Obama launched his career in the home of these two unrepentent terrorists. Palin's statement stands.
Have you read the
Factcheck article on the Ayers connection? Factcheck finds that the accusations of a close relationship are on tenuous ground at best. The conclusion of the article is as follows:
Voters may differ in how they see Ayers, or how they see Obama’s interactions with him. We’re making no judgment calls on those matters. What we object to are the McCain-Palin campaign’s attempts to sway voters – in ads and on the stump – with false and misleading statements about the relationship, which was never very close. Obama never “lied” about this, just as he never bragged about it. The foundation they both worked with was hardly “radical.” And Ayers is more than a former "terrorist," he’s also a well-known figure in the field of education.
Whatever you may think of Ayers, and I don't know enough to draw my own conclusion, Obama's acquaintance with him appears to be pretty slight. Certainly nothing that would justify the accusation of 'palling around'. Can any politician say that they did not shake the hand of, or were not in the same meeting, or a member of the same organisation, or in the same room at some point as someone they would rather not be associated with?
One thing I found interesting, in last night's post-debate analysis, was the very negative reaction of undecided voters to McCain's pushing of the Ayers issue. It turned them right off McCain at that moment - his negatives shot up. Now, whether they think that Ayers is a distraction from the real issues, or whether it's more to do with undecided voters really hating negative campaigning, I don't know, but it definitely had a huge adverse impact on them.
Wendy
