Guilt by association or a verdict on judgment?
posted at 11:35 am on April 18, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Barack Obama has spent the last year explaining why his lack of experience is an asset for his candidacy for the White House. Experience doesn’t make up for judgment, he has told rapturous audiences. His judgment outweighs the slightly longer experience of Hillary Clinton and the vastly superior experience of John McCain because he won’t be obligated by decades of connections in the Beltway environment.
Now, however, his campaign has suddenly balked at looking at Obama’s connections outside the Beltway. Calling that “guilt by association”, they have pushed back against criticism of Obama’s political and personal connections to people like Jeremiah Wright, William Ayer, and Rashid Khalidi. Andrew McCarthy puts all of them together into a single coherent narrative that explains the sudden offensive from Team Obama:
Why is Barack Obama so comfortable around people who so despise America and its allies? Maybe it’s because they’re so comfortable around him.
He presents as the transcendent agent of “change.” Sounds platitudinous, but it’s really quite strategically vaporous. Sen. Obama is loath to get into the details of how we should change, and, as the media’s Chosen One, he hasn’t had to.
But he’s not, as some hopefully dismiss him, a charismatic lightweight with a gift for sparkling the same old vapid cant. Judging from the company he chooses to keep, Obama’s change would radically alter this country. He eschews detail because most Americans don’t believe we’re a racist, heartless, imperialist cesspool of exploitation. The details would be disqualifying.
McCarthy provides the details. Included among them:
- The connection to William Ayers was no accident of geography. Michelle Obama picked him to sit on a panel with Barack in 1997 on juvenile crime, two years after meeting with them for support in his race for the state senate.
- They participated in a panel together called “Intellectuals in Times of Crisis” in 2002, well after Ayers’ comments about being unrepentant for his terrorism got published on 9/11. Bernadine Dohrn participated in a panel at the same event.
- Ayers and Dorhn joined the Obamas in celebrating the departure of Rashid Khalidi to a new post at Columbia University, after Ayers and Obama helped get Woods Foundation funds to Khalidi’s AAAN, to the tune of $75,000. Khalidi was a fanatical supporter of Yasser Arafat and a purported operative of the PLO. Khalidi hosted a fundraiser for Obama in 2000 as well.
These aren’t just “associations”; these are associates in every sense of the word. As the candidate who wants to criticize the strings attached to his opponents through years in the Beltway, he had better expect the same kind of scrutiny for his connections during years in the hard-Left movement in Chicago. And for a man who asks us to trust his judgment without having established any kind of track record, it’s almost laughable that he finds our questions about his judgment in selecting his political associates out of bounds.
Be sure to read all of McCarthy’s excellent column.
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This is ridiculous. This guy is going to be responsible for selecting a cabinet, if he wins.
If he makes poor selections for companions, why should we think he’ll make good cabinet selections?
This guy has a one-page resume. Is everything off limits, since there is really nothing to discuss as far as his lightweight record is concerned?
NoDonkey on April 18, 2008 at 11:41 AM
Bravo, Captain Ed! Another excellent analysis!
Red Pill on April 18, 2008 at 11:42 AM
judge a man by the company he keeps..
Look how Bill Clinton stacked his cabinet members and court nominees..
(Not a comparison, but another character example)
The reformed alcoholic hangs out with others in recovery,
the drunk hangs out in a bar with other drunks… (or a solitary loner at home..)
DaveC on April 18, 2008 at 11:43 AM
We know all this already and none of it matters to Obama supporters. THEY. DON’T. CARE!
Yakko77 on April 18, 2008 at 11:45 AM
How apt is that???
Corky on April 18, 2008 at 11:47 AM
Ed, I think this means you’re a racist.
Darksean on April 18, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Really though, ya gotta sympathize with Senator Obama. Fufilling Hope through the implementation of Change is hard enough without everyone throwing questions at him.
scatbug on April 18, 2008 at 11:50 AM
EXCELLENT article by Andrew McCarthy. This should be reported non stop all over. As soon as I read Michelle’s thesis, I knew race was fore-front on her mind and still is.
They are both race obsessed, elitist, haters.
I want to see Andrew on tv and the radio with this.
This article was factual, it was great.
Conservatives R Us on April 18, 2008 at 11:50 AM
Chicago is hardly Cambridge, Berkeley or Madison. It’s your standard blue collar, democrat machine city. He went OUT OF HIS WAY to break bread with the political fringe in Chicagoland.
