Mr. Obama, Rev. Wright and Mr. Ayres

Why is Barack Obama pilloried with all this "guilt by association?" There is no evidence that he ever shared his pastor's wacky views. Obama has given speeches, been part of the state and national legislative process, been a community organizer and law school professor. There is nothing in his record to indicate that he is "Wright-lite," or, in the case of Bill Ayres, that he somehow tolerates Ayres' views and violent behavior when the latter was a member of the notorious Weather Underground forty years ago. Ayres is a neighbor whose acquaintance Obama made while campaigning for the Illinois State Senate in the late 1990's. (I should add that, as a Chicago politician, Obama has a very clean record indeed.)

Since when did one's minister become a campaign fixture, and why does Obama have to answer for what Wright says? And why does Obama's fairly recent association with Ayres connect him in any way with Ayers' violent past? Ayers is an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. If there were any hint that his proclivity for violence were not buried in the past, you can bet your bippies that the Bush Administration would have charged him and his wife Bernadine Dohrn with something by now, no matter how far-fetched.

Bill Ayres has by all accounts been a good citizen since the early 1980's, after he and his wife turned themselves in. According to Wikipedia, "Ayers ... was quoted in an interview to say "I don't regret setting bombs"[35] but has since claimed he was misquoted." Ayers has been Obama's constituent and neighbor, and nothing more, and yet people are acting as if he is part of Obama's campaign staff. Ayers' past is in no way relevant to Obama's present.

The answer, I'm afraid, to my question about why all this "guilt by association" is that the media, many of whom initially swooned before Obama, have now switched to "validation" mode. Many didn't know him all that well, and now he is being called to task for all sorts of things in the search for who he really is.

And then there are the race-baiters, always ready to inflame the tone of discourse.

In an interview several years ago, Ethel Kennedy referred to Mr. Obama as "our next president." "I think he feels it. He feels it just like Bobby did," she said, comparing her late husband's quest for social justice to Mr. Obama's. "He has the passion in his heart. He's not selling you. It's just him."

I think that Mrs. Kennedy's views should count for a lot more than Rev. Wright's, who says that Obama is "acting like a politician." Why should Wright's views on Obama count for much of anything, given his nutty persona? Now that he has "popped-up" and "done his thing", let's push him back into his box, at least when it comes to his pontifications, as opposed to his record of good works.

One thing that still bothers me is Obama's apparent indifference to his church giving Louis Farrakhan a "lifetime achievement" award. Farrakhan's organization may do good works, but don't Hamas and Hezbollah have extensive charitable enterprises, and doesn't Castro's Cuba have the best health care system going? And, for that matter, didn't Mussolini make the trains run on time?

There is also what many see as Obama's somewhat condescending manner. Well, no candidate is without flaws, and of the three he is clearly our best bet in the effort to get our country back on course.

Now more than ever, Obama matters.

Reference

Chris Fusco and Abdon M. Pallasch,"Who is Bill Ayers?", Chicago Sun-Times,April 18, 2008