William Ayers talks about Obama

(CNN) — Anti-Vietnam War activist William Ayers spoke out for the first time Friday, calling the Republican effort to tie him to President-elect Barack Obama during the election campaign a “dishonest narrative” with the intent of “demonizing” Ayers.

William Ayers spoke to ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday.

Republicans pushed Democrat Obama’s “association” with Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground, which bombed the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol and other targets in the early 1970s.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin repeatedly accused Obama, who met Ayers in 1995 when the former 1960s radical was a professor at the University of Chicago, of “palling around with terrorists.” Sen. John McCain frequently called on Obama to “come clean” about his relationship with the “unrepentant terrorist.”

The Republican red scare

If McCain and Palin want to play the guilt by association game, their own questionable ties must be examined

Comments ()

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/11/election-palin-mccain-obama

Wajahat Ali – THE GUARDIAN

The Republicans “October surprise” predictably unveiled itself last week as a virulent smear campaign of racially-tinged, fear-mongering insinuation. In a desperate attempt to deflect attention from an economic crisis and a faltering campaign, John McCain and Sarah Palin have begun shamelessly using Obama’s “blackness” and alleged “Muslimy-ness” to suggest the biracial senator from Illinois is an extremist terrorist.

During the second, monumentally flaccid presidential debate, a condescending and smarmy McCain pointed to Obama and referred to him as “that one”.

It would have been truly maverick had McCain simply dropped the ambiguous rhetoric, boarded his professed straight talk express and instead called him out as “that quasi Muslim,” “that Hussein” or “that guy whose name rhymes with Osama”.

MUSLIMS, YET AGAIN, UNDER THE OBAMA BUS…

HUFFINGTON POST

Steve Clemons

Wrong…Wrong…Wrong: Obama Lets Muslim Advisor Resign

---

Will anyone notice? Barack Obama’s team just threw its key Muslim advisor under the bus.

Barack Obama needs to make a statement loudly, clearly, and with passion that he embraces Muslims as much as any other Americans of Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or other religious persuasions. It wouldn’t hurt for him to embrace devout secularists like me for that matter.