Another radical friend of Obama

Guy Benson:

Eighty-five thousand cheering fans. Pyrotechnics. A dramatic, temple-style backdrop. Such was the scene in Denver Thursday night as Barack Obama accepted his party’s presidential nomination with “great humility.” As his deep voice reverberated throughout the massive venue, thousands of eyes welled up with tears of hope and change. In the sea of faces and waving flags stood a woman by the name of Marilyn Katz. Like several of the other radicals who populate Obama’s sphere, she once advocated guerilla tactics against police officers and participated in violent riots. Unlike some of her more infamous counterparts like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn—who are in self-imposed exile until November 5—Katz is deeply, and officially, involved in Obama’s presidential campaign.

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Katz wasn’t just an aggrieved foot soldier in the anti-war movement. She was the head of security for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a hardcore leftist cabal from which Ayers’ militant Weathermen organization splintered away. As the SDS security comrade-in-chief, Katz was intimately familiar with the group’s extreme tactics, which were employed repeatedly in clashes with authorities. Four decades later, Katz has traded in her guerilla nails for manicured nails, and is actively working to elect Barack Obama president.

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There are so many objectionable figures in Obama’s social milieu, new revelations about yet another garden variety radical may elicit shrugs at this point. How have we arrived at such a place? His supporters have made it clear that his close ties to unrepentant terrorists—unrepentant terrorists—are no big deal. In fact, those who raise concerns about the Obama-Ayers nexus are labeled vicious neo-swiftboaters. So perhaps it follows that someone who preferred lobbing guerilla nails at police over planting pipe bombs in federal buildings would be integrated into Obama’s official campaign apparatus without so much as a second look. Maybe her slot on the national finance committee was a long-delayed reward for her admirable show of restraint.

When Ayers first became a political liability for Obama, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a story entitled, “Who is Bill Ayers?” In case any readers were foolish enough to think the Ayers connection was a big deal, a voice of reason was quoted to set them straight. “What Bill Ayers…did forty years ago has nothing to do with” Obama’s presidential run. The source went on to detail Ayers’ wonderful work in the field of public education. Who was this great moral authority? Why, Marilyn Katz, of course—identified as a “political strategist” and a former member of the “peaceful” Students for a Democratic Society. Leave it to the mainstream media to quote Ms. Guerilla Nails declaring that Mr. Wish-I-had-done-more’s bombings should be irrelevant, while adding that he’s really a swell guy these days. How reassuring!

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I met some of the SDS types when I was in college, but I can safely say I was not their friend and they did not like me back then either. It is pretty clear where Katz would like to take this country and it should be troubling that a serious candidate would bring her along for the ride.