ElneClare wrote:
While Ayer, was a bomb maker and terrorist who served time and then reformed his ways,
He has not reformed at all though. He still believes what he believed back then. He's stated repeatedly that he does not feel bad about or regret what he did back then. And he actively works to pursue a "radical" education agenda. Basically, he wants to teach all kids in public school about just how horrible and racist their own country is, so that they'll hate it as much as he does.
Due to family connections and wealth, he's become an influential political mover and shaker and actually has the power and position to implement this agenda. And Obama worked with him on two of his major projects over the course of a decade, using his political position to help channel money into those programs (specifically the Anneberg Challenge), serving on the board of the latter with Ayers.
There's so much "stink" to his entire dealings with Ayer's, that it's shocking. Even if we ignore Ayer's history and agenda, the combination of money, politics, and favors going on between Obama and Ayer's would be worth of investigation.
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there are many of us who also remember the pain of those who lost money during the
Savings and loan crisis in the 1980's.
So what? This has nothing to do with the current economic crisis, other then vaguely connecting one to the other because they both have to do with economics. Also, McCain was investigated and exonerated for his involvement in the Keating affair. So we're going to blame McCain for an economic problem that isn't related in any way to another economic problem that occurred at the same time that some guy bribed some politician's, but didn't bribe McCain?
Guess I'm not seeing the logic. That's such a tenuous string of circumstances that it's hard to see how that works unless you willfully ignore any facts involved.
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I think with the current economic crisis, being linked as a member of the Keating Five, hurts McCain far more then Obama having served on a non-profit board with Ayers.
I'm not sure how the current economic crisis relates to either one. No one is vaguely suggesting that the S&L problems of the late 80s had anything at all to do with the problems occurring today.
The more relevant issue is about the candidates themselves. The Obama camp will work hard to make it about association. Word association I suppose, since that's all they've got. I just happen to think that information relevant to the candidate himself is vastly more relevant to the election than digging up a 20 year old story. I actually think that counter will backfire on the Obama camp. Sure. They'll get the idiots who don't bother to learn anything about history. But that's about it. The message you get from the Keating 5 story is one of a politician getting caught up in a scandal through no fault of his own, and learning from that to keep his nose absolutely clean from then on. He used it as a reason to make himself as much above reproach in terms of honesty and integrity as possible so that he'd never even accidentally end up in that situation again.
Let's face it. Obama simply pales when stood up next to McCain in this area. Obama seems to have fully embraced the "backscratch" approach to politics, and blatantly so. One need only look at the bills he's supported, and who the money went to. You can't miss the pattern. The only thing different is that no one's actually investigated all the different funds and programs and organizations that Obama has been involved with in one way or another. Gee. I wonder why not?
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And if a politician can't accept donations or have a neighbor give them a to hold a fund raiser event, then few would ever have a chance at being elected to local dog catcher.
Sure. But you'd expect that the politician would be held to account for the policies and past of the person holding the event, right? If the head of the local KKK chapter hosted the kickoff party for a politicians first run, wouldn't you think that was relevant in terms of judging the candidate himself? You'd assume that person shared ideas with the candidate and perhaps held some influence on him as well, right? Otherwise why support him?
It's a matter of degrees. If you donate to someone's campaign, I assume that maybe the candidate shares something with you that you like, but I certainly don't hold the candidate accountable for every whackjob position you may hold. If you host an event or get involved in some specific drive on behalf of the candidate, I might think that you and he share even more in common, but again, I'm not going to assume that it's everything. But guess what? If that candidate gets his start by pushing one of your pet political projects (coming to your attention in fact), then you later patron that person and help him get into his first office, and then later that candidate joins you to work on the board of yet another political project you run (with help from funding he obtained with the political position you helped him get), I'm going to think that the two of you share a very very common political view, aren't I?
So yeah. That's pretty darn relevant. And it has *nothing* to do with the Keating 5. That's a pretty clear attempt at distraction. The two are not related in any way at all. It's pure smokescreen...
