Scott at Powerline points out Rusty Humphries' write up of the interview with me apparently takes Ayers' claims at face value. I would agree with Scott's point that Ayers is not to be trusted, which I made abundantly clear in my original post, and reflect on again here. I also read the Radosh piece and posted this yesterday: More. Daily Beast takes Ayers word for it. It "sounds simple enough". Look--Ayers obviously wants this out there. Why? Who else is he talking to? And what more does he have to say? Mmm, mmm, mmm.And it occurs to me, regardless of who really authored Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope is conveniently ambiguous as well, employing composite characters. People portrayed in the book have disputed how they were characterized, including some on the South Side of Chicago, his adopted home:
More. Ron Radosh, Pajamas Media:Who knows? Bill Ayers is, as Paul Berman said in his blog the very first day of The Daily Beast, that Ayers is perhaps “the stupidest man in America.”(It "sounds simple enough", yes, the Daily Beast loves the guy now.) Radosh goes on:He is also one very big liar, as proved by Fugitive Days, a book filled with evasions, omissions and major distortions of the truth. As Leary put it, he is a liar. And those who trust a liar, do so at their own peril.Our President Barack Obama worked with Bill Ayers for years. Years. Bill Ayers was his political godfather.
More. HotAir now Huffpo's favorite blog. But who really got punk'd by Ayers? I'd say it was our President Barack Obama--and Huffpo and their ilk.
As the 24-year-old mentor to public housing residents, Obama says he initiated and led efforts that thrust Altgeld's asbestos problem into the headlines, pushing city officials to call hearings and a reluctant housing authority to start a cleanup.As they say, it's his movie. Barack Obama claims he was trying to be careful so as not to hurt people's feelings--ah, his editor says there's a "larger truth". A little loose with the truth too. So maybe Barack Obama really did write both books. Loose with the truth is his MO. (Meanwhile, a "news" organ fact-checks a comedy skit.)
But others tell the story much differently.
They say Obama did not play the singular role in the asbestos episode that he portrays in the best-selling memoir, "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." Credit for pushing officials to deal with the cancer-causing substance, according to interviews and news accounts from that period, also goes to a well-known, pre-existing group at Altgeld Gardens and to a local newspaper called the Chicago Reporter. Obama does not mention either one in his book.
"Just because someone writes it doesn't make it true," said Hazel Johnson, a longtime Altgeld resident who worked with Obama on the asbestos campaign, and who began pushing for a variety of environmental cleanups years before he arrived.
Maybe that's why he and Bill Ayers were such good friends for so many years.
More. Howard Kurtz, Washington Post has fun, Dreams from a Blogger. He can't imagine a white guy writing the book.
Well, yeah, I wondered why he would tell this to a stranger as well. I would just add, I told Ayers I was from Chicago, so he probably figured I actually did know quite a lot about him. After all, I had the audacity to take his picture and talk to him. And I had just said I was a conservative blogger and would post his pix, and the brief conversation about where he was giving his Renaissance talk--just before he "admitted" he wrote the book. Given his notoriety he had to figure it would go viral, no matter how little or well-known a blogger.
Of course he wanted it to flare up in the righty blogosphere--which is why I was so wary, and laid it out so people could draw their own conclusions. But as we have seen, he also had peddled it a bit earlier to the moderate beltway insider National Journal, so they got similar lines, but no buzz. But of course the media wants to portray it as an issue for the right--that's the only way they pay attention to it--as you, Mr. Kurtz, are doing now. But let me ask you this, Mr. Kurtz-- Why is Bill Ayers bringing this up again? Deliberately. Perhaps you should question that. And our President Barack Obama.
One final note. You may think you can dismiss Ayers' past by suggesting that only Sean Hannity thinks Bill Ayers is an unrepentant domestic terrorist. But Bill Ayers himself has said he is guilty as hell, free as a bird, said he has no regrets--oh, I think it was in the NY Times. On Sept. 11th. Even during the campaign was defiantly unrepentant.
Perhaps that is why he is resurfacing now. Think about that.
