Bill Burton is the latest Obama spokesperson to take on the RNC’s official network, Fox News, and their neverending infomercial for McCain repeating “Bill Ayers” and ACORN every half hour on the half hour.
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Damnit…I forgot to take my calendar out and write dwon when I met my friends! I better start rigth now!!!
Did she say they have 30% democrats and 30% republicans that watch their show? That says something about her character – that she’s a liar.
Crazy.
Another Obama surrogate who presumably if he’s telling the truth could put the whole Ayers thing to rest who won’t answer a simple question.
Unllaw- He knows when they met, there’s just no good answer to that that won’t reveal Obama to be a liar or the most clueless man in Chicago about Ayers.
David- If there weren’t a fair amount of Democrats and independents who watched Fox, no Democrat or Democrat surrogate would show up on the show, even ones like Burton who know ahead of time what he’s going to be asked and has rehearsed how he’s going to deflect it.
What’s revealing is this behavior of abject deflection is praised here.
He did put it to rest, Dennis. You’re just too dense to notice.
Bill Ayers is a college professor. He works with the faculty and administration of the University of Illinois, city officials in Chicago, the state government of Illinois, and members of foundations and charities. Ayers has contact with people of various political backgrounds, including some conservative Republicans.
You might hate what he did in the past. Today, he’s a citizen. If you’re going to insist that it’s wrong for Mr. Obama to associate with Mr. Ayers, will you also condemn the thousands of other people who work with him?
Dennis,
Unllaw- He knows when they met
Seriously, you can recall the exact date on which you first met every person you’ve had multiple possibilities to encounter? I’m guessing you’re either in a town like Wasilla or you’re one of those internet commenters who doesn’t go outside much. Most people who live in big cities and college towns with transient populations — New York, Chicago, Cambridge — meet a huge number of folks in passing in their lives.
For example, before she went to grad school my friend Jen took me to dinner with her to the apartment of her friends Rob and Sarah. Like Jen, Rob and Sarah went to college with me, but since it was a big public university, I can’t remember if Sarah was the person who came on a drive to Baltimore with Jen and me when I was mostly asleep, or if that was a different friend of Jen’s. Maybe Sarah was on a camping trip Jen organized, where I mostly was talking to my then-SO and ignoring the other people, maybe that wasn’t her at all. I think Rob wrote for the college alt-weekly but I don’t remember having met him directly, although then again he also might have been at a Daily Show taping where I realized, when the pre-taping comedian warmed up the crowd, that a bunch of folks from alma mater were present. But I didn’t talk to him there either. I also might have met Sarah at our college reunion since I remember being at Jen’s table for that, and Sarah could have been there too. For sure, I met Rob when I went to his house and drank his wine and ate his pizza and brought dessert to cover my share, but I can’t be certain if I met him or his wife before that. We were around some of the same places around the same times.
This is how normal people live.
Dennis, when I tuned in to FNC after the debate the other night, their poll showed that 82% of viewers thought McCain had won.
C’mon.
Do you really believe the breakdown of their viewers is 30/30/40? You make it sounds like you believe that.
Do these talking heads know that the McCain campaign doesn’t really believe this is newsworthy? If they did, they wouldn’t have waited until October 8 to “release” it. It’s a desperate act. It’s a political move, nothing more.
Of course, I didn’t need to write any of that – you already knew.
Quaker-
If any of those people were this close to being the next President of the United States, I would want to know more about their involvement with this despicable human being. If you are being honest about your description of Obama and Ayers simply being two people whose paths may have just coincidentally crossed, then you are deluding yourself. My guess is you are simply choosing to ignore the daily information coming out that reinforces the reality that that is not at all the case.
PF-
Normal people do not plot to blow up buildings and kill people. Normal people, if they had done so, would repent for those actions, not announce that they wish they had done more of it. Maybe in your normal world people pose for pictures by stomping on the US flag, but in my normal world they don’t. Normal people in my world don’t have much to do with people like that. Normal people who have no problem with that, or choose to be mentored by people like that, should not become President, in my view.
If McCain himself thought it newsworthy, he would raise the issue himself. But since his courage is largely an act, he will let others do it for him. Just as he depends on his wife for his jet-set lifestyle, depends on other POWs to be quiet about how he earned the name “Songbird” from his Vietnamese guards, and is depending on Palin to deliver enough evangelicals on Election Day.
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. Does that make every recipient of the Nobel prize a terrorist?
Normal people, if they had done so, would repent for those actions, not announce that they wish they had done more of it.
You continue to ignore what he meant by that. By saying he wished he had done more, he meant he wished he had done more to stop the war, not wished he had done more bombing.
Seriously, how old were you in 1968?
Bush has spent the last eight years stomping on the American flag in a much broader sense. Face up to that.
You continue to ignore what he meant by that. By saying he wished he had done more, he meant he wished he had done more to stop the war, not wished he had done more bombing.
Duros
Seriously, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt on that because I’m inclined to believe that if he really felt that way, he’d be stupid to declare it. But if you would take the time to go to Larry Johnson’s website, and I’m guessing you think it traitorous to do so since the OWner of this blog calls him a douchebag, you’d easily find out that Ayers’ words and deeds since that interview don’t point to anything other than his wishing they had done more destructive and harmful things, and that he’s hardly afraid to sound unrepentant.
I honestly don’t understand why you choose to give him that benefit of the doubt. And I humbly apologize, but your dynamite analogy doesn’t deserve a response.
Ayers is a noted education reformer in Chicago. One could scarcely work in the State Legislature, much less the Senate, (repping Illinois) and not know him. Senator Dick Durbin and Mayor Daley know Ayers too- I don’t hear anyone pining for their respective recalls.
But they’re “white”.
They’re also not running for President, Bijan. If John Kerry or Al Gore or Bill Clinton had been as involved with Bill AYers as it’s looking like Obama is, you can be sure people would want to know more. And if John McCain or George Bush had too, not only would we want to know, but you can be damn sure you and the entire left-wing blogosphere, not to mention the entire MSM, would be all over it in a way that would make what’s going on now look like child’s play.
“Normal people do not plot to blow up buildings and kill people. Normal people, if they had done so, would repent for those actions, not announce that they wish they had done more of it. “
While others get speaking gigs on FOX News.
But if you would take the time to go to Larry Johnson’s website
Can’t imagine why I would call a racist who pushed the phony whitey tape and who keeps fanning the flames about made-up rumors about Obama not being born in America something less than a credible source.
“Bill Clinton had been as involved with Bill AYers as it’s looking like Obama is, you can be sure people would want to know more.”
Bill Clinton stopped his campaign long enough in 1992 to go back to Arkansas and oversee the execution of a mentally disable man to win points with the law and order crowd. That is considerably worse than Obama and Rezko sitting a few chairs from each other,
“If you’re going to insist that it’s wrong for Mr. Obama to associate with Mr. Ayers”
He can associate with whom ever he wants. It’s the cover-up and lies that matter.
But if you would take the time to go to Larry Johnson’s website,
Yeah, no. Fuck that. He made shit up before, why should I believe him now.
George W. Bush’s family has ties to Osama bin Forgotten. George W. Bush’s grandfather gave money to the Nazis.
Why aren’t you concerned about that?
They’re also not running for President,
Neither is Bill Fucking Ayers!
Do you have your own gravity field, or what?
It’s the cover-up and lies that matter.
Riiiiigggghhhhtt.
Two words.
Valerie Plame.
And I humbly apologize, but your dynamite analogy doesn’t deserve a response.
Why not? It’s all about associations, right?
Dennis,
Nice switching of the topic. I addressed your claim, that Obama must know the exact date on which he first met Ayers, by pointing out that many of us would have difficulty remembering the exact date on which we met someone who is in the outer reaches of our social spheres. I said that for normal people who encounter a lot of folks, recalling the exact date each acquaintance was met would be difficult.
You decide that since you’ve lost the argument about how likely voters are to believe that Obama’s first sight of Ayers is burned into his memory (i.e., the “cover up” argument or what might be considered the procedural aspect of the claim), you’ll instead go after the substantive aspect, which is that Ayers is unfit for normal people’s acquaintance. This too is beset with difficulties, as noted by Quaker, because Ayers, Dohrn and several other members of the Weathermen have gone on to become competent in non-terrorist fields and have been benefited by several people along the way.
For example, you’d have to deny the decency of anyone on the Bank Street College admissions committee (who allowed Ayers to get an MA), Columbia Education school (where he got his PhD), the white shoe law firm Sidley & Austin (which employed Dohrn even though she was ineligible for the NY bar due to character & fitness), the Northwestern law faculty hiring committee (which hired Dohrn as a clinical professor)…
In other words, there’s some confusion about why it was 100% OK for every single one of these institutions to not only interact with Ayers and Dohrn, but actually to advance them and help them far beyond anything Obama ever has done. You say that it’s of particular concern with Obama because he is running for president, but that doesn’t quell the issue of whether you genuinely believe such an association is immoral. After all, we might take more interest in the infidelities of a president than of Joe Six-Pack, but Joe is just as morally culpable as the president. Moral culpability is the same regardless of one’s position in life.
You do understand how things that are real differ from things you made up, right?
“Valerie Plame.”
Valerie Plame was a liar too. So what.
Nice try. You know damn well what I mean. You’re all concerned about cover-ups now, but when a CIA asset’s id was revealed (which, BTW is, in fact a treasonous act), you could care less.
I said that for normal people who encounter a lot of folks, recalling the exact date each acquaintance was met would be difficult.
I also doubt that they were introduced as “Mr. Obama, I’d like you to meet former Weatherman and mad bomber William Ayers. Please make a note of it.”
You say that it’s of particular concern with Obama because he is running for president, but that doesn’t quell the issue of whether you genuinely believe such an association is immoral.
Shorter Dennis: Um, because shut up, that’s why!
“Valerie Plame was a liar too. So what.”
See this?
That’s Valerie Plame giving sworn testimony before members of Congress. Therefore if Plame is “a liar”, she is also a perjurer- commiting a crime by giving false testimony.
Many a low-tooth-per-capita thinker and “citizen journalist” loudly proclaim that Plame “lied” during her testimony. If so, Plame would have been fined, put behind bars or both. Neither of which has ever happened.
Would’nt be easier for to say you just hate liberals and that you’re willing to sacrifice what little is left of your dignity on the altar of stupid?
Dennis wrote:
“…They’re also not running for President, Bijan…”
No they’re not, but they ran for U.S. Senate, and mayor of America’s third largest city, respectively, despite the fact they both pal around with Ayers. Wasn’t a concern.
But then, Obama’s “mixed”, and those two are “white”.
Bijan-
You can stop with the racist charges now. With this stock market it won’t be needed even if you believed them to be true, which I doubt because it’s a ridiculous accusation. I don’t remember such hue and cry when Hillary raised the issue, and there have been several people following Obama’s involvement for well over a year and they didn’t receive the racist tag. I suspect the racism defense for Obama for any criticism will keep the LW blogs and Keith Olbermann in business once Obama is elected though.
I didn’t vote for Daley or Durbin, and I will say that I think it is poor judgment on their part to pal around with this guy, just as it was with Obama. If it’s not poor judgement, he shouldn’t have to hide his involvement or not be more forthcoming. He and his surrogates should answer every question fully and completely. They are not doing that.
Also, I’m getting really sick of the meme that Ayers and Dohrn never have expressed regret about people’s getting hurt in the course of their destructive activities. I agree that they are wholly unrepentant about having tried to disrupt government activities that they felt contributed to immorality and injustice, but they are capable of recognizing (to a much greater degree than, say, Rush Limbaugh with regard to the Abu Ghraib prisoners) the basic humanity of people who got hurt.
See, e.g., this interview of Richard Elrod, a Chicago lawyer who was crippled during the Days of Rage riot.
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/December-2006/Sudden-Impact/index.php
Thus it was that in 2001, just before the September 11th attacks, Elrod accepted an invitation to dinner with two of the onetime leaders of Weatherman — Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. At a restaurant in downtown Chicago, Elrod and his wife listened as the two former radicals, now long married, with a family of their own, apologized for the heartache and suffering Elrod endured as a result of that day. The pair made it clear that they did not believe Flanagan caused Elrod’s injuries, and that they were not disavowing their militant beliefs. Still, “they were remorseful,” Elrod says. “They said, ‘We’re sorry that things turned out this way.’” (Calls and e-mails seeking comment from Dohrn and Ayers were not returned.)
Some of those people are in government in the city of Chicago or the state of Illinois. And they know Mr. Ayers and have worked with him. Are they also “consorting with an unrepentant terrorist”? Why is Mr. Obama the only person who concerns you?
The “daily information coming out” that they aren’t two people whose paths have coincidentally crossed? You’re slipping into black helicopter territory now, D. Seek help.
My guess is you are simply choosing to ignore the daily information coming out that reinforces the reality that that is not at all the case.
Dennis, daily repetition of the same information over and over for weeks and months on end definitely reinforces one’s perception of “reality.” That’s the whole point of repeating the same thing over and over and over to someone. You know, sort of like what happens in cults.
Conservatism is the biggest cult in America right now. Quaker advises you to get some help. I think you are in serious need of deprogramming.
The whole Bill Ayers angle isn’t going to work, you know. The Rethuglican party has spent the last 7 years saying that all terrorists are Arabic. Their clammoring about a white “terrorist” is just going to confuse the undecided voters.