Alert: The Chicago Annenberg Challenge/Obama/Ayers/ Daley Records Cover-up
The problem of Barack Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers will not go away. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn were terrorists for the notorious Weather Underground during the turbulent 1960s, turning fugitive when a bomb ” designed to kill army officers in New Jersey ” accidentally exploded in a New York townhouse. Prior to that, Ayers and his cohorts succeeded in bombing the Pentagon. Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant for their terrorist past. Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place “makes me want to puke.” Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers’s and Dohrn’s home, Obama has dismissed Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” For his part, Ayers refuses to discuss his relationship with Obama.
Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama’s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama’s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’s own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest.
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This much we know from the public record, but a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is likely to flesh out the story. That document cache contains the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The records in question are extensive, consisting of 132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material. Not only would these files illuminate the working relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers, they would also provide significant insight into a web of ties linking Obama to various radical organizations, including Obama-approved foundation gifts to political allies. Obama’s leadership style and abilities are also sure to be illuminated by the documents in question.
Unfortunately, I don’t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. Circumstances strongly suggest the likelihood that Bill Ayers himself may have played a pivotal role in this denial.
What could be so damaging in those records that would force them to be sealed suddenly?
We already know a good deal about Obama’s service at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That information paints a disturbing picture, and one sharply at odds with Obama’s claim that Bill Ayers was just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.” A number of bloggers, including, for example, Tom Maguire, at Just One Minute, have done excellent work on the CAC issue. (See here and here.) But the key reporting on the Obama-Ayers connection via the Chicago Annenberg Challenge has been done by Steve Diamond, at Global Labor and Politics. (See especially this important post of June 18, 2008.) Sad to say, the mainstream media has almost entirely ignored the issues so powerfully raised by Diamond, and discussed at length by various bloggers, even though Obama’s service at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge raises serious questions about the veracity of his account of his relationship with Ayers. Access to the CAC records promises to provide a treasure trove of documentary evidence fronting on this and many other critically important issues, from Obama’s policy views, to his political-ideological alliances, to his leadership abilities.
Via Flopping Aces:Â Here is Stanley Kurtz with Bill Bennett this morning
Kurtz continues:
Libraries are designed, not to unduly restrict information, but to make it available to an interested public. This country is now mere months away from a momentous presidential election in which a central issue is the political background and character of a relatively young and unknown senator. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge records almost surely contain important information on Senator Obama’s political associations, policy views, ideological leanings, and leadership ability. His role as board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is the most important executive experience Obama has held to date. Given this, the public has an urgent right to know what is in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records.
If you agree, then please write to the president of the University of Illinois system, B. Joseph White. Ask him to take immediate public steps to insure the safety of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, to release the identity of the Collection’s donor, and above all to swiftly make the Collection available to me, and to the public at large. You can find an email link for White here. Telephone, fax, and mailing addresses for White’s offices can be found here.
- Fire in the Night..The Weathermen tried to kill my family
- Ayers: “Guilty as sin, free as a bird, it’s a great country”
- UPDATED:Eric Holder, Who Was Deeply Involved In Pardons Of Two Weather Underground Terrorists and Marx Rich, Is On Obama’s Veep Search Committee UPDATE: Let’s Look At Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chief
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, third world county, DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, and Shadowscope, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
August 19, 2008 - 10:22 AM on August 19th, 2008
News & Opinion Roundup (19 Aug 08)
Obama plans vice-presidential announcement - His first choices, pictured below, could not be reached.
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…Officially a Christian Nation
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August 19, 2008 - 01:09 PM on August 19th, 2008
Romney Promotes McCain: ‘Judgment Comes from Experience’
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August 19, 2008 - 01:37 PM on August 19th, 2008
Why the fact that Ayers and his slut hate the flag, and hate America makes him the perfect liberal.
Liberals most hated symbol———>
August 19, 2008 - 01:47 PM on August 19th, 2008
Did you know that CHICAGO is said to come from a indian word meaning BAD SMELL nothing has changed in the windy city its still run by demacratic windbags like RICHARD DAILY
August 19, 2008 - 02:01 PM on August 19th, 2008
An American Carol
You will never believe what Hollywood has come up with next. This new film named, ‘An American Carol’, is a Conservatives rebuttal to Michael Moore’s debasing of America. (Hat tip: Angel of Woman Honor Thyself.)
August 19, 2008 - 08:30 PM on August 19th, 2008
The Degradation of the Democratic Soul
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The VP Madness Must End
Podcast Show Notes
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August 19, 2008 - 09:20 PM on August 19th, 2008
The VP Madness Must End
Podcast Show Notes
Thoughts on the rampant VP speculation.
The scurrilous allegations of McCain fabricating the “cross in the sand story” begin to unravel (Hat Tip: Instapundit.) with one of America’s most decorated soldiers backing …
August 20, 2008 - 09:07 AM on August 20th, 2008
News & Opinion Roundup (20 Aug 08)
Poll shows McCain in 5-point lead over Obama
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August 20, 2008 - 11:36 AM on August 20th, 2008
[...] Carl, Shadowscope, , The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, Democrat=Socialist, Right Voices, and Pursuing Holiness, thanks to Linkfest Haven [...]
August 20, 2008 - 11:47 AM on August 20th, 2008
[...] DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, , The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven [...]
August 20, 2008 - 02:22 PM on August 20th, 2008
100% pure grade a bullshit
You know, it is reading nonsense like this that really make me start to question what kind of place our country has turned into. If this Marine, Sgt. Jose Nazario, committed a crime, he should and would be reactivated, sent…
August 20, 2008 - 02:30 PM on August 20th, 2008
Snowy Egret
Until a few years ago I had lived my entire life in Chicago. How right you are about crocks in charge. The late Patty Bular and demo lacky years ago said “Chicago ain’t reday for reform” How right he still is 60 plus years later. Mayor Little Runts daddy stole Il for Kennedy in 1960, and the party of thieves is still corupt. Every time Little Runt gets up behind the podium, standing on a boster and 4 Chicago phone books, on his tippy toes and yaps like a dumb Chihuahua, I wish someone would wack him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Pinky Flamingo is parroting the same old BS sob story, Waa the election was stolen BullS**T you twinks just have to dredge up that same lie every day.
August 20, 2008 - 05:01 PM on August 20th, 2008
The Pink Flamingo’s 82nd Edition Thursday Thirteen
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August 20, 2008 - 10:46 PM on August 20th, 2008
James Hoyt: Hero Beyond MeasurE
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August 21, 2008 - 01:04 AM on August 21st, 2008
[...] Carl, Shadowscope, , The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, Democrat=Socialist, Right Voices, and Pursuing Holiness, thanks to Linkfest Haven [...]
August 21, 2008 - 07:47 PM on August 21st, 2008
Which member dose the LEGION OF DOOM dose obama want for his running mate? GROD or SOLOMON GRUNDY?
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[...] interviewed on the preliminary findings from the documents being unsealed. (Read the back story here. ) There is a reason that this is labeled The William Ayers ad that Barack Obama does not want you [...]