Ayers is apparently suffering, perhaps deeply:He made his mark during the anti-war days of rage back in the 60's and 70's.(Post-partum?!) I guess Ayers is on Obama's do not let him near me list.But there's a deeper point: since the Obama victory, many people seem to be suffering a kind of post-partum depression: unable to find any polls to obsess over, we read the tea-leaves and try to penetrate the president-elect's mind. What do his moves portend? What magic or disaster awaits us? With due respect, this is a matter of looking entirely in the wrong direction.
Obama is not a monarch -- Arne Duncan is not education czar -- and we are not his subjects.
Now Ayers has dragged Michelle into the whole book controversy. He's upped the ante.
Oh, and there is no statute of limitations on murder.
More. My friend from the Wilmette blog vouches for me personally. Many thanks.
More. Thanks Skye. And beautiful, beautiful photos.
More. On tonight, after the first break:
Tonight’s show “Politically Correct” with Hosts John and John on www.toginet.com 6:00 pm central time
More. Michael Bates, BatesLine.
9 comments:
It just occurred to me that Bill Ayers told you the unvarnished truth. Why you? Because he wants the truth to be known. He also knows that if he got the editors of the NY Times, Washington Post and Katie Couric all in the same room and told them point blank, his secret would be safe with them.
He knows the old media is in the tank for Obama and the Left. He is tired of being ignored, and he wants the truth to come out. Therefore, he told a conservative blogger. He knows he can trust you.
What do you think about this hypothesis?
Yes. I think you are right.
Hey, I look like such an honest person total strangers come up and ask me for directions on the street:)
This has happened to me for years. In fact, it happened to me more than once in D.C. this last weekend, people thought I lived there.
Seriously, though. Yes.
Kurtz's comments are absurd. A storyteller does not need to have experienced the story to tell it. I worked for years as a therapist, you do not need to have experienced every situation or personal awakening to understand it, in fact it is often better that you have not. His comments strike me as one of a person who can't entertain complexity and dismisses it outright because it doesn't fit his world view.
The question of why Ayers told you what he did is the most fascinating part of this. He evidently said the same to a National Review reporter which suggests he has given a good deal of thought to this response. That he would blurt it to someone he met in a moment in an airport is not at all surprising when you think about that.
Whoever was involved with writing the book holds a great deal of power over Obama. Ayers is certainly intelligent enough to understand that. Were it to be discovered that it was some random ghostwriter would give Obama some problems. If it were Ayers it would topple his presidency like a house of cards. Imagine the campaign ads against him running clips of his repeated denials of Ayers along with the admission Ayers wrote his book. Ayers is toying with that power here. The focus on royalties adds to that. Money is always about power in psychological terms.
I have been thinking about this a lot since I read your original report. You make a great point adding that he throws Michelle in the mix; he is upping the ante. Considering that some like Glen Beck have been able to remove people like Van Jones and pulled the rug from under ACORN, Ayers knows that it is possible for a conservative to make a credible case even with the MSM operating in force to prevent it.
Sorry, I didn't mean to go on here at such length, but his response fascinates me. It is a brilliant paradoxical response. Freud would have had a field day with it.
Great insight, MarySue, thanks.
I appreciate your professional perpective, it is fascinating.
Just to clarify, National Review (Jonah Goldberg posted at The Corner) a National Journal article.
It's a game of Lefty peek-a-boo,
A post-modernist curl-i-que -
He can have his cake and eat it too.
Pretend he did - pretend he didn't,
Poke the blogging troll contingent,
Tweak Obama and tweak Michelle,
Just to make a little Hell
Playing with the cat he's belled.
Credit he so dearly wants it
Ignored for long, now he flaunts it.
Dare you believe or disbelieve, as Chomsky says, it's to deceive.
:-)
I see you made the NY Times' "The Caucus" with your "stalking" of Bill Ayers and your "breathless account" of it-- and a print version too.
Congratulations. When you have the NYT protesting too much, you've obviously done something right.
I think they're jealous because you're doing their job better than they do.
Thank you Yukio.
They sure left themselves open for derision.
Bill wouldn't tell the NYT that he wrote the book, he assumes they know that already!
excellent!:)
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