AJ DiCintio

Fully Understanding
the Bill Ayres “Distraction”
October 21, 2008

It is true that most voters vote their pocketbooks. But that doesn’t mean they would elect Mao Zedong president — even if they believed he could guarantee robust job growth, low inflation, and a roaring stock market.

Therefore, another truth is that voters want to know (and are “entitled to know,” as pollster Frank Luntz put it so well and John McCain didn’t) facts that help them draw conclusions about a candidate’s politics and character.

Why is it, then, that Democratic politicians and their liberal allies pooh-pooh the Bill Ayres issue as a “distraction”?

Why is they mock demands for full knowledge of a presidential candidate’s alliance with a far-left, unrepentant former terrorist leader to “improve” education for Chicago’s children, not by enriching them with effective teaching in the three R’s but by corrupting them with the R of leftist radicalism?

Why is it they blithely dismiss the significance of a presidential candidate’s alliance with a former terrorist who as recently as 2001 said, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” (Remember that part of the “didn’t do enough” was a failed attempt to bomb a dance at a New Jersey army base.)

Why is it they would fulminate with a fury that makes a firecracker of Mount Saint Helens if they learned John McCain had served on an education board with an associate of Timothy McVeigh but speak of Weather Underground terrorists with a tee-hee attitude perfectly devoid of moral and intellectual insight?

“...Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were leaders of the Weather Underground, an antiwar [sic] group whose penchant for violence was exceeded only by its haplessness. Ayers has since become an education expert [sic]...” (Gail Collins, New York Times)

(How quick liberals are to joke about “antiwar” terrorists — as long as the bombers are leftists. How quick they are to anoint one of those terrorists an educational “expert” while remaining expediently silent about his educational philosophy.)

Why is they remain mutely nonjudgmental in the face of perfectly mad extremism?

“[Ayres and Dohrn] named their children after some of their heroes...Zayd Shakur, the Black Panther killed in New Jersey during a shootout with police in 1973...[and] Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)...” (Susan Chira, New York Times)

The answer to every “why” asked above is this: Whether explicitly or implicitly, most Democratic politicians subscribe to the tenets of liberalism, an ideology that asks people to “imagine there’s no heaven...no hell...no countries...nothing to kill or die for...[and] no religion too” to embrace, instead, a belief system that makes a religion of politics and gods of politicians.

For proof of that assertion, consider that the dogmatic, politics-worshipping Democratic/liberal response both to Ayres and to Obama’s alliance with him comports perfectly with a long pattern of similar behavior, as revealed by the wild applause or approving silence with which Democrats and liberals reacted to the following contemptible statements:

“We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” — Stephen Jukes, after 9/11, forbidding Reuters staff to use the word “terrorist”

“I actually don’t have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now.” — Davis Westin, president of ABC News, responding to a question about whether the Pentagon was a legitimate target on 9/11

“Minutemen” of “The Revolution” — Michael Moore gushing over fascist terrorists who place explosives in children’s toys

“...you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime, Pol Pot or others, that had no concern for human beings” — Senator Dick Durbin, D-IL, characterizing how American troops treated prisoners in Iraq

“I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]...Screw them.” — Markos Zuniga, the boss of the vulgar leftwing Daily Kos, reacting to the deaths of American contractors brutally murdered in Iraq

This is the same Daily Kos whose annual convention of “progressives” (Hillary’s term) was attended by every Democratic primary contender except Joe Biden, who had another commitment. This is the same Markos Zuniga whom “progressive” editors of Time selected to grace the magazine’s pages with commentary.

“...[Robert Bork’s America is] a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government...” — Ted Kennedy attacking not just Judge Bork but every citizen who believes in a Jeffersonian judiciary, including, of course, Jefferson himself

“George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.” — Representative John Lewis D-GA, condemning John McCain and Sarah Plain for “playing with [the] fire” of racism

“There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.” — Representative John Murtha, D-PA, arrogantly and obscenely condemning hard working, small town, economically beleaguered Pennsylvanians

This is the same viciously political John Murtha who, without a bit of evidence, accused innocent Marines serving in Iraq of “murder in cold blood.”

Think about the fact that the words mentioned above were spoken either by powerful Democratic leaders or by celebrated liberal icons.

Think about the fact that in response, the Democratic-liberal establishment, which so often mobilizes the forces of powerful institutions and organizations to ignite national firestorms of protest, either applauded them or remained silent.

Think about the fact that the Democratic-liberal establishment would attack anyone who considers a discussion of those words important to assessing a person’s character and political beliefs as guilty of “gutter politics” or “racism.”