OP ED: Putting on Ayers

He was among the chief architects of what was known as the “days of rage.” He organized bomb squads that damaged university buildings, the pentagon and the U.S. Capitol building. His schemes of violence inadvertently blew up three of his amateur bomb-building compatriots -- including his own paramour. He, along with his criminal cohort-cum-wife, Bernadette Dohrn, went on the lam for more than a decade. He narrowly avoided prison due to technicial screw-ups by the feds. She served time.

In short, he was the guy who put the "rage" in those "days of ..."

Today, he is a "respected" professor at the University of Illinois, and his convicted felon wife similarly at Northwestern. He is on the board of civic organizations. He is a national leader in his profession. He has been a valued advisor to the Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. He is a prominent member of the social elite of the city. He is a friend, colleague and informal advisor to president wannabe Barack Obama.

This sounds like a story of conversion -- how a misspent youth was rehabilitated. There is only one problem. Such stories usually converge on a point of repentance – recognition of a wayward past as one embarks on the road of righteousness.

Not so in the case of Bill Ayers.

The one-time leader of the notorious and violent Weather Underground regrets nothing of his past. “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” In challenges to his extremism, Ayers retorts. “We were not extreme enough.”

He was recently elected as Vice President of the American Educational Research Association, where he advances a liberal activist education curriculum for our nation;s K-12 students. He makes no pretense regarding his desire to use the public education system as a means to foment radical action against the American free-enterprise, capitalist system. Like all elite totalitarians, Ayers subverts true civic education for philosophic indoctrination. In one course syllibus he admonishes, "Be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, a teacher teaching for social justice and liberation.” On the surface, who can be against social justice and liberation? However, when you get to the details, these are Ayers' buzz words for radical and even violent civil action. He hopes to build a new generation of Weather Underground recruits.

The fact that Ayers and wife hold jobs (her a convicted felon teaching law) shaping the minds of future generation, and is “highly regarded’ in elite social and political circles, is a testimony to the connections of his wealthy upbringing, the extreme liberal bent of academia and a political correct mentality that relinquishes accountability for the misdeeds and misconduct of anyone left of center -- no matter how far left.

Mayor Daley says Ayers’ personal days of rage were 40 years ago. “That was then. This is now,” he bellows. In rejecting any degree of regret and remorse, and even wishing he had been even more radical and extreme, Ayers merges the then with the now.

Should America be concerned that Obama considers his Chicago neighbor a friend and confidante? Is Hillary Clinton grasping at desperate straws in hanging Ayers around the neck of Obama like a rotting albatross?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Were the friendship the casual cordiality of coincidental neighbors, the concern might be exaggerated. However, Ayers provided more to Obama than over-the-fence conversation. They were close friends over a significant number of years, with the older and wiser Ayers counseling the younger and impressionable Obama. They shared leadership positions in civic enterprises. Ayers donated to Obama political campaign. Ayers hosted events for Obama in his home. Like Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko, Ayers was one of those close enough to influence Obama’s view of the world. Indeed, many of Obama's more extreme views (which have never been fully vetted by the press) parallel the extremism of people like Wright and Ayers.

They say a man is known by his friends. If there is any truth to that, Ayers is only the latest person from Obama’s formative past to bring controversy. Standing alone, any one of these individuals might be excused as the exceptional bad apple. Combined, there is a critical mass of old relationships that raise legitimate questions regarding Obama’s character, philosophy, opinions and, above all, good judgment. How many times can Obama say of a long-standing friend, “I reject what he said, did or stands for, but he is still my friend.”

OBSERVATION: I can't bare it any longer

Someone recently noted that I seem to be locked in on the Obama/Clinton race for the White House. Okay. I will talk about something that has been bothering me for a long time.
I am not sure what it is about the radical left that equates nudity with social conscience. I am talking about striping down to one’s birthday suit to advance a cause. Seems like a lot of them advance thier issues with their tissues.

Certainly the most prolific proponent of genital activism (<-- I think I just coined a new term) is the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). It would appear to me that they view their own au naturale presence as some sort of solidarity to the unclothed fauna of the world. (Except the couple in the below photo, who seem to sieze other advantage). PETA even gets publicity desperate has-been movie stars to pose naked on their way to the taping of their latest age-reducing skin cream informercials.

However, PETA people are not alone in equating nudity with protest – and it is way not a Millennium phenomenon. I recall my 1960s days as a resident of Washington, D.C., when hundreds of thousands or war protesters descended on the Capital City. One of the delights of my youth was to observe bare breasted women walking down the street, and completely nude demonstrators splashing in the public fountains.

Wars seems to have an unusually strong appeal for public strippers. I guess if your slogan is “make love, not war,” you have to always be ready to engage. I assume this because some of those 1960s radicals did engage in intercourse on the concourse – demonstrating that their iconic slogan was not empty rhetoric.

I have the impression that those youthful exhibitionists are the very same people who have barely protested Vietnam and Iraq. I say this because the nude bodies on the front line of anti-war activism today are not the svelte sexy figures I recall from those “days of rage.” They are decidedly more mature (being polite here) and far less worthy of admiration. In fact, it has come to the point that it is almost impossible to read the painted slogans on the sagging and wrinkled skin. (Yes! Yes! For my graphic, I purposely chose svelte over saggy).

Nudes against nukes take the issue beyond any specific war. I am not sure what the symbolism might be. Are we to look forward to a world that is nuclear free, clothes optional? Annihilation and Armageddon are not the only reasons to prance around with bouncing breasts and swinging johnsons. Opposition to everything from oil drilling to the 2004 presidential election seems to result in an ocassional “show” of solidarity.

