Gov. Palin commented about Sen. Obama and William Ayers at a rally in Carson, California Saturday. 
The Statement: Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin said Saturday, October 4, that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is "someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."
Get the facts!
The Facts: In making the charge at a fund-raising event in Englewood, Colorado, and a rally in Carson, California, Palin was referring at least in part to William Ayers, a 1960s radical. In both appearances, Palin cited a front-page article in Saturday's New York Times detailing the working relationship between Obama and Ayers.
In the 1960s, Ayers was a founding member of the radical Weather Underground group that carried out a string of bombings of federal buildings, including the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, in protest against the Vietnam War. The now-defunct group was labeled a "domestic terrorist group" by the FBI, and Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn — also a Weather Underground member — spent 10 years as fugitives in the 1970s. Federal charges against them were dropped due to FBI misconduct in gathering evidence against them, and they resurfaced in 1980. Both Ayers and Dohrn ultimately became university professors in Chicago, with Ayers, 63, now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Obama's Chicago home is in the same neighborhood where Ayers and Dohrn live. Beginning in 1995, Ayers and Obama worked with the non-profit Chicago Annenberg Challenge on a huge school improvement project. The Annenberg Challenge was for cities to compete for $50 million grants to improve public education. Ayers fought to bring the grant to Chicago, and Obama was recruited onto the board. Also from 1999 through 2001 both were board members on the Woods Fund, a charitable foundation that gave money to various causes, including the Trinity United Church that Obama attended and Northwestern University Law Schools' Children and Family Justice Center, where Dohrn worked.
CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved.
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told CNN that after meeting Obama through the Annenberg project, Ayers hosted a campaign event for him that same year when then-Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer, who planned to run for Congress, introduced the young community organizer as her chosen successor. LaBolt also said the two have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Obama came to the U.S. Senate in 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they encountered each other on the street in their Hyde Park neighborhood.
The extent of Obama's relationship with Ayers came up during the Democratic presidential primaries earlier this year, and Obama explained it by saying, "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood … 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."
The New York Times article cited by Palin concluded that "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers." Other publications, including the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic, have said that their reporting doesn't support the idea that Obama and Ayers had a close relationship.
The McCain campaign did not respond Saturday to a request for elaboration on Palin's use of the plural "terrorists."
Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.
Filed under: Barack Obama • Fact Check • Sarah Palin
I new article posted to cnn.com entitled, "Bailout talks implode, economy's fate in peril", is suggestive of the talks imploding. However, it is conceivable to me that it is not the talks that are imploding, but rather the Republican Party that is imploding before our very eyes.
They can see that everything they have run on since President Reagan, less government; de-regulation; supply-side economics; and last but not least the trickle down theory, is the root cause of our current economic mess. The question for them is not how they save our economy, but how do they save their Party?
Popular opinion is solidly behind the Democratic Congress with demanding that the bail-out of our financial market meet the conditions of regulation and oversight; mortgage assistance for people whose mortgages are in trouble; scrutiny over the amount of the bail-out; and language to stop any "golden parachute" payments going to the CEO's of the organizations involved within the bail-out.
Now what has made the news is that the ranking Republican member of the House Banking Committee, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), has conceded that he does not have authorization to speak for his colleagues. This is a very troubling assertion, but it also shines a bright light into the vast darkness that is the current Republican Party.
It appears that committee appointments mean nothing to the House Republican Leadership, and that every issue must be approved by leadership, albeit minority leadership, in order to be recognized by all Republicans in the House. This is the House Republican modus operandi that equals their Senate counterpart's use of the filibuster.
What happens now? It is really quite obvious. We've seen it before. After the media gets hold of this and projects a picture of a static Democratic Congress, then, the House Republicans will reach consensus. We then will be told, lead by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), how they stood together for the American people and solved this economic crisis.
This cheap political grandstanding by the Republican Party is hope only of stopping the implosion of their political affiliation. Call your Congress person, call the media, tell them that this political nonsense must end. It is time to put all Americans first, and end politics as usual.
