The Redhunter

Lets also get over the notion that Obama is somehow excused because he was a child when Ayers was a terrorist. This is so completely irrelevant that it boggles the mind. The question is not how old Obama was when Ayers was committing his terrorist acts, the question is whether Obama knew, or should have known, of Ayers terrorist past during their relationship.

If Obama wants us to believe that his judgment is so superior then he should have been able to figure out who Ayers was pretty quickly. Either way Obama loses; if he didn't know it exibits bad judgment for not being able to evaluate other people (something critical in a president), and if it did it shows bad judgment because no one in their right mind should associate with an unrepentant ex terrorist.

For example, on his very website it still says that "Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions." If his judgment with Ayers was so poor, why should we believe he will be able to size up Ahmadinejad any better? Recall that Obama actually used the example of the 196_ Kennedy-Khruchshev summit as a reason to meet with foreign dictators. One reason why the summit turned out so disasterously for Kennedy was that he had failed to size Khruchshev up correctly before meeting him, whereas Khruchshev had correctly judged that he would be able to bully Kennedy.

As for Wright, lets be clear what didn't happen. Obama did not attend Trinity United for a short period 10 or 20 years ago. He didn't just start to attend recently. Wright isn't just some preacher who endorsed Obama. Wright is not just a preacher that Obama went out and got his endorsement. Obama went to Trinity United for 20 years, and heard sermon after sermon. He described Wright as his "spiritual mentor." He only left when it became politically inconvenient to stay.

For that matter, what does it say about Obama's judgment that he attended the Million Man March? If his judgment is so superior, why didn't he figure out who and what Louis Farrakhan was before the event?

Finally, let's not pretend that Ayers and Wright were Obama's only questionable associations. The list goes on. Frank Gaffney, writiing in The Washington Times, goes over more, including Frank Marshall Davis, a Stalinist communist who admired the Soviet Union, Madeline Talbott of ACORN, Don Warden, (who converted to Islam and changed his name to Khalid al-Mansour). "Mr. al-Mansour has worked closely to advance the influence operations in America of one of Saudi Arabia's most insidious royal billionaires, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal." Worse still is Rashid Khalidi, who was

...a former colleague of Mr. Obama's at the University of Chicago and now a professor at Columbia. Mr. Khalidi is an enthusiastic supporter of the Palestinians, fervent critic of Israel (which he calls a destructive "racist" state), an admirer of suicide bombers and a driving force behind the Arab American Action Network (AAAN). This so-called pro-Palestinian "community organization" in Chicago is another beneficiary of the largess of the Obama-Ayers team at the Woods Fund and promotes an agenda that would horrify many of Mr. Obama's Jewish supporters.

If you want to question McCain's judgment over the Keating Five scandal, fine. The investigative report showed that McCain portrayed "poor judgment" and it is a mark against him. I do think you're stretching to compare that, though, to association with an unrepentant terrorist and a racist kook preacher. One can even say that McCain tried to make up for the whole affair with his McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Obama, of course, has no legislation to his name.

A Thought Experiment

To all of you liberals who see no problem with Obama's association with Ayers, or don't even think that he "associated" with him, consider if the shoe was on the other foot.

What would you think if John McCain had had the exact same relationship with abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolf? Can you honestly say that you'd have no problem with the situation?

For that matter, consider if John McCain had sat in a church for 20 years and listened to a white supremacist.

I know liberals will scream at this, but I do think in all honesty that if McCain had done either of these things we on the right would have purged him from our ranks long ago.

Update

The invaluable Andy McCarthy discusses Obama's radical past and concludes that

What Obama is about is infiltrating (and training others to infiltrate) bourgeois institutions in order to change them from within -- in essence, using the system to supplant the system. A key requirement of this stealthy approach (very consistent with talking vaporously about "change" but never getting more specific than absolutely necessary) is electability. With an enormous assist from the media, which does not press him for specifics, Obama has walked this line brilliantly. Absent convincing retractions of his prior radical positions, though, we should construe shrewd moves like the ostensibly reasonable Second Amendment position as efforts make him electable.

This is why Ayers is so important: it is a peek behind the curtain of Obama's rhetoric. When he talks about "education reform," that sounds admirable and, given the state of the schools, entirely reasonable. But when you look at what the Obama/Ayers program really tried to do to the schools (see, e.g., Stanley's work on this), it is radical. With a guy who speaks in euphemisms -- "change," "social justice," "due process," etc. -- it is vital to have concrete examples of how these concepts are put into action.

I have spoken with several undecided voters who tell me that they see Obama as a moderate, not much different in his positions than McCain. It's all I can do not to let my jaw hit the floor when I hear this. My conclusion is that one, the McCain campaign in general, and Senator McCain in particular, have done a poor job at communicating who and what Obama is. Two, the media are so in the bag for Obama that they're doing as good a job of investigating him as they did with John Edwards. This does not portend well.