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Originally Posted by vermicious knid
"Anti-Vietnam war activist" is a very nice way of describing William Ayers. And it's not so benign as Obama just living next door to him. Obama had his "coming out" party, so to speak, at William Ayers' house. It was the event in the nineties where Obama was personally ushered into the world of Chicago politics. They served on the same board together for five years, and it wasn't by happenstance. They had a significant relationship. Obama acts like they weren't close, but they had a close enough personal relationship for Obama to read and endorse a book written by Ayers.
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Well said and very accurate. Personally, I think there is not much of a story there because all they really did contact wise (in a repeated manner) was serve on that board together, which is not dispositive of a personal relationship that qualifies as "pallin around." In fact, that mostly tangential relationship is commonplace in that world.
True, Obama praised Ayers' book "A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court." But, that book hardly is a terroristic act. Ayers taught offenders in Chicago's juvenile court system. The book is a "searing and timely account of the juvenile court system" (
www.nytimes.com) -- In the book, Ayers compares the U.S. to South African apartheid and dismisses the notion the U.S. is a just nation while questioning whether America should maintain a prison system. That book, while clearly radical, is bascially calling for a better penal system for juvenilles in America. Again, hardly terroristic. Here is a link to some reviwes of the book, which I suggest people actually read before making a judgement on it
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/pro...283155&s=books
As for McCain throwing stones, he had better be careful. McCain was let off of the hook with a slap on the wrist because of his manipulation of the media and his selling out of his co-conspirators in the Keating investigation in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The facts of that situation condensed were that McCain and the other four Senators had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings, which Keating headed, stole millions from, ran into the ground via fraud, and cost thousands their money. McCain eventually was cleared of having acted improperly. Instead, he was criticized for having exercised "poor judgment." In sum, McCain met with Keating many times and tried to help Keating out by stalling an investigation into the S&L, all allegedly solely because Keating was merely a constituent who employed many people. Despite and in direct contrast to that hollow excuse:
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McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981,[11] and McCain was the closest socially to Keating of the five senators.[31] Like DeConcini, McCain considered Keating a constituent as he lived in Arizona.[25] Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.[32] In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln.[7][33]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
That, along with McCain's repeated meeting with Keating, proves that McCain was in bed with Keating and that Keating was not merely an important constituent as alleged by McCain
Here are some articles on the Keating Five:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/electi...-chapter7.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/1..._n_130612.html
http://mccainkeatingfive.com/ (clearly biased, but full of accurate quotes, etc.)
In the end, McCain's actions during the Keating Five scandal, even if just poor judgement (which McCain admits) - will ring far louder and relevant in today's failing banking system than Obama's clearly tangential relationship with a man who did a bad thing when Obama was thousands of miles away and only eight years old.
In any event, read the facts of both and judge for yourself who exercised the larger incident of poor judgement and whose poor judgement had the worst effect. Obama's poor judgement (and clearly it was) in tangential associations affected no one adversely in that the charity supposedly has helped thousands. McCain, on the other hand, had a significant part in bilking thousands out of their money.
Finally and on edit, I think the far more important point is that Palin implies Obama consorts with Muslim terrorists, a situation she wants to create to fuel peoples' suspicions that Obama is a Muslim, which is untrue . Plain does not and cannot set out the facts as I did and let people judge for themselves. If she did, people would see her innuendo is patently incorrect. But, Palin's ticket quickly is losing any chance of election. So, they now need to lie by innuendo to save themselves. So, in a move straight from the Rove playbook, they falsely attack character instead of discussing the issues because they apparently cannot win on the issues. Again, if character comes into play, McCain will be called out on the carpet for the Keating scandal (in which has admitted doing something wrong and was all but censured for it) in a time when McCain already is seen as a big friend to helping corporate CEO's at the expense of the common man in a falied R economy. McCain also has apologized for using poor judgement in refusing the MLK holiday and for acknowledging that flying the confederate flag (which he ackowledged people viewed as a heritage thing) over the NC state capital. If Palin wants this debate, so be it.
Food for thought.