October 9, 2008
It was Monday, October 6, 2008. Sarah “The Gumball” Palin was speaking before a crowd in Clearwater, Florida. She was dressed in white. Behind her, stood a predominately female group of individuals, similarly dressed in Klan white. Palin stood before the crowd and launched into the long-discredited attempt by the McCain campaign to assert that Barack Obama “pals around with domestic terrorists”.
As many have learned by now, Obama’s involvement in the Annenberg Foundation’s program to assist public education (The Annenberg Challenge Project) placed him in contact with a former radical activist of the 1960s, William Ayers. Both Obama and Ayers live in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, near the University of Chicago. In 1995, Ayers hosted an informal fundraising event for Obama’s first run for the Illinois State Senate. During the years 2000-2002, Obama and Ayers served on the board of an anti-poverty group, The Woods Fund of Chicago. Bill Ayers is the son of Thomas G. Ayers, the former Chairman and CEO of Chicago’s electricity monopoly, Commonwealth Edison Company. Having such a background in the 1960s, resulted in the political radicalization of many similarly-situated young people. Bill Ayers became part of a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) called The Weathermen. They eventually changed the name of the organization to the gender-neutral Weather Underground. In 1969 (when Obama was 8 years old) Bill Ayers felt outraged by the fact that there was a statue in Chicago (not far from where Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios are now located) commemorating the deaths of seven police officers involved in suppressing the “Haymarket Riot” of 1886. An untold number of protesting laborers were killed during that chaos. This event resulted from the original “May Day” celebration of the rights of laborers (May 1, 1886). Ayers decided to participate in a successful plot to destroy the statue with a bomb. No live humans were injured in that event. Although the statue was rebuilt two years later, the Weathermen blew it up again within a few months.
Dana Milbank reported in the Washington Post, what many of us saw on the news concerning Palin’s remarks about Obama at the October 6 rally in Clearwater:
“Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers,” Palin said.
“Boooo!” said the crowd.
“And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'” she continued.
“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.
“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.
As a result of this incident, many commentators have expressed their outrage that the current rhetoric of the McCain campaign could motivate someone to call for the assassination of Barack Obama. Others have suggested that it cannot be discerned as to whether this man was calling for the killing of Obama or Bill Ayers. In either event, I would expect (and as a taxpayer – demand) at this point, that Barack Obama’s Secret Service detail would be contacting Palin’s Secret Service detail to request any and all photographic and video information that might depict the man yelling “kill him!” at that rally. I would also like to believe that the Secret Service is in the process of identifying this individual. One would expect them to have a few things to discuss with him. Once this maniac is identified, the Secret Service should let us know who he is (or, at least, see what he looks like) if they cannot locate him. If he turns up in my area, I and many of my friends, would like to be able to advise the Secret Service of his current whereabouts, should we spot him.
The Gumball vocalizes indignation over “domestic terrorism”. Shouldn’t that fury result in some sort of response to her audience member who proposed such an act to her very face?
Our Generation Got Old
October 13, 2008
As John McCain’s Presidential campaign goes swirling down the toilet during the final desperate weeks of its existence, we see its surrogates cling to the non-issue of Obama’s contact with 1960s radical activist, Bill Ayers. As I said on October 2, McCain missed his chance to take control of this race by opposing the 700-billion-dollar “bailout bill”, which has yet to inspire the confidence of the investing public, foreign markets or the banks. By reuniting with his old ally from the “campaign finance reform” days, Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, as well as Democratic rising star, Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, the “Blue Dog” Democrats and the so-called “House Republicans” led by Jeb Hensarling and Mike Pence, McCain could have secured his position as the man who would take the Republican Party into the new century. Instead, he chose to follow the advice of the lobbyists who run his campaign: Steve “Skinhead” Schmidt and (Jeffrey Dahmer look-alike) Rick Davis. These “Guys on the Plane” (if I may steal an expression from Peggy Noonan) have their careers rooted in the negative campaigning strategies created by Lee Atwater and refined by Karl Rove. These operatives have no other cards to play. They have no experience in successful reliance upon a strategy, based solely on portraying their own candidate in a positive way.
As the nation’s economic condition becomes more perilous, the McCain campaign leans more heavily on its claim that Obama’s contacts with Bill Ayers should determine the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election.
At this point it’s starting to get funny. Worse yet … it is an indicator (to me, at least) of how old I am and how old my generation has become. Back in my old home town (a place called Chicago) there is a writer for a local paper called the Chicago Tribune. His name is John Kass. Kass is an outspoken opponent of Chicago’s current mayor, Richard M. Daley and Kass has a nickname for him, just as I have nicknames for such worthy characters as Senator Joe “The Tool” Lieberman. On Sunday, October 12, Kass expressed his outrage that Marilyn Katz, Ayers’ fellow member of the 1960s radical group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), is involved in Obama’s Presidential campaign. Kass took particular umbrage at the fact that Marilyn Katz now has a successful public relations firm called: MK Communications. According to Kass, MK Communications now represents the Chicago Police Department, City Colleges of Chicago, the city’s “Law Department” (actually referred to as the Office of the Corporation Counsel for the City of Chicago), and numerous other city departments … including the venerable “Streets and San”. Kass seemed like a shoe salesman trying to fit an old foot that was accustomed to the “militant radical” style of the 1960s, into the new, 21st century, “Terrorist” model. It doesn’t fit. The militant radicals of the 1960s used small bombs to make political statements. There is an absence of information about the number of alleged casualties or injuries resulting from such bombings. Today, “terrorists” use small bombs to take down airplanes and they use airplanes to take down skyscrapers. The use of the “terrorist” label to a 1960s radical is an obvious stretch.
The rant by the Tribune’s Kass about how former radical, Marilyn Katz, has become a “mainstream” figure in Chicago’s Public Relations business community, reminded me of an old song. On August 17, 1969, Grace Slick and her band, Jefferson Airplane, woke up the crowd at the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair with what she described as “morning maniac music”: the title song from their upcoming album, Volunteers. Included among the song’s lyrics was the following passage:
The Marilyn Katz story and the Bill Ayers story tell me that our generation got old. The former radicals of that era are now playing important roles within what they used to consider an archaic milieu, referred to as “the establishment”. Nevertheless, many members of this latest “establishment” generation are in a fight to retain the claim of having “soul” by helping to bring an African-American to The White House for the first time in this nation’s history. The crowds at the McCain and Palin rallies have expressed their fear of what an Obama Administration might bring to America. These McCain supporters have been able to replace their fears of how they are going to economically survive from day to day and how to fund their retirement plans with the fears conjured up by Schmidt, Davis and their ilk. The ball is now in the court of the Obama campaign to help establish a legacy for these people and all Americans – by righting the ship capsized by the “perfect storm” of greed, corruption and deregulation. Another three-pointer would be nice.