Hello there,
You have probably heard about Bill Ayers, the man who founded an organization called Weather Underground.
The Republican Party had every idea that by linking Barack Obama to Bill Ayers, they would bring down Obama in November's general election
At the height of the campaign and just when everyone thought Obama was losing momentum, the Republicans went on a major offensive, launching a negative public relations campaign linking then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to Bill Ayers.
Sarah Palin, Arkansas Governor and then McCain's running mate, said Obama was one to 'pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.'
For an electorate that had been on a constant diet of 'change' and 'hope', the message did not seem to resonate with any cross-section of the American society, especially the young voters.
But the interesting thing is a Cop-Ed in today's article on nytimes.com in which Bill Ayers has hit back at his critics. Bill Ayers says he was thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a 'profoundly dishonest drama.'
"I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices — the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious — as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation."
Mr. Ayers says his main reason for attacking empty buildings was to draw the government's and public's attention to a (Vietnam) war that would kill 3 million Vietnamese and 60,000 Americans.
He further castigates the country's culture that is rooted in 'guilt by association.'
Mr. Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the author of “Fugitive Days” and a co-author of the forthcoming “Race Course."