same Democrat who had been slurred as “Barney Fag” in the mid-1990s by Dick Armey, a House leader of the government-bashing Gingrich revolution that helped lower us into this debacle. Now Frank was ridiculing the House G.O.P. as a bunch of sulking teenage girls. His wisecrack stung — and stuck.
Palin is an antidote to the whiny Republican image that Frank nailed. Alaska’s self-styled embodiment of Joe Sixpack is not a sulker, but a pistol-packing fighter. That’s why she draws the crowds and (as she puts it) “energy” that otherwise elude the angry McCain. But she is still the candidate for vice president, not president. Americans do not vote for vice president.
So how can a desperate G.O.P. save itself? As McCain continues to fade into incoherence and irrelevance, the last hope is that he’ll come up with some new game-changing stunt to match his initial pick of Palin or his ill-fated campaign “suspension.” Until Thursday night, more than a few Republicans were fantasizing that his final Hail Mary pass would be to ditch Palin so she can “spend more time” with her ever-growing family. But the debate reminded Republicans once again that it’s Palin, not McCain, who is their last hope for victory.
You have to wonder how long it will be before they plead with him to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.
IS JOE HIDIN' FACIAL WORK? (TODD VENEZIA, October 4, 2008, NY Post)
Has Joe Biden had some work done?A top Manhattan plastic surgeon thinks so, after comparing some shots from Thursday night's debate with earlier photos of the Delaware senator.
"Yes, absolutely, and I would bet my next paycheck on this assessment," said Dr. Oleh Slupchynskyj, of the Aesthetic Institute.
(2) If these poor folks are gong to be filmed in this manner they ought to be forgiven for having work done. The picture is too revealing.
Palin says Obama 'palling around' with terrorists (JIM KUHNHENN, 10/04/08, AP)
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is accusing Democrat Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" for his association with a former 1960s radical.
Red Sox and Francona: A Match Made in Fenway (JACK CURRY, 10/04/08, NY Times)
Terry Francona counted the tickets, then counted them again. Francona, the manager of the Red Sox, expected four tickets for the American League division series opener against the Angels, but was surprised when the team gave him eight. So Francona scrambled to find friends who could use the extra tickets.Before Francona distributed the tickets, he studied them closer. Then he gulped. He actually had four tickets for Games 1 and four for Game 2, not eight for each game. He moved quickly to solve the self-imposed problem by sheepishly asking a club official if he could buy four more tickets.
“Where was my head on that?” Francona said.
As trivial as the story is, it gives an insight into Francona. That Francona even shared the details indicates that he is self-deprecating. That he purchased tickets instead of telling the friends he made a mistake shows that he believes in doing the right thing. That he responded swiftly to eliminate any confusion indicates that he likes keeping things simple. [...]
While the Red Sox have acted shrewdly in supplementing their established players with a batch of talented, homegrown players, someone still has to align the pieces. Someone still has to manage the $133 million team. That someone is Francona, a skilled communicator who may be the most underrated manager in the major leagues.
“He definitely handles everything about Boston great,” second baseman Dustin Pedroia said. “The best I could compare it to is Joe Torre and how he handled New York.” [...]
Wakefield said Francona was deft at handling 25 different personalities, which he described as a manager’s hardest job. It is harder when one of those personalities is Manny Ramírez. Publicly, Francona always said the Red Sox would deal with a few Manny moments to get Manny’s production. Privately, Francona knew that Ramírez’s antics could be a drag. Still, until Ramírez was traded to the Dodgers last July, they somehow co-existed on successful teams.
Catcher Jason Varitek, the Red Sox’ captain, described Francona’s rules, which could fit on the back of a postage stamp.
“Play hard, play the game right,” Varitek said. “And, if you can’t follow that, you got some issues.”
Francona mixed pitcher Justin Masterson into important spots during the season and is now using him in those situations in the playoffs. Even if Julio Lugo returned from a calf injury this season, Francona was prepared to keep Jed Lowrie, a steady rookie, at shortstop. Pedroia hit .172 in the first month of 2007, but Francona’s support never wavered. Now Pedroia is a leading candidate to win the Most Valuable Player award.
Third baseman Mike Lowell called Francona’s willingness to trust and rely on young players an asset, but noted that it was an organizational strength, too.
