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The Obama-Ayers Connection

It's finally starting to get some play in the MSM, but only at the Wall Street Journal:

One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's "recruitment" to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval.


The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto.

In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC.

CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Gray Lady to cover it. And unfortunately, it doesn't lend itself to a ten-second explanation or sound bite, other than "Barack Obama worked to radicalize Chicago school children." But someone should ask him just what there was to show for the hundred million, since it's the only thing that he's ever actually run (other than, as the Reverend Jesse Jackson amusingly noted, his mouth).

More thoughts over at Hot Air.

[Update a while later]

Dr. Kurtz has more over at NRO:

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge stands as Barack Obama's most important executive experience to date. By its own account, CAC was a largely a failure. And a series of critical evaluations point to reasons for that failure, including a poor strategy, to which the foundation over-committed in 1995, and over-reliance on community organizers with insufficient education expertise. The failure of CAC thus raises entirely legitimate questions, both about Obama's competence, his alliances with radical community organizers, and about Ayers's continuing influence over CAC and its board, headed by Obama. Above all, by continuing to fund Ayers's personal projects, and those of his political-educational allies, Obama was lending moral and material support to Ayers's profoundly radical efforts. Ayers's terrorist history aside, that makes the Ayers-Obama relationship a perfectly legitimate issue in this campaign.

"Most important"? More like "only," unless one counts running his campaign (which is really done by Axelrod).

 
 

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2 Comments

Bill Maron wrote:

Ayers, "We're going to teach activism and socialism!"

Anybody, "But don't these kids need to learn how to read and write and do math?"

Ayers, "That's not as important as what me and my BFF Obama are going to teach them!"

Anybody, "These kids are worse off!!"

Ayers, "No!! They'll be GREAT activists!! Isn't that right BFF Obama?"

Obama, "Ummm."

Martin wrote:

"In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist,""

One wonders if the little tots would have been making pipe bombs in arts and crafts, or finger-painting with the blood of the petit bourgeoisie.

So Ayers was engaged in a calculated brainwashing scheme, not unlike what some cults do. Except actually worse, as entry into cults is usually voluntary, whereas these kids were to be forcibly used as raw material for Ayer's - and Obama's - social activism.

Ayers may be a communist with a small 'c', but he's a capitol 'C' Creep. And lest anyone forget, Ayer's wife and fellow social revolutionary, Bernadine Dorhn, once praised the Manson family for the revolutionary zeal they displayed in carrying out the bloody Tate-LoBianca murders. She should never be allowed to forget this. Never miss an opportunity to point out what kind of friends and allies Senator Obama has collected.

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This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on September 23, 2008 7:02 AM.

J-Vator? Probably Not was the previous entry in this blog.

This Made Me Laff is the next entry in this blog.

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