Letters to the Editor
Picko
Published Letters: 265 Editor's Choice: 11
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Reality Counts
[Read the article: Looking past Pennsylvania]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Killing Weathermen is not horrific enough for you?"
Again, your response here seems a little dishonest. Of course, it's a shame when anyone dies, but the Weathermen who died, died by an accident which they brought about themselves. It's not like someone shot them in the back. They were handling dangerous materials that ended up backfiring on them.
This is what you wrote:
"Secondly, William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn are unrepentent domestic terrorists who not only attempted to set bombs but actually did and people were killed."
Now, this sentence is clearly constructed to imply that the people who died in the bombings were innocents targeted by the Weathermen, rather than Weathermen who died in a mishap.
It would have been fine if you had said that they had had plans to bomb Fort Dix with the intention of inflicting mass casualties but the plot failed because they blew themselves up, but you seemed to be implying that innocents had actually died as a result of their bombings, which is simply not true.
As for the Brinks robbery, this happened in 1981, long after Ayers and his wife had left the organization. Again, it seems like you've collapsed the chronology to hype the gravity of the Ayers connection.
"prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance = technicalities. There was no question about their guilt. I never understand why when the cops and lawyers screw up, instead of punishing them, the public is punished by letting obvious criminals off."
I wasn't arguing that they weren't guilty of the crimes. My point was rather that you were trying to magnify the outrage in order to hype the Ayers association. It seems suspicious to me when people blame judicial outcomes they disagree with on "our ultra-liberal criminal justice system."
"Obama makes it sound as if the relationship consists of having run into each other at the DMV. In fact, Obama's political career was launched in a 1995 meeting at Ayers's home. Obama's own campaign says that they maintain "friendly" relations."
Here's how the Huffington Post describes the events you're referring to:
"In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn...
"Now, as Obama runs for president, what two guests recall as an unremarkable gathering on the road to a minor elected office stands as a symbol of how swiftly he has risen from a man in the Hyde Park left to one closing in fast on the Democratic nomination for president.
“I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,” said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. “[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor.”
"Obama and Palmer “were both there,” he said...
"Neither Ayers nor the Obama campaign would describe the relationship between the two men. Dr. Young described Obama and Ayers as “friends,” but there’s no evidence their relationship is more than the casual friendship of two men who occupy overlapping Chicago political circles and who served together on the board of a Chicago foundation..."
Ok, now back to your comments:
"Would you maintain friendly relations with an unrepentant terrorist? Would you even shake his hand? To ask why Obama does is perfectly legitimate and perfectly relevant to understanding what manner of man he is. "
But my point is that American presidents shake hands with unrepentant terrorists all the time. Arafat was the leader of a terrorist organization and Clinton invited him to the White House. Ariel Sharon was a terrorist - he belonged to Haganah, a group that conducted bombings against the British before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. And I'm pretty sure neither Arafat nor Sharon were repentant about their terrorist pasts. I'm sure you're going to think this is just sophistry, but unless you're suggesting some deeper ideological affinity between Obama and The Weather Underground, I think the difference is more in scale than in kind.
"Now you can answer my questions."
"Is bombing buildings in the US not terrorism if nobody is killed?"
Yes, of course it is. But there's a difference between destroying buildings and killing people. You seem to be trying to blur that distinction in order to push a political agenda.
"Is killing members of your own organization not killing?"
They didn't kill their own members. Members of their organization died in a mishap. Big difference.
"Is planning to murder US troops and failing not terrorism?"
Well, it's conspiracy to commit murder, which is a slightly different crime from committing murder.
"Are these people that you would choose to be friends with?"
I don't know. I've never met the man. If I were moving around in Chicago political circles and the guy was a local activist who had been largely rehabilitated within the community, I could see myself dealing amicably with him. I wouldn't resign from the board of an anti-poverty group just to make a grand statement about crimes that took place thirty or more years ago.
I'm not arguing that Bill Ayers is a great guy whom I admire. But I think there are a lot of people who are making a much bigger deal about this than it deserves, out of political self-interest. It seems like a clear attempt at guilt-by-association. Just because there are many aspects of Bill Ayers which are indefensible, people are pretending that anyone who didn't cross the street every time they saw Bill Ayers is some sort of terrorist sympathizer. In order to defend Obama, you end having to defend Bill Ayers, which is not a winning proposition. It's a neat little trick.
Listen, if you want Bill Ayers to be your Willie Horton, go ahead. Have fun.