Hinz on Obama/Ayers
Nothing new to readers here:
Well, Mr. Obama apparently had a lot of company at work. Among those who served on the boards of the two Chicago charities at the heart of the Ayers-Obama “connection” are the former president of Northwestern University, the head of the city’s most powerful business group, officials from petroleum giant BP Amoco and banking heavyweight UBS, and the ex-publisher of a noted liberal rag, the Chicago Tribune.
Kinda gives it a different spin, no? The story of the Ayers affair isn’t that the radical Vietnam-era protester was embraced by Mr. Obama. The story is that a wide swath of Chicago’s establishment, rightly or wrongly, gave Mr. Ayers a second chance — and that Mr. Obama, not one to challenge Chicago’s power structure, raised no objections.
Sometimes people can act like grownups even:
A bit later, Messrs. Obama and Ayers overlapped again on the board of the Woods Fund, which helps community and arts groups. Among others on the board during Mr. Ayers’ tenure, which continues to this day: BP’s Midwest community affairs director, USB Investment Bank’s public affairs chief and R. Eden Martin, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club.
Mr. Martin knew of Mr. Ayers’ past. “One can simultaneously have one’s own opinion about things that occurred 35 years ago and deal with them on contemporary issues.” He adds, “Ostracism, excommunication is not the way we usually run our lives.”
Sigh:
The only other known joint activity between Hyde Parkers Obama and Ayers came in 1995, when Mr. Obama declared for the state Senate and attended a brunch with about 10 people at Mr. Ayers’ nearby home.
Mr. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist,” Ms. Palin says. But others active in these events, including Dr. Quentin Young and Rabbi A. J. Wolf, say the coffee was one of several held that day and may not have been the first.
On top of all of this, it appears the right wing narrative includes that Obama was somehow paid for his work on the Annenberg Challenge. He was not. He was Chair of the Board that hired the Executive Director. Of course, Ayers wasn’t on the Board–he was on the Collaborative that made recommendations to the Board. The Chicago effort focused on democratic localism which meant each school would have more direct input from parents and the community. It turned out not to work very well and as everyone can see, the CPS has gone the other way. There was nothing radical about it though. It was an effort to experiment with local governance.
October 14th, 2008 at
“On top of all of this, it appears the right wing narrative includes that Obama was somehow paid for his work on the Annenberg Challenge. He was not.”
He used the position and referred to it on TV(now on You Tube) as a qualifier for his State Senate run. Thats more important than a check.
(as reported in great depth by Steve Diamond)
The position and Bill Ayers who put him in it, launched Obama’s political career more than the 2nd most infamous Tea Party did.
When most americans think of people working on education, they think of math, science, english, ect. When education work is in political activism that is radical and misrepresented by using “education” as the sole discription.
If Obama does’nt think it was radical why is he running away from it now that he is on a national stage, while he embraced it in his first run for State office.
October 14th, 2008 at
Small problem–the people directly involved in the Annenberg Challenge directly contradict Steve Diamond. And Diamond has never appeared to have spent any time in Chicago or anywhere, but the coasts, so exactly how is he any sort of source?
More to the point, Ayers wasn’t on the board nor was he any sort of fiscal agent named by the Annenberg Foundation so for anyone who understands how such grants work, it’s simply laughable to claim that he had the ability to make broad programmatic or even personnel decisions.
This entire conspiracy theory belongs with the 9-11 truthers, not in a campaign for President.