Once a year, in most cities, the more colorful fringe of the gay community takes “pride” in parading through the streets in various stages of undress (and occasionally offering street a theater versions of gay pornography) in demands for AIDS funding and civil equality (inadvertently proving that all men are definitely NOT created equal). I am never sure if they are exposing themselves to expose us to gay rights, or is it just public orgy?

Nudies have protested animal mistreatment, war, poverty, racism, nuclear proliferation, civil rights and immigration. Maybe that’s how these things happen. You read about the Pope wearing ermine and you are overcome with an obsessive desire to strip off you clothing in public in defense of the poor animal that gave up his life for the pontiff.

Or course, we can always mount (no pun intended) a protest against such bald-faced (and everything else) civic disobedience. But, what is the protocol of demonstrating against naked demonstrating? In our own counter protest, do we remain clothed? Or is it better to take up the tactic, thus giving evidence of its impropriety? I am sure my own naked appearance on the front line would provide significant incentive to abandon the custom.

I have a theory that all this started when an invitation was issued for a big PUBLIC protest, and a typo resulted in the call for a big PUBIC protest. This is only my threory, but how else can you explain a bunch of people shedding graments as a means of saving the whales.

So I ask … how long are we to bear the bare?

FOOTNOTE: Frankly, I don't really care much if folks want to strip in public, but I do wish the liberal activists would find sexier people. Let's have a rule, like, no naked protesting by people whose relevant numbers exceed 40 and 250.

FOOTNOTE 2: I was told that a bit of nudity would help build readership. I was pondering a photo of myself naked, but decided against. ……………….. Your welcome.

REACT: Obama gets stoned in key state

Barack Obama took a drubbing in the Keystone State of Pennsylvania. Of course, they peddle the “we closed the gap” spin. What else can they say? The Obamacans cleverly set a very low pre-election standard of victory. “If we can keep Clinton to a single digit victory, we win,” they proffer. Well, they didn't. Even with a phenomenal 92 percent of the black vote, obama got creamed in almost landslide proportions.

Obama spin may make make good fodder for the fawning press and general public, but it will not wash with the party pros – right now known as super delegates.

It should be kept in mind that Clinton’s victory comes to a candidate thought to be on the ropes. Despite recent calls for her to step aside, she continues to prove that he opponent is not a comfortable choice among even Democrat voters.

Obama actually did better with white voters in the early primaries. Once he found it necessary to increase his percentages in the African American community by advancing the “us” concept, he naturally created a “them.” It appears that a lot of “them” have abandoned Obama.

As we have stated before, Obama wins, or comes close, mostly because of the extraordinary support of the black community AND the high percentage of black voters in those Democrat primaries. Is you apply the same racial statistical break down to the likely voters in the General Election, Obama gets swamped. He only carries Washington, D.C. for sure. That is the reality faced by the super delegates as this contest heads into the convention.

Obama may have looked like the African-American version of the White Knight early on, but more recent revelations have obviously turned away voters. As the theory goes, if the early voters had known about some of his positions, his more recent Afro-centric outreach, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, the Tony Rezko trial and Bill Ayers, Obama may not have done so well. Maybe he would have floundered early on. This is what the super delegates have to consider or they are meaningless.

The junior senator from Illinois is looking more and more like a General Election loser. This will motivate the super delegates to do what they were empowered to do – to serve as a safety mechanism to head off the nomination of an unelectable candidate. There role has never been to rubber stamp the candidates with the most votes.

Keep in mind that the super delegates are only important when the race is extremely close. While one candidate may have a majority of votes or delegates, the margin is so small as to make it politically meaningless. At this rate, neither candidate will go to the convention with a clear mandate. It will be up to the power brokers to figure out who the best nominee will be. Electablity is the only issue. Maybe that is not the most democratic resolution, but it is the best option they have.

FOOTNOTE: Some have suggested that I am one of those conservatives pumping for Hillary as the most beatable candidate. Not so. In fact, I have stated in previous blogs my opinion that Obama is by far the more beatable candidate.

OP ED: A bitter political harvest for Obama

Seems to me that the public debate over Barack Obama’s “bitter” remarks misses the point. Even Hillary has failed to articulate why the remark is so damaging from the perspective of the average small town American.

The question is not whether a segment of the public is “bitter.” Perhaps they are, and have every reason to be. Higher gas prices. Loss of jobs. Housing foreclosures.

What makes Obama’s remarks so offensive is his elitist view that only bitterness can explain their devotion to religion, their concern about the impact of illegal immigration, and the belief in the right to bear arms.

Inherent in his comment is a belief that people would not disagree with his personal “enlightened” view on these matters had their thinking not been distorted by visceral bitterness. Obama basically mocks the core beliefs of millions of Americans.

Someone should enlighten the senator that these people believed in God, the law and self-defense long before gas prices rose, jobs were lost and houses foreclosed.

OP ED: Obama bowls 'em over

Seems to me that Barack Obama is now the “pot calling the kettle black.” (I hope that old adage does not fall foul of the political correctness Gestapo, but oh well.)

I am referring to Obama’s charge that Clinton’s “shot and beer” photo op was pandering. You know, trying to look like one of the common folk.

Obama has been the star attraction at innumerable similar photo ops for the same reason. But, none sticks out more than his hapless attempt to bowl over the blue collar community in on the lanes of a local bowling alley. In still frame photos, he struck a pretty good pose. In video, however, it was painfully obvious that he was unfamiliar with the sport of Queens (New York, that is).

If you want to relate to the common people through their sport, you should at least have played it. All pandering aside, Clinton looked more familiar with the shot glass than Obama did with the bowling ball.