Over the past few weeks, Sarah Palin has been throwing around the word "terrorist" a lot, and connecting it to Barack Obama. She is using the very slim relationship between Obama and William Ayers as the justification for her charges. So let's examine who Bill Ayers is, whether he is connected to Barack Obama in any significant way, and whether the use of the word "terrorist" is appropriate.
William Ayers is a co-founder of the Weather Underground, a radical sixties group opposed to the Vietnam War and other U.S. policies. The sixties, as those of us old enough to remember know, was a crazy time. It was a violent time, a time of assassinations and war. Three beloved liberal leaders were killed and another liberal leader turned an advisory role in a faraway Southeast Asia country into a devastating war. The draft was enacted and young men were sent off to a war they either did not understand or understood all to well and condemned. 58,000 men died in that terrible and unnecessary war and young people throughout the country were enraged. A few took it too far and decided to use violence. William Ayers was one of those, his method of outrage a series of bombings of statues and buildings. In his actions, no one was ever killed, except a few Weather Underground members, and all bombings were preceded by written warnings to evacuate buildings. Once the war ended, the group stopped its actions and Ayers went underground himself. After turning himself in, and seeing charges against him dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct, he went on to distinguish himself as a professor and upstanding member of the community. Though he says he believes "we" (meaning all citizens) didn't do enough in the sixties to stop U.S. foreign policy, he does regret the violence he participated in. He has condemned all acts of terrorism, by small organizations and governments alike.
What Ayers did in the sixties cannot be excused. Neither can it be called terrorism, which targets innocent civilians in order to achieve some goal. Ayers was not a "terrorist." He and his group did heinous things - bombing always carries risk and is wrong even if all it does is hurt property - but they cannot be compared in any way to the Islamic terrorists who deliberately target civilians. In fact, Ayers has never been characterized as a terrorist until Sarah Palin came along to rescue John McCain's flaccid campaign. Those who acted as Ayers did in the sixties have always been called "radicals," but saying Obama "palled around" with radicals simply wouldn't have been good enough for Palin. She had to call him a terrorist because when you say "terrorist" people think of 9/11.
The word terrorist was deliberately chosen by McCain and Palin because it fit in with the other rumors supporters have been pushing - that Obama is a secret Muslim, that he is un-American, that he is somehow dangerous. What could be more dangerous than bombings? What could be more dangerous than being close to terrorists? Had McCain and Palin said Obama was a friend of a radical from the sixties, it would have fallen flat, because most voters today are too young to understand the sixties and what radical groups were objecting to. So all they had to do was change Ayers from a radical to a terrorist and they updated everyone's understanding and confirmed the fears of low information and misinformation voters - that Obama was dangerous.
Words matter - the Republicans have been using them cleverly and deviously for decades. "States rights" has been code for allowable segregation and racism. "Pro-abortion" has been used to define those people who don't want to criminalize something, no matter how they disapprove of it on a personal and moral level. "Blame American first crowd" has been used to describe people who are willing to criticize their country when it is wrong. "Free market" has been used to approve of greed.
So are William Ayers and Barack Obama palling around with each other? William Ayers and Barack Obama met in Chicago when they served on some charitable and education boards together, along with other prominent Chicago citizens. Ayers hosted one coffee for Obama when he ran for the state senate. Other than that, there is no connection. They are not good friends and Obama does not (as Palin accused him) "pal around" with Ayers.
So, to put it in simple terms - William Ayers was a sixties radical who destroyed property but never killed or injured anyone. Before this election, he has not been characterized as a "terrorist." Currently he is a respectable citizen and educator in Chicago. Barack Obama served on a few charity and education boards with him (though neither chose each other to particpate on the boards) and hosted one fundraiser early in Obama's career. The two have not had any relationship since 2002. And Obama has condemned Ayers' actions in the sixties.
Sarah Palin peddles nonsense about Obama, but it is nonsense that fires up her radical base, who shout radical (terrorist?) slogans themselves when she speaks. She is either too stupid to know that what she is saying is patently false, or she is deliberately misleading to destroy an opponent. Either way, she has insulted the intelligence of the American people, and done something no true Christian should do - she has lied and slandered a fellow human being, fellow American, and fellow Christian. And she seems to have no shame.