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Sweden's credit crunch lessons (Nigel Cassidy, 4/09/08, BBC News)
[P]olicymakers are studying how Sweden managed to rescue four of its biggest banks when its own credit boom turned to bust in the early 1990s.House prices had slumped, the currency was out of control, and unemployment and bankruptcies were rising rapidly.
If the Riksbank had failed to act rapidly and chosen not to inject capital into its major banks, the entire financial system of the country might well have collapsed.
At a cost of some $11bn (£5.5bn), Sweden guaranteed repayment of depositors and creditors at all of its stricken banks.
But the state aid was skilfully targeted, so none of the cash went to the bank's shareholders.
Indeed, most of the money was regained by the Swedish government as the national economy recovered. [...]
Against the clock, Sweden had managed to do what the Federal Reserve and other central banks are still grappling with.
It worked closely and transparently with lenders to get all the bad news out quickly, rather than allow institutions to keep announcing new write-offs over time.
Sweden had recognised that bank assets could only be resold or returned to the private sector once all the bad loans were disentangled from the good.
Mr Heikensten is at pains to stress that although Sweden's situation was very grave for the country, the central bank's task was more clear-cut than the current crisis facing his opposite numbers in world financial centres today.
But he and other central bankers, past and present, have already been meeting in the United States.
"I'm sure they are learning from all available experience," he says.
The Swedish government still spends more money than any other government in the world, relative to gross domestic product (GDP). But changes are afoot. Finance Minister Anders Borg recently produced a comprehensive plan, "Reconstructing the Swedish Model: Challenges and Priorities" that illustrates the new administration's sincerity for reform.To Sweden's credit, some of its economic reforms have already surpassed the United States. Its social security is partially privatized, the inheritance tax is eliminated, and most people no longer pay any primary residential property tax.
"Social security, and the combined three levels of income taxes can still reach as high as 85 percent," says Swedish attorney and entrepreneur, Ulf Sandstrom.
The Heritage Foundation's Freedom Index gives Sweden surprisingly high marks because of its overall political and societal stability. Outside investors have largely agreed with the perception that Sweden is a safe, long-term bet.
Foreign capital is digging in. Many Swedish industries have merged and/or been bought with foreign capital. Volvo, Ericsson, Saab, ABB and Telia (the former State telecom) are no longer entirely Swedish-owned. On May 25, the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. agreed to buy the Swedish stock exchange OMX for $3.7 billion to form NASDAQ OMX Group.
Despite direct investments, more than 80 percent of new jobs come from small businesses, not the traditional corporations.
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Japan Credit Perspectives: Responding to Financial Crises: Lessons to Learn from Japan’s Experience (Koyo Ozeki, August 2008, PIMCO)
Japan’s financial crisis persisted for nearly 14 years, from the burst of the economic bubble in 1991 until around 2004, but throughout that timeline there were transitions in the state of the markets and the nature of the crisis. Broadly speaking, we can divide the progression into four phases (Chart 1).*
Phase 1 (1991–94): The real estate bubble collapsed, triggering an economic shock. The government responded typically with economic stimulus packages, such as public works projects.*
Phase 2 (1995–96): Signs of instability appeared in the financial system. Even as banks failed due to financial difficulties, the government failed to come up with a comprehensive policy package that would address financial system issues.*
Phase 3 (1997–99): The bankruptcy of major banks triggered a financial emergency. Through establishment of new laws and budgetary measures, the government nationalized failed banks and injected taxpayer money into large financial institutions. Even so, it was unable to resolve the situation.*
Phase 4 (2000–04): The system again reached a crisis point due to the massive volume of excess debt held by corporations. The Financial Revitalization Program (“Takenaka Plan”) promoted the disposal of non-performing loans, and the government supplied public funds to tottering Resona Bank. These measures finally helped bring the crisis to an end. [...]Q: Why did it take so long to resolve the crisis?
A: It took nearly 14 years from the burst of the Japanese bubble economy in 1991 until the financial crisis finally came to an end. There are several reasons for this unusually long timeframe.
