To Die For

He was least in sight when Barack Obama was running for president, now unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers is everywhere. Obviously he feels vindicated by the election of his buddy, Barack. The Daily Herald:

Revered as a revolutionary or reviled as a radical, Bill Ayers is a polarizing figure.

And that's why he's speaking to Naperville North High School students April 8.

"I think the issue is when we have the opportunity to bring real-life people from various periods of history, we're causing kids to think and face controversial issues and take their own position on it, and provide students with an opportunity most school districts around the country would die for," Naperville Unit District 203 Superintendent Alan Leis said.

The school makes bizarre comparisons:

Wierenga said the school is treating Ayers' visit like any other kind of "living history" curriculum.

In the past, the school has hosted Holocaust survivors and war veterans to speak to students about experiences they would only otherwise simply read about.

But those speakers were admirable figures--it's clear those who invited him believe Ayers to be as well. But perhaps these "educators" should listen to another living radical relic, one who shared Ayers' views at the time, but after the deaths of his fellow Weathermen, including Ayers' girlfriend, when their bomb-building blew up in their faces, had a change of heart. Ronald Radosh reviews radical Mark Rudd's new memoir, Underground:

Their attempts at guerrilla warfare ended with the 1970 New York City town house bombing, which Rudd and Ayers and Dohrn all approved. Rudd is honest about its intent, emphasizing how the bomb they built was meant to kill hundreds of GIs and their dates at a Fort Dix dance. It was, he now knows, a "fantasy of revolutionary urban-guerrilla warfare," done on their own, without police agents provoking them. He and his associates, he ruefully reflects, killed a broad and powerful movement opposed to the Vietnam War, all in the name of a fanciful goal.

Being truthful about his own madness and the crazy path he and his comrades took, Rudd does not go along with what he calls the convenient cleansing of their history carried out by Ayers, who after the town house bomb exploded, still favored "the overall strategy of clandestine armed struggle."

Hundreds of GIs and their dates at a dance--you know, kind of like a high school prom. Perhaps Naperville North should invite Rudd to debate Ayers, or better yet, John Murtagh, whose family home was fire-bombed by Bill Ayers when he was nine years old because his father was a judge.

Is there anything at all admirable about this person? Would you "die for" Bill Ayers and what he represents? Answer me that Supt. Leis. And would Bill Ayers die for you? Unlike those he wanted to blow up at Ft. Dix. I think not.

HT Illinois Review.