OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

chrispedersen · #11 November 5th, 2008, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tichy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Obama did associate with pseudo-marxist organizations, namely ACORN and to a lesser extent his church. He did remain in contact with Ayers until
2006, he does come from an intellectual tradition that tends to blame America first and always.

ACORN's not "pseudo-marxist." In fact I'm really not sure what "pseudo-marxist" is. You're either for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the destruction of the bourgeoisie or you're against it. Last I checked, Obama was against it. ACORN doesn't even have a stated position on taxes or the economy in general. Their focus is housing for low income people. The voter registration stuff spun out of that.

Ayers is a distinguished professor of education at U. Illinois Chicago. He and Obama served on a board about education reform (the Annenberg project) that had republican funding. Apparently he wasn't too much of a terrorist to get invited to sit on that board, or to be declared Chicagoan of the year in 1997 for his work on it. I'm not denying that they're acquaintances, even friends. What I'm denying is that Ayers is a "terrorist." That "didn't do enough" line about his activities in the 60's that keeps getting thrown around isn't "didn't bomb enough" but "didn't oppose the war effectively enough." Did he do some stupid things in the 60's? Yes. Is he a fringe voice or terrorist sympathizer now? Hardly.

If by "blame first and always" you mean "acknowledge errors and work to correct them," I agree. We've just had eight years of blame last and never, and boy did it work out great.

Thats simply not true. Both in his book and in an interview after 9/11 he said he was sorry he didn't do more. When asked (after 9/11) if he was sorry if he bombed the police station he said 'no'. His wife was #1 wanted female by the FBI with a heading of 'terrorist.'

Personally, I really despise the use of labels, so had I been advising the mccain camp I would have avoided calling him a terrorist, and avoiding saying things .. like socialist, liberal.

I would have tried to explain why the facts were relevent. Just using labels tends to overstate, and I think people rejected that.

But there will always be a significant portion of the population that does not feel that ayers is a distinguished member of society.