*
Hopes for a turnaround in property prices: From the collapse of the bubble economy until the mid-1990s, most people assumed that real estate prices would eventually turn upward again. Policy makers were also focused on encouraging an economic and market recovery through fiscal stimulus measures such as public works projects.*
Existence of colossal latent stock profits: At the start of the 1990s, Japanese banks had stock portfolios with unrealized profits amounting to nearly twice their net worth. This acted as a buffer for loss write-offs, encouraging a complacent stance that they could hold out until the real estate market made its comeback. The plunge in the stock prices in 2000 severely eroded these latent profits, and appraisal losses began to have a negative impact on profits. Banks and financial authorities gradually came to recognize the risks regarding the shares in their portfolios, and proceeded to trim their holdings.*
Massive scale of the problem: Japan’s cumulative bad debt totaled an estimated 25–30% of GDP, while the value actually written off by financial institutions amounted to nearly 100 trillion yen (US$910 billion) or 20% of GDP. The large banks alone accounted for 75 trillion yen (US$680 billion) of this total (Chart 10). This exceeds the combined value of their net worth of 20 trillion yen (US$180 billion) and 14 years worth of net operating profits at 50 trillion yen (US$450 billion). They realized profits from their share holdings to supplement the portion that could not be covered by net operating profits. Though this conclusion is made in hindsight, it is clear that banks simply did not have the financial strength to dispose of these vast losses in a short period, and they had no choice but to take their time to write off debt using their annual earnings and unrealized profits. [...]Q: Is rapid disposal really the key to early resolution of problem?
A: In responding to a crisis, authorities must 1) rapidly analyze the nature of the problem, 2) evaluate its scale, and 3) devise necessary measures. It is difficult to identify the precise causal relationship between financial system measures and a bottoming out in asset prices, but one lesson that can be learned from Japan’s financial crisis is that the delay in recognizing the problem during Phases 1 and 2 (1991–96) made the subsequent fallout even worse, and an underestimation of the situation’s severity and the authorities’ trial-and-error approach in Phase 3 (1997–99) caused the delay in settling the problem. [...]
Differences between U.S. Subprime Crisis and Japan’s Crisis
Both the subprime loan turmoil in the U.S. and the financial crisis in Japan resulted from a bubble created by the presence of surplus liquidity. However, there are several differences.*
Complex structure of U.S. bubble: Whereas Japan’s bad debt problem stemmed from commercial real estate and excess corporate debt, the U.S. subprime problem involves a more complicated mixture of bubbles related to the housing market, financial institution business models and financial products for investors.
*
Speed of valuations: Japan’s bad debt was mostly bank lending, and valuations took some time as regulators conducted asset inspections. In contrast, the subprime loan problem involved securitized products, so market valuations were completed relatively quickly. The valuation of housing loans by commercial banks in the U.S. could take longer than securitized products, though, so we should keep a close eye on future developments.
*
Creditor nation vs. debtor nation: Japan is a creditor nation and does not rely on overseas financing, so its bad debt situation was an internal problem. The U.S. is a debtor nation, which complicates the matter. Also, U.S. housing loans and other securitized products are widely held by overseas investors, so the risk can easily spread to global markets. This will naturally impact how the government responds to the problem.
*
Scale of the problem: Japan’s bad debt problem on a cumulative basis amounted to a whopping 25–30% of the nation’s GDP (Chart 14), whereas the subprime problem is an estimated 5–10% of U.S. GDP. The difference in scale will likely affect the cost and speed of resolving the situation.
Can They Catch Up?: Of course. (William Kristol, 10/13/2008, Weekly Standard)
The odds are against John McCain and Sarah Palin winning this election. It's not easy to make up a 6-point deficit in the last four weeks. But it can be done.Look at history. The Gore-Lieberman ticket gained about 6 points in the final two weeks of the 2000 campaign. Ford-Dole came back more than 20 points in less than two months in the fall of 1976. Both tickets were from the party holding the White House, and both were running against inexperienced, and arguably risky, opponents.
What's more, this year's race has already--twice--moved by more than 6 points over a span of only a few weeks. The race went from McCain up 2 (these are the Real Clear Politics averages) on September 14 to Obama plus 6 on October 2, less than three weeks later. In the four weeks before that, the race had moved from Obama plus 5 on August 12 to McCain plus 2 on September 12.
So while there's reason for McCain-Palin supporters to worry, there's no reason to despair. [...]
Character is a legitimate issue. Obama hasn't shown much in the way of leadership or political courage, and he's consorted with dubious figures. It's fair to ask whether Barack Obama is personally trustworthy enough to be president, and the McCain campaign shouldn't be intimidated from going there.
But one shouldn't underestimate the ideological issue, and the potency of the fact that Obama and Biden are orthodox liberals. They're for raising taxes, federally funding abortions, naming activist judges, and losing wars.
The Unicorn Rider's inability to put this race away after the fortnight the House GOP just put Maverick through speaks volumes about how nervous he makes the electorate.
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Palin Reignites The Culture War : Her Everywoman act plays well, and the GOP may try again to target Obama as elitist. (Eleanor Clift, 10/03/08, Newsweek)
Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, speaking from the progressive side, said the culture war always matters, but that it may not be decisive, with economic issues making it harder for Republicans to get traction on lampooning Obama as an elitist, in the way they turned John Kerry into a windsurfing Frenchman. Gitlin described the presidential election as a "quadrennial plebiscite of who we are," with Americans casting their vote for the candidate that best embodies who we are as a nation.Nobody wants to be an elitist. In politics, it's a deadly label. What we saw in Thursday night's debate were two competing strains of populism. Biden, the Irish-Catholic kid from Scranton, represents Main Street populism, the people against the powerful, anti-corporatism, little guy kitchen-table values. Palin is wooing the same working-class constituency that could decide the election in battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania with her pro-gun, family and religious down-to-earth values.
Even though McCain comes from a military aristocracy and married an heiress and Obama's family was on food stamps for a time, Republicans can still make the elitist label stick on Obama, says Yuval Levin with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, speaking from the perspective of the right. "Economic populism almost never triumphs," he said. "It's easier to resent intellectual arrogance than economic success." Obama walked into it with his comments about small-town Americans clinging to their guns and religion along with his comment that he was "embarrassed" that Americans didn't speak more languages.
Obama almost lost the primaries when Hillary Clinton discovered his elitism and turned herself into a beer-chugging Rosie the Riveter. The cultural arsenal is about all McCain has left against Obama, and Levin predicted the last weeks of the campaign could look like the last months of the primaries with McCain highlighting Obama's elitism. It's about character and presentation, Levin continued, and while Obama's mother may have been on food stamps, it was while she was a graduate student studying for a degree in anthropology. Gitlin came back hard, saying we should be embarrassed that we don't know more languages....
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Behind the Bluster, Russia Is Collapsing (Murray Feshbach, October 5, 2008, Washington Post)
Predictions that Russia will again become powerful, rich and influential ignore some simply devastating problems at home that block any march to power. [...]According to U.N. figures, the average life expectancy for a Russian man is 59 years -- putting the country at about 166th place in the world longevity sweepstakes, one notch above Gambia. For women, the picture is somewhat rosier: They can expect to live, on average, 73 years, barely beating out the Moldovans. But there are still some 126 countries where they could expect to live longer. And the gap between expected longevity for men and for women -- 14 years -- is the largest in the developed world.
So what's killing the Russians? All the usual suspects -- HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, alcoholism, cancer, cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, suicides, smoking, traffic accidents -- but they occur in alarmingly large numbers, and Moscow has neither the resources nor the will to stem the tide. Consider this:
Three times as many Russians die from heart-related illnesses as do Americans or Europeans, per each 100,000 people.
Tuberculosis deaths in Russia are about triple the World Health Organization's definition of an epidemic, which is based on a new-case rate of 50 cases per 100,000 people.
Average alcohol consumption per capita is double the rate the WHO considers dangerous to one's health.
About 1 million people in Russia have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, according to WHO estimates.
Using mid-year figures, it's estimated that 25 percent more new HIV/AIDS cases will be recorded this year than were logged in 2007.
And none of this is likely to get better any time soon. Peter Piot, the head of UNAIDS, the U.N. agency created in response to the epidemic, told a press conference this summer that he is "very pessimistic about what is going on in Russia and Eastern Europe . . . where there is the least progress." This should be all the more worrisome because young people are most at risk in Russia. In the United States and Western Europe, 70 percent of those with HIV/AIDS are men over age 30; in Russia, 80 percent of this group are aged 15 to 29. And although injected-drug users represent about 65 percent of Russia's cases, the country has officially rejected methadone as a treatment, even though it would likely reduce the potential for HIV infections that lead to AIDS.
And then there's tuberculosis -- remember tuberculosis? In the United States, with a population of 303 million, 650 people died of the disease in 2007. In Russia, which has a total of 142 million people, an astonishing 24,000 of them died of tuberculosis in 2007. Can it possibly be coincidental that, according to Gennady Onishchenko, the country's chief public health physician, only 9 percent of Russian TB hospitals meet current hygienic standards, 21 percent lack either hot or cold running water, 11 percent lack a sewer system, and 20 percent have a shortage of TB drugs? Hardly.
On the other end of the lifeline, the news isn't much better. Russia's birth rate has been declining for more than a decade, and even a recent increase in births will be limited by the fact that the number of women age 20 to 29 (those responsible for two-thirds of all babies) will drop markedly in the next four or five years to mirror the 50 percent drop in the birth rate in the late 1980s and the 1990s. And, sadly, the health of Russia's newborns is quite poor, with about 70 percent of them experiencing complications at birth.
N.B.: In the United States the poverty level for an individual is $10,590 (GDP per capita: $45,800).
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$10.1-trillion national debt? Let's cut taxes!: Even when trying to save the economy, Congress can't resist its pork addiction. (David Lazarus, October 5, 2008, LA Times)
"The national debt is like a fat guy in a small boat," said Robert E. Wright, an economics professor at New York University and author of "One Nation Under Debt: Hamilton, Jefferson and the History of What We Owe.""The more debt you load on, the closer to the water line you get. Pretty soon, it takes only a small wave to sink you."
Thanks to the bailout bill approved by the House and Senate last week, the nation's borrowing limit has been raised to $11.3 trillion from $10.6 trillion. As of Friday, the national debt stood at $10.1 trillion -- about $33,500 owed by every man, woman and child.
To put some perspective on how out of control our borrowing has become, it took the country about 200 years to run up its first trillion dollars in debt. Then President Reagan took office in 1981 and the national debt started to soar, quadrupling to $4 trillion by the time the first President Bush exited the White House.
Under President Clinton, the national debt grew to $5.7 trillion, and has since nearly doubled on Bush Jr.'s watch.
Put another way, the country's debt load represented just a third of gross domestic product when Reagan arrived in Washington. By the time Bush gallops back to Texas in January, our debt will represent about 70% of the overall economy.
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Why Syria Will Keep Provoking Israel (Robert Baer, Oct. 03, 2008, TIME)
What we tend to ignore is why Syria has had an uninterrupted record of attaching itself to radical causes and countries like Iran. For starters, Syria is ruled by a besieged and insecure minority, the Alawites, a heterodox-Shi'ite ethnic minority. About 12% of Syria's population, the Alawites are looked at by extremist Sunni Muslims as heretics, fallen-away Muslims, usurpers who should be put to the sword. In the late '70s and early '80s, the Sunni extremists came close to getting their way. During a February 1982 Muslim Brotherhood insurrection in Hama, Syria's third largest city, Hafez al-Assad felt compelled to flatten it in order to stay in power.But it wasn't until the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon that Syria finally beat the Muslim Brothers. By joining Iran in the so-called "Islamic resistance" against Israel, Assad associated the Alawites with a cause larger than themselves. It was not unlike the '60s and '70s when Syria backed radical Palestinian groups — and fought Israel head-on in 1967 and 1973. The 18-year war in Lebanon (1982-2000) decisively undercut the Muslim Brothers' charge that the Alawites were apostate traitors and dupes of Israel and the United States. Had the Muslim Brothers continued to kill Alawites, they would have been considered the traitors. There's nothing like a good war to stabilize an unstable regime.
Given a choice, the Alawites would be happy to skirt the 21st century, satisfied with ruling a Third World backwater. But geography won't allow it.
Explosion Kills 7 Russians in South Ossetia (ELLEN BARRY, 10/04/08, NY Times)
A car bomb in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali killed seven Russian peacekeepers and two others on Friday, raising tensions in the separatist enclave days before a scheduled pullback of Russian troops from Georgian territory.President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia said he had “no doubt” that Georgian special forces were behind the explosion. The acts, he said, “undermine international efforts to stabilize the situation and torpedo the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan.” [...]
“The last terrorist act in South Ossetia proves that Georgia has not abandoned the policy of state terrorism,” Mr. Kokoity told the Interfax news agency.
