Ayers issue surfaces in campaign

Sunday Telegraph:

The Republican candidate’s running mate Sarah Palin attacked Mr Obama for his links to Bill Ayres, the former terrorist-turned-education professor, whose Weather Underground group bombed the Pentagon in the 1960s, and with whom Mr Obama worked on community projects in the mid-1990s.

Mrs Palin said: “This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America. Our opponent is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. Americans need to know this.”

Her comments, at a fundraiser in Colorado, marked the first time the McCain campaign itself, rather than his allies in the wider conservative community, have questioned Mr Obama’s patriotism.

Mrs Palin was echoed by McCain ally Mike Huckabee, the former presidential candidate, who said: “If you hang out with somebody who has never apologised for bombing the Pentagon and the Capitol and is proud of something he should have been ashamed of, then it calls into question your judgment.”

They spoke out after the New York Times ran an article saying Mr Obama had “played down” his links with Mr Ayres.

A spokesman for Mr Obama camp condemned what they called Mrs Palin’s “shameless attack” and pointed out that the same story concluded that Mr Obama "is not close to Bill Ayres, much less pals and that he string condemned the despicable acts Ayres committed 40 years ago when Obama was eight.”

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Here is a question for Obama. In all the meeting you have had with Ayers have you ever told him to his face that he had acted in a despicable fashion? Some how I doubt it, because they had so many meetings they attended together including in Ayers home. Another question for Obama is did it feel creepy being around someone like Ayers? If not, why not?

The Belmont Club has more response to the Ayers connection including this from Stanley Kurtz:

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There is nothing “sporadic” about Barack Obama delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of many years to fund Bill Ayers’ radical education projects, not to mention many millions more to benefit Ayers’ radical education allies. We are talking about a substantial and lengthy working relationship here, one that does not depend on the quality of personal friendship or number of hours spent in the same room together (although the article greatly underestimates that as well).

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A Glenn Reynolds reader asks, “Here is the thing that eats at me. What did Ayers see in him? … Dorhn, Ayers, Wright all saw something in Obama that made them want to be with him and promote him? These are not people who like promoting pro-America candidates.”

I think Obama should answer my questions on this connection as well as the others rasied in the Belmont Club piece.