GOVERNOR, UNIVERSITY DENY TIES TO TERRORIST
In late August, the liberal website The Huffington Post wrote that domestic terrorist William Ayers had ties to the University of South Carolina and Gov. Mark Sanford.
According to the story, Ayers — whose group “The Weather Underground” bombed the Capitol, the Pentagon and police stations during the 1960s — has held the title of “distinguished scholar” at USC since 2005 for participating in an education project. He has attended various university events, been praised highly by school administrators, and even published columns (in fact, the photo of Ayers above was taken from the USC website). Sanford serves as an ex-officio member of the school’s Board of Trustees.
The piece went largely unnoticed for more than a month for two reasons: Ayers’ connections to Democrat Barack Obama hadn’t fully played out in the media and it was published during the Democrat’s national convention.
But now the Ayers-Obama story is dominating the news cycle, courtesy of Republican John McCain’s campaign. Part of Obama’s response was that Republicans like Sanford also have ties to Ayers. And both USC and Sanford have been forced to come out and deny the claims.
USC spokesman Russ McKinney said Monday Ayers is not a USC scholar. Ayers has visited the university a couple of times to participate in programs put on by the College of Education, celebrating the importance of teaching, McKinney said. He did not know when Ayers last visited, but thought it was a couple of years ago.
Joel Sawyer, Sanford’s spokesman, denounced the Obama campaign for spreading rumors.
“Gov. Sanford has never been in the same room with Bill Ayers,” Sawyer said.
Given Sanford’s fawning over Obama and failure to endorse a Republican during the primary, I guess this connection makes sense.
It seems pretty weak, and is certainly much less tangent than Obama’s, but you would think Sanford would have the sense to keep this guy away from USC. Not only is he on the board, he’s the governor.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Executive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
All this stuff with Ayers happened over 40 years ago, he’s a respected member of the Chicago community who does a lot for the disadvantaged — and he’s a scholar. What’s the big deal… oh wait there isn’t one it’s just the politics of fear and distraction.
Not to minimize what Ayers has done in the past, but he’s a professor at a major research university and has apparently done some very good work there (his book won an award from the USC education department). Anyone who associated with him/served on a board with him did so on the basis of his position as an educator, not a terrorist.
The board where Obama and Ayers worked together was for the Annenberg Challenge; you might remember Walter Annenberg, who provided the funds for this venture, as a Nixon and Regan appointee and philanthropist who was a lifelong Republican. This board contained both Republicans and Democrats. Obama worked on the same board as Ayers; Walter Annenberg’s organization approved Ayers grant application and gave him a chunk of cash.
This scandal is just as silly as Obama bringing up the Keating 5 after having a Dem member of the Keating 5 introduce him at a campaign event.
Hey everyone! Stop thinking about the economy tanking!
Instead, consider this pile of B.S. from the past!
Ayers tried to kill a New York Supreme Court judge, his wife and 9 year old son…as they slept in thier beds. Fortunatly, the bombs did not work as planned, and the family lived.
Ayers is not sorry for the attempt, and has said he is proud of what he did.
Any free man would have to be a fool to thinks Ayers is a “good man” or “respectable.
He recently said not only is he proud that he did the bombings, but he didn’t do enough.
Adam went to USC! And Ayers did an education project there at the same place while Adam was a student there! Adam is connected to Ayers and must be a domestic turrist too! Oh no oh no oh no.
“Any free man would have to be a fool to thinks Ayers is a “good man” or “respectable”
Well, Jim, as you can see there are plenty of fools on this thread who think just that. Hysterical to watch them poo-poo the guy…..but wait - he did that 40 years ago so it means nothing now……
So if McCain was friends with a nazi or a neo-nazi or David Duke, but didn’t know him at the time of the crime even though said nazi still adheres to that ideology, that’s just a-ok with you all? What kind of logic is this? What kind of morality is this? Obama has had a years long personal and professional relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers, launching his political career in Ayers home. Either you are unfamiliar with the politics of the Weathermen, which Bill Ayers STILL espouses, or the only other thing I can conclude is that you are all ok with domestic terrorists. After all, your candidate is!