Opinion

Opinion: Under the weather

The nominees are not extensions of controversial supporters

By Mario Moretto

Posted on Oct. 09, 2008, at 12:00 a.m.

Sean Hannity recently hosted an hour-long special program called “Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism.” The program harped on a new theme in the smear campaign against Barack Obama that attempts to highlight his relationship with Bill Ayers, distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. The link between the two involves little more than working together to fight poverty, reform the education system and Ayers’ political support of Obama. They also lived in the same neighborhood of Chicago at one point, but none of this is the impression we’re supposed to have of the link between the two.

We’re supposed to think of Ayers not as the professor and progressive activist that he is today, but as the founder of the Weather Underground, the radical student group of the late 1960s and ’70s responsible for the bombings of the San Francisco Police Department and the Pentagon, among others. We’re supposed to think of the casual ties between the two men as Obama “palling around with terrorists,” according to Gov. Sarah Palin.

The surprising thing about all this is not that these ideas are out there; you can find plenty about Obama being a Muslim, a communist, a radical, a disciple of Saul Alinsky or even the Antichrist if you look for them on the Internet. The amazing thing is the great insult delivered by Sean Hannity, Fox News and anyone else giving the “dangerous nature” of this relationship any amount of credence.

Often Ayers is quoted as not regretting his actions with the Weathermen, but this is irrelevant to the issue. Ayers turned himself in to the police in 1980 and has since re-entered mainstream society to become a respected professor and progressive activist. The Ayers that Obama met in Chicago while working to better his community was not the same Ayers that went underground in 1969.

An interesting question can be raised from all of this: Does the history of a candidate’s supporter matter, when judging the character of the candidate himself?

A candidate is not an extension of the most radical of his supporters. The KKK supports John McCain. Ahmed Yousef – chief political adviser to the Prime Minister of Hamas – expressed his endorsement of Obama back in April. This doesn’t mean that Obama supports the ideals and goals of Hamas or that McCain is burning crosses in Montgomery. Any nutjob, on the left or right of the political spectrum, can endorse a candidate for any reason.

It is the responsibility of the candidate to clear up any misconceptions that may be caused by this – which Obama has done repeatedly stating that he doesn’t support the actions of the Weathermen 40 years ago, when he was 8 years old. It is the responsibility of the voters to stay educated on the positions of the candidates, and perhaps most importantly, it is the responsibility of the media to not blow tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories out of context in a way that could, intentionally or not, mislead the public.

Mario Moretto is opinion editor for The Maine Campus and does pal around with terrorists.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.