Tuesday, October 21, 2008

More Deep Links Between Obama and Ayers--and Red Herrings for Dinner from Obama and Co.

This article shows that Obama (O) endorsed one of Bill Ayers books and gives other facts about their associations.

The O campaign is issuing red herrings on this close association of O with an unrepentant American terrorist, a member of the Weather Underground.

1. O was eight years old when Ayers was blowing up buildings. So what?! The issue is O's associations with Ayers after that fact--and they are many and deep. How could O not know who Ayers was and what he stood for?

2. Ayers does not advise O's campaign today and would not advise O if O is president. So what (assuming it is true) ?! Given what has come out about Ayers, Ayers is out of O's life now (as is Jeremiah Wright). But the issue is O's working with Ayers on many projects, endorsing his book, and so on, in the past. See Psalm 1 on the moral significance of one's close associations.

3. O has recently denounced Ayer's terrorism. So what?! He did not do that until the fact of Ayers's violent anti-American hatred came to be publicly known. O did not do so on the blurb for the 1997 book by Ayers; he did not do so when he worked with Ayers on the Annenberg challenge, etc.

4. The Annegberg challenge was sponsored by a Reagan supporter. Again, I say unto thee: So what?! Conservatives get duped all the time; liberals run off with their money. The fact that conservative money backed the project in no way entails that the project was conservative in political nature. In fact, it was not.

5. Ayers is now a tenured professor of education. This is irrelevant. Ward Churchhill (who said that those Americans killed in 9/11 deserved it) was a tenured professor at the University of Colorado--until he got a well derved boot a few years ago. Being a tenured professor at a state university says nothing about one's credibility or one's orientation to America. Many former radicals have gone the way of Gramsci: the revolution continues through "the long march through the institutions." See the book of that title by Roger Kimball.

The O campaign has given us a good lesson in the logical fallacy of the red herring. But how many Americans--and American Christians--even know enough logic to discern this?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks. This clearly more than a case of two people rubbing shoulders occasionally-- perhaps a better word than association would be alliance. This relationship matters.

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

Alliance, indeed it is. You can bet they paid him off to shut up now.

Tom said...

Wow, Doug, that's quite an accusation. Have any evidence for it?

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

Tom: Go to the link. There is the evidence.

Tom said...

Doug-sorry, I wasn't clear. The accusation I was referring to is this: "You can bet they paid him off to shut him up now."

I didn't see anything in the link to support that.

Tom said...

Doug,

More substantively, hows does saying something positive about an Ayers book and being seated on a panel with him for an evening demonstrate a "deep link"? Do you have a deep link with everyone for/with whom you've done these things? It seems to me that one could do both of these things even if one had never been so much as introduced to the person in question.

I'm not saying that Obama doesn't know Ayers; to some degree, he obviously does. But what you are calling marks of a deep link are no such thing.