Republican Clears Obama on Ayers

[Needs Attention!:] Republican Clears Obama On Ayers!(Audio)

by JustForTheRecord

Tue Oct 07, 2008 at 10:11:20 AM PDT

Uh-oh...Ayers won't work anymore (There goes the kitchen sink, I guess here comes the table)...Some republicans from Chicago are saying what most of us knew all along. Bill Ayers was a commonly acceptable figure in Chicago by everyone--Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans. Are they all America hating, terrorist loving traitors to America?!

In fact, this NPR piece speaks to the Republican funded cause that Obama and Ayers worked on together. And that:

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

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Yesterday, in a rehash of the MSM acknowledged issues of the day, NPR did a short piece on Obama and Ayers. Fortunately for many, they made news.

First, Obama began working with Ayers and others (Republicans, Independents, and Democrats) at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Well, what is the Anneberg Challenge? Who is Annenberg? Well according to NPR,

The Obama campaign says he first met Ayers in 1995, when Obama became chair of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $50 million fund that awarded grants to groups trying to implement new programs to improve inner city education in Chicago.

Walter Annenberg, a lifelong Republican and former ambassador who was appointed by Presidents Nixon and Reagan, funded an ambitious program to reform urban education in many cities in the mid 1990s. Ayers was an important member of the group that developed and wrote the grant proposal to the Annenberg Foundation.

Second, there were people of all political persuasions working on this effort with this "terrorist" Ayers and who saw him as acceptable and Obama was no closer than any of the others.

...no one on the board or on the Annenberg Challenge staff remembers Obama being any closer to Ayers than to any other member of the board. The Annenberg board also included several civic, business and education leaders, many of them Republicans...

In fact one person close to the issue states:

"I don't remember ever hearing anyone raise concerns or questions or concerns about [Ayers'] background," says Anne Hallett, who has worked closely with Ayers on the Annenberg Challenge grant and with Obama on education and other community and legislative matters. "And that included everybody I was engaged with," including prominent Republicans, and corporate and civic leaders in Chicago, Hallett adds.

Oh, really?!

So not only was Obama working on a Republican funded initiative, but prominent Republicans were involved on the board with Ayers. Do they all hate America so much that they are "palling" around with terrorist? He had been in their midst for years, why did not the republican's run him out of town.

Obama was new to Chicago. He hadn't been elected to anything. He really did even know where the bodies where truly buried in Chicago (evidenced by the thumping he received when he ran for the state senate). He just wanted to serve the community and do good work. However, Ayers had been there for years, building a reputation that was so mainstream that a life long Republican, who was a former Ambassador appointed by Nixon and Regan, allowed the release of $50 Million to let him, prominent Republicans, corporate, civic leaders, and a Harvard trained community organizer form a board to oversee the disbursement of these funds related to school reform.

And finally, the author notes:

Hallett calls this attack on Obama's association with Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge by further association, "a smear campaign. It's a political diatribe that has no basis in fact. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was an extremely positive initiative. It was well-vetted, thorough, and the fact that it is now is being used for political purposes is, in my opinion, outrageous."

And as noted earlier a former Illinois Republican state representative states:

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

I don't have a transcript. However the article provides the link to the audio.

My purpose hear is to have Kossacks spread the word, because most of the right leaning center and many independents don't even listen to NPR. In fact, many Kossacks don't have time to listen to NPR now either, because we are all out canvassing, phone banking, and supporting a democratic victory that has the governing power to finally "shake things up in Washington, gosh darn it" and get a bit "Marvericky" on it!

Rec'd this diary. Digg the story. Email it to everyone you know, and get it in the hands of more in the MSM, so that they can fight this racist attempt to destroy Obama and make him unacceptable as president and literally put his life in danger.

Now, not only, can we fight this with an emotional and logical appeal of the unfairness of guilt by association, but also with factual appeal that no one including Obama (Democrats, Republicans, or Independents) who all love this country like Obama does, saw Ayers for his acts 20 plus years earlier, but as another person trying to do God's work to better the future of children from some of the toughest meanest areas of Chicago.