It was reported after the election ended that the link between Obama and Ayers was first introduced on the campaign trail prematurely by Palin, and then McCain was forced to join in. But the blogs were talking about them long before that.

One meme even emerged that Ayers wrote Obama’s first book, and even though I didn’t realize it at the time I first wrote about it, I’m pained to admit that the guy who invented that nonsense is from Kansas City, MO and is the executive editor of a fairly well known magazine here called Ingram’s. Ugh.

In any event, here’s what Ayers has to say about his super best buddy Barack…

The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.

President-elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the same diverse and yet close-knit community; we sometimes passed in the bookstore. We didn’t pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.

Not that this is any surprise to those of us who were paying attention, and not that this will put all the weird conspiracy theories to rest either, but Republicans would do well to shame the “Obama truther” crowd into silence. Otherwise they risk having them run the show in the downtime between now and 2012.

The William Ayers thing is telling and suggests that she definitely has killer political instincts. Nothing wrong with that, but it definitely reinforces the image of Palin as the “mean girl.”

However, the news that she was unwilling to share the stage with anybody who didn’t share her social views is troubling and doesn’t bode well for her future political aspirations. I think it’s pretty clear that the Republican party will have to become more inclusive, and if she doesn’t realize that she’s doomed.

All in all, Palin was just a horrible VP pick. Yeah, McCain got a bump, but he completely undermined his campaign’s message and in the process called into question his credibility as a leader.

Uh oh…here we go.

McCain is set to hammer the last nail into his presidential coffin tomorrow.

From CNN:

The comments, during an interview with St. Louis radio station KMOX, come after Obama and Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden were sharply critical of McCain for targeting the Illinois senator over Ayers at campaign rallies, but not when the two last met for a presidential debate.

“I was astonished to hear him say that he was surprised I ‘didn’t have the guts’ to do that, because the fact is the question didn’t come up in that fashion,” McCain said of the last debate. “I think he’s probably ensured it will come up this time.”

Does McCain not understand that everybody will be waiting to hear him say something about it? So if he doesn’t, it’ll be a story. But even if he does, INDEPENDENTS DON’T CARE. Poll after poll after poll demonstrates that. In fact, McCain’s negatives have actually gone up as a result of these attacks.

Still, it’ll make for interesting television. :-)

“Very frankly, Dana, I don’t give a damn about an old unrepentant terrorist.”
- John McCain in response to Dana Bash’s question about his Ayers attacks on Obama.

So I guess the Ayers strategy is now officially off the table?

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder…

UPDATE:
Apparently he cares enough to promise to bring it up at the debate tomorrow.

He touches on a lot of points, but here’s the one that interested me:

Obama, as I have said ad nauseam, has brilliantly prepped the battlefield to such a degree that a Farrakhan endorsement or surrogates calling Palin a quasi-Nazi or a bimbo, or smearing McCain as near senile is irrelevant; yet one screamer in a crowd of tens of thousands is proof of McCain’s and Palin’s racism and hatred.

I have been irritated at the way Obama supporters have used a few ignorant McCain supporters to tar the entire McCain campaign. I don’t excuse McCain for taking the low road on a few issues, most notably the spurious “Obama is Ayers best friend” attack, but if what someone shouts at a McCain rally can be used as a proof of McCain’s unsuitability to be president, than why isn’t – to pull from Hanson – Farrakhan’s endorsement of Obama relevant? I mean, if what unsanctioned supporters say can be used against a candidate, doesn’t that leave both candidates open to the accusation that they are unfit to serve?

The Obama campaign has excelled at righteous indignation since early in the primaries. The McCain campaign has just looked silly when they’ve tried the same maneuver. But Hanson’s column reminds us that, when it comes to what does and what does not offend you in a campaign, your partisanship will likely account for 90% of your reaction. As someone who isn’t easily offended, I’ve spent much of the campaign scoffing at both side’s episodes of mock outrage.

I won’t let the fact that a few McCain supporters are ignoramuses or even racists affect my vote. I will let matters like the choice to run deceptive ads about Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers affect my vote – but that’s a separate issue. I am being careful to separate what the campaign’s themselves say and do from the background noise of what unsanctioned supporters say and do. It’s far too easy to treat elections as a matter of us vs. them. But I’m not looking to join a team.

There has been speculation about this which I’ve ignored, no doubt because there are enough policy reasons to oppose Barack Obama and I don’t want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia.

But I’ve finally read Jack Cashill’s lengthy analysis in The American Thinker. It is thorough, thoughtful, and alarming — particularly his deconstruction of the text in Obama’s memoir and comparison to the themes, sophistication and signature phraseology of Bill Ayers’ memoir.

There is nothing in Obama’s scant paper trail prior to 1995 that would suggest something as stylish and penetrating as, at times, Dreams from My Father is. And when Obama speaks extemporaneously, one doesn’t hear the same voice one encounters in the book.

Now maybe Obama has a backlog of writing fom Columbia or Harvard that signal great literary promise, but he not only hasn’t shared it, he’s assiduously hidden traces of it. And, to be sure, writing is different from speaking — in fairness, some of Obama’s off-the-cuff bumbling when he speaks is certainly due to the rigors of the campaign which would cause even the most gifted communicator to faulter from time to time. But it’s not unreasonable to expect more similarity between Obama the writer and Obama the orator.

Two immediate, glaring problems with McCarthy’s logic here.

First, extemporaneous speaking is live and off the cuff. Writing (well, at least good writing) is overly considered and slavishly revised. Why he doesn’t appreciate the obvious distinction is beyond me. But maybe he just writes everything once and never looks back. I guess that would explain his post.

