BO: block political speech

[oldhardhead]

"If you can’t win on the merits, file a lawsuit"

Sen. Barack Obama has launched an all-out effort to block a Republican billionaire’s efforts to tie him to domestic and foreign terrorists in a wave of negative television ads.

Ads by a Republican billionaire. Is that George Soros? No, wait that's a Democrat billionaire financing ads.

“This is a sad ploy to circumvent the First Amendment by a campaign who has no arguments with the merits of our ad. It’s the classic maneuver: If you can’t win on the merits, file a lawsuit,” said a spokesman for the American Issues Project, Christian Pinkston, who said his group's non-profit status allowed it to participate in elections as long as it does a majority of policy work, which it plans to do.

That doesn't seem proper.

Obama’s campaign has ( click here ) written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,” the vehicle through which Dallas investor Harold Simmons is financing the advertisements. The Obama campaign — and tens of thousands of supporters — also is pressuring television networks and affiliates to reject the ads. The effort has met with some success: CNN and Fox News are not airing the attacks.

"and tens of thousands of supporters". I can imagine. What, pray tell, might this ad be about?

The ad focuses on Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, a Hyde Park acquaintance at whose home Obama attended a gathering early in his political career. Ayers is a complicated figure: professor and adviser to the mayor of Chicago despite not having repented his past as a domestic terrorist with the Weather Underground.

Lemme see. hmmm. Name rings a bell.

Obama has launched a response ad, which addresses McCain directly, and will air in Ohio, Tracey said.
"With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the '60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?" says Obama’s ad. "McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old."

Even the ASSociated Press is reporting it: The Associated Press: Obama seeks to silence ad tying him to 60s radical

Didn't BO launch his Senate campaign at ("radical") Ayer's house?

Better not let the voters read this: debunking obamas-ayers fact sheet





MORE!

What about the 132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material concerning the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (see earlier post).
If BO is trying to silence a political ad, then is a cover-up at the university likely?

[Pineygirl]

I urge everyone to read the Townhall.com link in OHH's post ("Debunking the Obama-Ayres fact sheet).

I suspect that many of us on this forum were, like Obama, very young when all of that went down. I remember it vividly, and the Weather Underground weren't just left-leaning student protestors. They were terrorists in every sense of the word.

Several SDS and Weather Underground terrorists came to their senses and issued statements regretting their violent ways. Others served prison sentences for their crimes (one, who escaped custody and was recaptured, is now serving her term).

Ayres and Dorhn have remained unrepentant -- AND THAT IS THE KEY.

And don't think "serving on a board" is like sitting on a planning board dais once a month. Obama pretty much ran the organization with Ayres as his BOSS, for crying out loud. And for Ayres and Dorhn to host Obama's coming out party means a closer relationship than Obama has admitted to.

Obama has a nerve trying to sue to block political speech. He's a public figure in an arena where malicious speech is common and expected on both sides. I thought he was a big boy who could take it. But perhaps he is, as one McCain ad says, "afraid of the truth."

Which is why, if he wins, I will stop posting about him on forums and hope his henchmen don't go back too far in the archives looking for people to come after.

[Pineygirl]

This must be the Democrat tactic du jour. Very similar to The Sentinel's efforts to block all opposition opinion in that paper.

[Arius]

More "conservative" feel good nonsense. Seems like you guys are more about knocking down the other guy's house just because you don't like your own.

And it is boring.

[oldhardhead]

New Obama ad: Why is McCain trying to distract us with that unrepentant terrorist I’m friends with?

Even the lefty USA Today noticed.

Obama dogged by links to 1960s radical - USATODAY.com

The article seems to make excuses as much as the campaign does.

It doesn't say much about Obama threatens TV stations airing Ayers ad

It says:

The campaign also released a letter sent last week to TV stations disputing the ad's truthfulness.

That's it. That's all it says. Nothing about the lawsuit.

One interesting note:

Documents released today by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) will be scrutinized for clues to the relationship.

Ayers was a founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school-reform group. Obama chaired its board from 1995-99. National Review reported last week that UIC said records detailing meetings and other business were public, then reversed itself. UIC said Friday there was a misunderstanding.

That's it. That's all it says.

It says "In 1995, Ayers hosted a brunch for Obama, who was running for the Illinois Senate." It doesn't mention that it was in Ayer's home!

The "Documents released today" part of it is interesting. Did they have enough time to filter out the good parts?

[oldhardhead]

abc7chicago.com: U of I at Chicago opens Ayers records 8/26/08

Journalists, as well as political operatives from both parties, were waiting for the doors to open Tuesday morning at the UIC library's special collections department. They are now going over some 137 boxes containing files from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The foundation was dedicated to improving public education in Chicago. Obama was chairman for three years starting in 1995. He remained on the board until it closed in 2001.

Journalists and political operatives from both parties are busy poring over a massive number of files released Tuesday morning at UIC's library.

No word on the whereabouts of Democrat President William Jefferson Clinton's National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger who was fined $50,000 for illegally removing highly classified documents from the National Archives and intentionally destroying some of them.

[Pineygirl]

Originally Posted by Arius

More "conservative" feel good nonsense. Seems like you guys are more about knocking down the other guy's house just because you don't like your own.

And it is boring.

Conservative?
OK, so let me get this straight.
It's a "conservative" stance to question a Presidential candidate's ties to UNREPENTANT terrorists?
People who BOMBED the Pentagon,
Does that mean liberals are OK with it?
Even the NY Bar Association refused to pass Bernardine Dorhn because of her character. But it's OK for a potential President to hang around them?

Here's an edited version of 2001 NY Times article:

''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.''…

“Mr. Ayers, who in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as: ''Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at,'' is today distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“He went underground in 1970, after his girlfriend, Diana Oughton, and two other people were killed when bombs they were making exploded in a Greenwich Village town house. With him in the Weather Underground was Bernardine Dohrn, who was put on the F.B.I.'s 10 Most Wanted List. J. Edgar Hoover called her ''the most dangerous woman in America'' and ''la Pasionara of the Lunatic Left.'' Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn later married.
“In his book Mr. Ayers describes the Weathermen descending into a ‘whirlpool of violence.'
''Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,'' he writes. But then comes a disclaimer: ‘Even though I didn't actually bomb the Pentagon -- we bombed it, in the sense that Weathermen organized it and claimed it.’ He goes on to provide details about the manufacture of the bomb and how a woman he calls Anna placed the bomb in a restroom. No one was killed or injured, though damage was extensive.
“Between 1970 and 1974 the Weathermen took responsibility for 12 bombings, Mr. Ayers writes, and also helped spring Timothy Leary (sentenced on marijuana charges) from jail.
“So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again, he is asked? 'I don't want to discount the possibility,' he said.”

No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen - New York Times

[Arius]

No Piney, it is your duty to question everything about the other guy while overlooking the faults of YOUR guy. I know, Ayers is so bad he never spent a day in jail.

And Obama is not associated with Ayers of the 60's and 70's, he is associated with the Ayers of the 21st century that has certainly done more good for people than either Obama or McCain put together.

And no, before you say that I am an Ayers supporter, I detest the man's politics, although I certainly believe it his right to have them.

[oldhardhead]

"the Ayers of the 21st century that has certainly done more good for people than either Obama or McCain put together" - Arius

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui egat.

[Pineygirl]

Originally Posted by oldhardhead

"the Ayers of the 21st century that has certainly done more good for people than either Obama or McCain put together" - Arius

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui egat.

Ego congruo