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to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Barack Obama says he met Bill Ayers through a school reform project
Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 11:15 am - by Alan Tu. Filed under: Politics.
Speaking this morning on a Philadelphia talk show Barack Obama says he first met Bill Ayers on a project funded by a former close friend of Ronald Reagan. In an interview with Michael Smerconish on WPHT 1210AM, the democratic presidential candidate said after he finished law school he become involved in a lot of civic activities, and he participated in a school reform meeting where Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader was also invited. Ayers, was then and still is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Illinois senator re-iterated his position that Ayers does not advise his campaign, and that he strongly condemns Ayers actions in the 60s. Republican presidential candidate John McCain is using the Ayers story in an effort to breath life into his campaign, which has lost momentum in recent weeks. To hear the full interview check out WPHT’s website
Seantor Obama will be in Philadelphia this evening for a fundraising event, and has four public campaign rallies planned for tomorrow. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will drop the puck tomorrow night at the Philadelphia Flyers game against the New York Rangers at the Wachovia Center at 7:00pm.
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October 10th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Always Fact Check people!! Go to factcheck.com Go to http://www.politifact.com
You can even go to For more reporting links on related stories go to http://fightthesmears.com/articles/22/AyersSmear for even more info on the below!
In addition, I want to point out that there were many Republican on this Republican sponsored committe that Obama is getting heat for.
Below is the article from the Fighting the Smears website.
Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques. Here’s the truth: the smear associating Barack to Ayers is “phony,” “tenuous,” – even “exaggerated at best if not outright false.”
William Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with whom Barack served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990’s. According to the Associated Press, they are not close: “No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago …”
Smear groups and the McCain campaign are trying to connect Obama to acts Ayers committed 40 years ago – when Barack was just eight years old. Here’s what the New York Times reported on the connection:
But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”
Barack has publicly denounced Ayers’ radical actions from the 1960’s:
Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.
For more articles links on related stories go to http://fightthesmears.com/articles/22/AyersSmear
October 10th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I think the above poster meant http://www.factcheck.org/, the .com site is an advert site. factcheck.org is run by The Annenberg Center at UPenn and is pretty good at remaining neutral which, I believe, is what this site is going for.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Philip..You’re right about factcheck.org being the right website. It’s nice to see Penn playing such an important role in this election.