Second, there is this other form of speaking that politicians do all the time. And it’s quite a bit like writing. It’s called “the political speech” and the good ones are, you guessed it, overly considered and slavishly revised. Again, why McCarthy chooses to highlight extemporaneous speaking and ignores the flowery prose that speechifying brings with it is not only odd, it also smacks of intellectual dishonesty. I mean, McCarthy’s no dummy and he hasn’t been living in a cave for the past 4 years. He knows what one of Obama’s key strengths is. And it appears as if he’s purposefully ignoring it.

So then, what about that analysis from Jack Cashill moved McCarthy so much that he simply had to write a post about it?

Here’s how The American Thinker article starts out:

Prior to 1990, when Barack Obama contracted to write Dreams From My Father, he had written very close to nothing. Then, five years later, this untested 33 year-old produced what Time Magazine has called — with a straight face — “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”

The public is asked to believe Obama wrote Dreams From My Father on his own, almost as though he were some sort of literary idiot savant. I do not buy this canard for a minute, not at all. Writing is as much a craft as, say, golf. To put this in perspective, imagine if a friend played a few rounds in the high 90s and then a few years later, without further practice, made the PGA Tour. It doesn’t happen.

Gee, how can you argue with a hypothesis as iron clad as that? “The American Thinker” indeed.

Again, this all sounds like a big fit of jealousy (masked as a conspiracy theory) that tries once again. to tie Obama to the notion of terrorism in the form of Bill Ayers.

No wonder William F. Buckley’s son is backing Obama.

You know, I’ve been trying to put my finger on why the Bill Ayers stuff bugs me so much. Sure, it’s an absurd charge, but now I think I realize why it really bothers me.

Why would the McCain campaign put Sarah Palin out there to ask “Who is the real Barack Obama?” when 95% of the country didn’t know who she was until a month ago?

Let’s look at the facts…

• She blames the media for her bad interviews.
• She’ll no longer do any interviews with unfriendly news sources.
• She won’t hold a public press conference.
• She won’t go on any of the Sunday newsers.
• Meanwhile, her husband belonged to a secessionist political group for years that still advocates Alaska leaving the Union.
• Meanwhile, the founder of that group is quoted as saying, “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”
• Meanwhile, she recorded a video greeting for their convention this year.

So I ask you…who is real Sarah Palin?

Seriously. I’m not being dramatic. What do we really know about this woman? What do we know about her beliefs? Can you imagine if Michelle Obama belonged to a secessionist group? I mean, come on people…why isn’t this getting more traction?

Doug pointed me towards the following video, and the videographer asks McCain supporters about their opinions about Obama after these latest charges.

It ain’t pretty…

So then…

Do McCain and Palin really think it’s a smart move to hint at the idea that the first African-American president could be a terrorist? Sure, they’re not saying that explicitly, but when you talk about “palling around” with terrorists, what do you think your supporters are going to believe? I think we saw the result in that video.

Or, to put it another way, don’t you think that idea could get inside some nuts’ head and they might think they have to stop Obama for the good of the country?

How dare she.

And furthermore…how dare he.

Not that this is any surprise, but I sincerely hope that McCain loses by a landslide now that he’s trying to convince people that Obama is basically a terrorist’s best friend.

But hey, take a look for yourself.

McCain’s “maverick” brand is forever damaged with independent voters. But I guess that’s less important than the hope of somehow pulling out a win.

The end.

Grasping at straws and coming up with nothing. That’s how Frum seems to be characterizing Republican’s attempt to paint Obama as a radical’s best buddy.

From NRO:

My pals over at the Corner are very excited by the last-minute attempt to transform Bill Ayers into the Willie Horton of 2008. Well, good luck

In 1988, crime was a huge and rising problem – and Democrats still by and large resisted the effective crime control policies being developed at places like the Manhattan Institute and that would achieve such great results in the 1990s. So Willie Horton, the furloughed rapist and murderer, symbolized in very graphic terms something important and significant about Michael Dukakis the candidate.

But Bill Ayers? Does anybody really seriously believe that Barack Obama is a secret left-wing radical? And if not, then what is this fuss and fury supposed to show? It’s like Ronald Reagan’s opponents trying to beat him by pointing out that Birchers once supported him.

Negative campaigning only works when it offers a new data point to support a convincingly drawn hostile image.

But who knows…maybe they have another data point about Ayers that they haven’t revealed yet.

If this is all they’ve got, I truly feel sorry for them.

From The Page comes this direct quote:

There’s been a lot of interest in what I read lately. Well, I was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago.

Turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to The New York Times was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.’ These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes.

This is not a man who sees America as you and I do – as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.

Meanwhile, Obama is attacking McCain’s healthcare plan.

Good times.

Ambinder shares some additional details…

The group calls itself “an organization representing a coalition of activists committed to raising conservative issues both during and after the election.” It includes longtime Republican activists like Ed Failor, Jr. of Iowa. Failor was a McCain adviser in the state.

And so it begins. The “do and say anything” crowd swings into action.

Expect it to get a lot nastier.

From Huffington Post:

A high-ranking labor supporter of Hillary Clinton is distributing to union leaders and to Democratic strategists a document detailing the radical activities of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, two former members of the ’70s group the Weather Underground, who decades later, in Chicago, crossed paths with Barack Obama.

The document – a three-page emailed essay by Rick Sloan, communications director for the International Association of Machinists as Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) — takes both literary and political license to outline what Sloan believes would be the thrust of a hypothetical Republican campaign against Obama focusing on his tangential connection to Ayers and Dohrn.

The goal of the essay appears to be to discredit Obama as the prospective Democratic presidential nominee.

My question: Will they tell this guy to knock it off? So far the Clinton camp has only said that the essay isn’t their document…hardly a rebuke.

I guess we’ll see…