We can now see the meaning to McCain's madness of picking Sarah Palin for his VP. There have been numerous pundits, the latest being Ed Rollins with this beauty click here, in which attempt to keep the Democrats appearing as they are not united by keeping the Hillary Clintonnon-issue an issue.
The republicans, or the MSM for that matter, did not get the the upheaval in which they desired from the democratic convention. Therefore, McCain, in all his ineptitude, decides to try to reignite the flames of despair for the Democratic party with his selection of a female VP with seemingly less (that's debatable) experience than O8ama, and of course the media will assist with this contemptible attempt at fanning this conflgration because it sells air time and news print.
As I've said so many times on this blog. BEWARE THE MEDIA! They care more for their own balance sheet than for our country,or any that live in it.
Here is a link from the Economic Policy Institute with a nice graph that compares income from the 1990's to income from 2000 -2007. As Joe Biden so poignantly stated, "Barack was Right, and McCain was wrong!"
<br />
How does Palin's age, at 44, somehow justify and/or relieve the tensions of voters whom are concerned about his age of 72, when she has absolutely no experience? If anything now his age becomes even more of an issue in the minds of voters because of her lack of knowledge of the global community? How can they pare off, or spin, the experience issue of Barack O8ama when their VP selection does not even know what the Vice President does? In her own words!<br />
<br />
Oh, and as for the gender credibility of this choice? There is none; period! Does McCain really believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters will support Palin solely on the basis that she's a woman? The one thing that John McCain missed is the fact that Hillary Clinton was just as qualified as Barack O8ama, and that is why their primary battle was soo-ooo close and grueling. <br />
<br />
Yep, his first most important decision, and John McCain blew this one big time. Maybe what they're not telling us is that nobody really wanted this position. For that matter, maybe the repubs are already distancing themselves from this election and planning on rebuilding their party in 2012?<br />
<br />
I've said before that that was the reason they wanted Hillary to take the nomination. They all know, especially KKKarl Rove, what a screwed up mess they have made the past eight years. Now they are planning on undermining Barack O8ama's administration allowing him (and the Democrats) to take the wrath of the American people just like Jimmy Carter did in 1976-1980.<br />
<br />
I think what we Democrats need to be assessing is who the Republicans are planning on putting up as their candidate in 2012. They seriously are planning on O8ama being a one-term president. The only thing that will alter their plan is if the Democrats can achieve a filibuster proof senate majority. In which case, President O8ama will become an A ONE two term president.
Spirited Dona believes NATO and or UN officials should be standing strong with Mikheil, in the actual Tbillisi capital, or prepare to send him humanitarian packages. I saw police cars run over and tossed for fun aggression on television by the Russians in Georga, just what I expected, as Condoleeza came and left She was right to go, just not leave him, alone. I just saw a lady in a food line. The Russians killed her brother, her only relative. She asked "why" and "what" am I to live for now! Wars I and II started exactly like this. Now, I behold the hesitation, that honor requires of the world to take action, with mine own eyes. President Mikheil was born under Russian rule. Will he die under Russian rule?
Read More »
George Bush looks like he's on the Ed Sullivan show.
Just like my career, poster girl, great Democrat, and all around great American girl! Christie Brinkley! For those of you naysayers, I might be a poster girl, if fellow blogger, young Dine, has his dad take a poll in Iraq, that the troops need a poster girl, with a slight less snazz than Christie. We don't want to over occupy the thoughts of our troops!
The Stats
Christie has been to Democratic fundraisers, hosted them, too!
Is the mother of a music prodigy, Alexa Ray Joel, and horse lovers, son Jack, and daughter, Sailor!
A softie who won the Tough Cookie Award this year!
I think she is my latest girl crush!
Read More »
CARED. DON'T MAKE ME PAY A RAMSOM FOR THAT MAN MAKING IT LOOK LIKE I WANT HIM. LOL! Read More »