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Millennium by Tom Holland (Allan Massie, 10/03/08, Daily Telegraph)
The winter of 1076 saw the German king, Henry IV, presumptive Holy Roman Emperor, shivering in the snow outside the Alpine stronghold of Canossa. "Barefoot and clad in wool, he had cast aside all the splendour proper to a king"; as he waited, "tears were streaming down his face."He had come as a penitent to seek absolution from Pope Gregory VII, who had excommunicated him and freed his vassals from their allegiance. Only by prostrating himself at the feet of the pope could he hope to save his throne. It was three days before Gregory relented.
advertisementHistorians call the occasion of their quarrel "the Investiture Contest", a dry term for an issue of great importance. Its outcome would determine the nature of Christendom in the Latin West.
The question was this: who should appoint bishops and invest them with the insignia of office: kings or popes, the temporal or the spiritual power? For Gregory, the most ambitious of medieval popes, the essence of the question was far-reaching, for on the answer depended "the right order of the world".
In Tom Holland's opinion, Gregory's victory - short-lived though it would be - meant that he stood "godfather to the future". This is why Holland begins Millennium, his account of a vast sweep of history, with this scene. [...]
Read it, and be thrilled, amazed and enlightened.
Bailouts Are Inevitable, Even Desirable: Stop complaining about the "moral hazard" problem and enjoy the rescue. (Tim Harford, 10/03/08, Slate)
Moral hazard can sometimes take extreme forms. According to the St. Petersburg Times, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, more than two-thirds of insurance claims for the loss of a limb originated in the Florida Panhandle. At the epicenter, "Nub City"—the tiny town of Vernon, Fla.—almost 10 percent of the adult population had lost a limb. One man was said to be insured by dozens of companies when he lost his foot: Fortunately he had been carrying a tourniquet at the time of the accident. He pocketed $1 million. Another man shot his foot off—"while aiming at a squirrel"—just 12 hours after buying insurance. Now that's careless—and that's moral hazard in spades.Sometimes moral hazard is so severe that it makes insurance impossible. Football players would like to insure against losing football games, and students would like to be compensated if their exams go poorly. Tough luck: Moral hazard makes such insurance contracts absurd. But all these examples exaggerate the problem. So does the archaic use of the word moral. It used to carry no ethical connotation, referring merely to a risk arising from human action rather than natural forces.
Forget the baggage that comes with the word moral. While moral hazard makes insurance more expensive and less efficient, many insurance markets work well enough to be useful. Moral hazard need not destroy them, and it need not destroy financial markets either. If AIG had shot off its own metaphorical foot to claim a government bailout, the argument against the bailout would be compelling. But it didn't, and it isn't.
This perspective can suggest lessons for today's bailouts. The government will not help you replace your possessions if you smoke in bed and your house burns down, but government-funded fire engines will put out the blaze, moral hazard or not. That is partly because fire can spread, and your neighbors should not suffer for your carelessness. The same motive lies behind the current spate of rescues. It is also because a civilized society tries to save people from accidentally burning themselves to death. If the consequence is a little more carelessness, so be it.
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Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths (SCOTT SHANE, 10/04/08, NY Times)
At a tumultuous meeting of anti-Vietnam War militants at the Chicago Coliseum in 1969, Bill Ayers helped found the radical Weathermen, launching a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol.Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. [...]
In the stark presentation of a 30-second advertisement or a television clip, Mr. Obama’s connections with a man who once bombed buildings and who is unapologetic about it may seem puzzling. But in Chicago, Mr. Ayers has largely been rehabilitated.
Federal riot and bombing conspiracy charges against him were dropped in 1974 because of illegal wiretaps and other prosecutorial misconduct, and he was welcomed back after years in hiding by his large and prominent family. His father, Thomas G. Ayers, had served as chief executive of Commonwealth Edison, the local power company.
Since earning a doctorate in education at Columbia in 1987, Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform.
“He’s done a lot of good in this city and nationally,” Mayor Richard M. Daley said in an interview this week, explaining that he has long consulted Mr. Ayers on school issues. Mr. Daley, whose father was Chicago’s mayor during the street violence accompanying the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the so-called Days of Rage the following year, said he saw the bombings of that time in the context of a polarized and turbulent era.
“This is 2008,” Mr. Daley said. “People make mistakes. You judge a person by his whole life.”
That attitude is widely shared in Chicago, but it is not universal. Steve Chapman, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune, defended Mr. Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his longtime pastor, whose black liberation theology and “God damn America” sermon became notorious last spring. But he denounced Mr. Obama for associating with Mr. Ayers, whom he said the University of Illinois should never have hired.
“I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings,” Mr. Chapman said in an interview, speaking not of the law but of political and moral implications.
''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.