Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stoked debate over a ’60s radical’s ties to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, saying Obama’s defense “borders on the outrageous.”
William Ayers — a former member of the Weather Underground, which embraced bombing in its effort to end the Vietnam War — became an issue in the Democratic nominating race at last week’s debate. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said Obama’s past meetings with Ayers are part of a “larger set of concerns about how we are going to run against John McCain.”
Asked by George Stephanopoulos if he has any doubt that Obama shares his sense of patriotism, McCain brought the subject up.
“I'm sure he's very patriotic. But his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question,” McCain said.
“He became friends with him and spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his activities as a member of a terrorist organization, the Weathermen,” McCain said. “Does he condemn them? Would he condemn someone who that says they're unrepentant and wished that they had bombed more?”
David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, says in the forthcoming issue of Newsweek that the campaign is planning to expand its research and rapid-response team in part of counteract charges about Ayers. "He's not going to sit there and sing 'Kumbaya' as the missiles are raining in," Axelrod told the magazine. "I don't think people should mistake civility for a willingness to deal with the challenges to come."
As a defense, Obama said during the debate: “The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions. Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those either.”
McCain seized on that, calling Coburn a “great humanitarian” and “in my view, one of greatest spokespersons for the rights of the unborn.”
“To compare him with Dr. Coburn, who spends so much of his life bringing babies into this world, that in my view is really — borders on outrageous,” McCain said.
Stop and think about it for a moment - if one of your neighbors turned out to be an unrepentent domestic terrorist who wishes he had bombed more (and by extension killed more), would you be willing to have a relationship with him, even if his actions occurred 40 years ago? Not a chance.
The Obama campaign thinks they can avoid "swiftboating" of the type that sunk John Kerry, but they forget one important thing - the information the Swift Boat Vets brought forward was never disproven by Kerry or his campaign, and that's why the charges stuck. The Obama campaign will not be able to disprove his relationships with radicals, either, and thus their rapid response team will be hamstrung and stuck with stammering, ineffective answers to the tough questions.
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