Obama nets more attention to his terrorist friend

Rich Lowry:

Barack Obama has learned the lesson of the John Kerry campaign - at least, the lesson of liberal legend.

Democrats believe that Kerry was sunk in 2004 because he failed to hit back soon enough and hard enough against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. So they now demand a rapid, harsh response to any attack - even if such a response is stupidly self-destructive.

That's why Obama has - incredibly - launched an ad replying to a spot from a conservative independent group criticizing Obama's relationship with former domestic terrorist William Ayers.

Yet the campaign's response ensures that the Ayers controversy will burn all the brighter. For its trouble, it got a most unwelcome headline in USA Today yesterday, "Obama dogged by links to 1960s radical."

This shouldn't be an argument that the Obama campaign is eager to have - it has a "when did you stop beating your wife" aspect. It doesn't take a political consultant to know that any day you're explaining your relationship with a former terrorist is a bad day.

...

It says much about the left-wing context of Obama's Chicago that Ayers was considered so mainstream. Surely, this is fair political game. It would undeniably be a story if a Republican running for president had a relationship with a former leader of the Klan, unrepentant about his past.

The Obama response ad falsely blames the Ayers attack on McCain, although the Republican's campaign had nothing to do with it. It also notes that the bombings occurred when Obama was just a kid, and Obama has condemned them. True enough, but that still leaves Obama's relationship with Ayers. Obama will surely spend more time now explaining it than he would have otherwise.

But, hey, he's "not repeating the mistakes of John Kerry."

It says something about the Democrats that they thought Kerry problem was in responding to the charges instead of the conduct that precipitated the charges. Obama has the same problem. It is not the charges, but his conduct that is his political problem. In both cases it is ties to radical who hate America and its policies that are embarrassing the Democrat candidates.

The most devastating ad the Swift vets ran against Kerry was the one where Kerry was testifying before Congress and calling his fellow troops war criminals. What is hurting Obama is his willingness to associate with and work closely with an unrepentant terrorist. That may be no big deal to fellow liberals in Chicago, but it is clearly a concern to voters outside Hyde Park.

If it were not a problem, Obama would not be trying so hard to suppress the ad.

America is a country where you get to pick your friends and to some extent you are known by the ones you pick to associate with.