I missed a few tidbits…

Fair&Unbalanced – Prisoner of His Own Campaign

Thank you to for your comment below, the article above, and for reminding me that I had forgotten about the “US Council for World Freedom”

And I think, by his own admission, that Obama was not 6 but 8 when Ayres was vandalizing statues and office buildings.  Which is only 10 years away from adulthod after all (as opposed to 12)  Come to think of it I think there were a few other people protesting the viet-nam war during those days, weren’t there?

So he *MUST* have known what he was doing – 8 is old enough, right?  (I myself was 4 when the charges were dropped, so I’m probably innocent.)

When I heard the advert that has been running on WTOP News here in the DC area over and over and over again, that “Ayres and Obama ran a radical education foundation together” I laughed so hard I almost hit the guy in front of me on Constitution avenue.  (Which probably would have gotten *ME* labelled a terrorist, the car had diplomatic plates on it)

The foundation they are referring to is the “Chicago Annenberg Challenge”  Oddly, named after Walter Annenberg – a prominent, lifelong republican, friend of the Regan family, ambassador under two very republican administrations, and creator of such radical publications as “TV Guide” and “Seventeen (Magazine)”

Obama served on the board of directors from the foundation’s inception in 1995 through it’s dissolution in 2001, and was chair for the first four years.  Ayres never served on the board, but worked prior to 1995 to help out the foundation up and running – but never made a decision or had a vote.

There are two different definitions of the word radical.  The campaign appears to have confused the two.  Clearly the invitation referred to “a considerable departure from the usual or traditional,” rather than “advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs.”

Teaching about the United Nations and African-American studies may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s hardly “radical” in the same way Ayers’ Vietnam-era activities were. Moreover, most of the projects the foundation funded were not remotely controversial.

See the ad here: