Why William Ayers Matters
Byron York [via Instapundit] gets to the key point about Sen. Obama’s smear of Sen. Tom Coburn:
As it was, Obama used his Senate colleague Coburn to suggest that the issue was not one of violence, and radicalism, and lawbreaking, but rather a simple disagreement: Sen. Coburn and I disagree on some things, and yet we’re still friendly. Bill Ayers and I disagree on some things, and yet we’re still friendly. So what’s the problem?
That’s not quite good enough.
Obama needs to tell us more about his relationship with Ayers. It’s important because voters might well wonder whether that relationship, coupled with Obama’s longtime relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is the beginning of a pattern, a pattern in which Obama seems quite comfortable with people who really, really, really don’t like the United States of America.
It’s a reasonable question, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) was right to suggest that Republicans will raise it in the general election campaign if Obama is the Democratic candidate.
They will — and they should.
Why not clear it up now?
Obama had a chance to clarify his relationship with Ayers.
Nothing in what I’ve seen and read about Obama indicates he hates the United States. I would fine it odd for someone to seek the nation’s highest office if he despised what he would lead. What Obama has failed to answer is why he hung around with people like Ayers and Jeremiah Wright who have spoke and acted on behalf of violent extremism and revolution. (See the Obama book quote courtesy of Tom Maguire.) How does that play into Obama’s world view and his approach to constitutional government? Presidential leadership is more than the goodies he or she can dole out.
“Barack and the Bomber”
