Ayers: Obama was ‘family friend’

In a new afterword to his memoir, 1960s radical William Ayers writes that the campaign controversy over their relationship was an effort by Obama’s political enemies to “deepen a dishonest narrative” about the candidate.
(Chris Sweda/Sun-Times)

New afterword to 2001 book, Ayers describes Barack Obama as ‘family friend’
Chicago Sun Times
In a new afterword to his 2001 book, Bill Ayers, former leader of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground, describes President-elect Barack Obama as a “family friend” and denies he wished his group had set off more bombs in the 1960s.
Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adds few new details about his relationship with Obama in the afterword to Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist. The book is being reissued this month.

“We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.

But right-wing commentators tried to use those connections to smear Obama, he says.

“Obama’s political rivals and enemies apparently saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest narrative about him, that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist, a sympathizer with extremism,” Ayers wrote.

Obama described their relationship:

Obama said Ayers is “a guy who lives in my neighborhood” and not someone who has endorsed him or talked to him regularly.

“And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense,” Obama said.

He has also said that Ayers is “not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis.”

Ayers wrote the new afterword on July 8, 2008, a day when he writes he saw a 1960s-style bumper sticker “all tie-dyed and psychedelic,” and heard “Give Peace a Chance” on the radio. He begins the afterword with a quote from Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.’’
It’s “d]eja vu all over again,” Ayers writes.
Ayers is scheduled to appear for a live interview Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.’’

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Rocks just keep getting moved and Obama’s friends crawl out from under them.