AYNBLAND on April 18, 2008 at 11:51 AM
The sad thing is that the following is equally true:
In my opinion, it appears that both of them (and Hillary, too) support this program.
If I’m wrong, why won’t John McCain do a 1-on-1 interview with Michelle Malkin?
Answer: He’s trying to hide who he really is, but an examination of his record in the Senate, combined with his public statements, reveals who he really is.
Red Pill on April 18, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Thank God some people are clearly highlighting these points for those that haven’t quite picked up on the reality of Obama yet. It’s no accident that many of his stances are left vague and undefined, as there is no chance that he could maintain the level of support he currently enjoys if the mainstream citizen caught wind. For each hardcore leftist that revels in Obama’s true views and connections, there are several deluded folks will jump off this bandwagon once the veil is finally lifted. Platitudes and smooth talking can only go so far.
Mr Tips on April 18, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Excellent link. Thank you, Ed.
a capella on April 18, 2008 at 11:52 AM
The liberal media are not as omipotent as they used to be. They can no longer completely cut off conservative discussion ltogether. But they are still able to delineate the SCOPE of any argument.
During the Kerry campaign they were successful in limiting discussion of his career to one thing he did forty years ago, and the very last sentence to leave his mouth - and absolutely nothing in-between.
But they STILL lost. So now they want to take one more item off the list of permitted topics.
logis on April 18, 2008 at 11:52 AM
I don’t have to look any farther than the wife he chose to associate with…
Theresa Heinz Obama, pretty much torpedoes the “judgement” argument for Barack Hussein Obama.
heldmyw on April 18, 2008 at 11:53 AM
He’s abosolutely, tragically right. Obama supporters are either for him because he’s black/young, or for him because he’s a radical; if they’re under 21, probably because they think it’s cool that he did drugs. If you think they don’t know, why is Hillary being treated as a conservative? Because she is, when compared to Obama - the farthest-left serious presidential candidate in history. It’s like the Democrats are trying to nominate Che Guevara (whose image adorns at least one Obama center, another sign of his voters’ complete lack of political understanding).
It’s no mistake that terrorists, Black Panthers (I think), and Code Pink’s are for Obama. He is, in a word, crazy. He is the single worst thing that could happen to this country, and I don’t say that lightly.
Which is why I think Hillary will have the nomination. She’s closer to actual Democrats than Obama is. Nominating Obama is similar to nominating Goldwater in ‘64 (Buckley himself said that, if some sea change like the conservative one were to happen, it would almost certainly have to be socialist, because that’s what’s ostracized today) - handing the party over to the true, die-hard believers. And they are, in light of their stances on terrorists, abortion, infanticide, etc., plain evil.
emailnuevo on April 18, 2008 at 11:54 AM
Does it get any more pretentious and arrogant than that?
TheBigOldDog on April 18, 2008 at 11:54 AM
McCain and Hillary are BFF.
Red Pill on April 18, 2008 at 11:54 AM
Running for President is HARD.
Poor guy, he was supposed to be a shoe-in!
Your Jewish Master on April 18, 2008 at 11:56 AM
Obama has a bad case of fleas. I suggest he go to a good vet and get rid of the company he keeps.
katieanne on April 18, 2008 at 11:57 AM
A
manchief executive officer isknowndefined by the company he keeps.logis on April 18, 2008 at 11:58 AM
You’re claiming that McCain has the same terrorist connections as Obama? I know you are obsessed, but this goes beyond the realm of simple delusion.
a capella on April 18, 2008 at 11:58 AM
Keep the pressure on this dolt and never let up. It’s obvious that he lacks strength of character; competence; and the intellectual depth to deal with the country’s problems and demands. For the sake of the Republic he must be soundly beaten in the general election.
rplat on April 18, 2008 at 12:02 PM
We know all this already and none of it matters to Obama supporters. THEY. DON’T. CARE!
Yakko77 on April 18, 2008 at 11:45 AM
You are absolutely correct about that. However, we can only hope and pray that enough voters who aren’t deaf, dumb, and blind are waking up to who and what this clueless and dangerous man is. The curtain is being pulled back and the picture is extremely ugly!
libhater on April 18, 2008 at 12:04 PM
Anyone who dares to question Barack’s judgement is racist. Boy that’s easy, isn’t it?
TooTall on April 18, 2008 at 12:06 PM
NoDonkey, Not only are his choices for cabinet worrisome, how about the Supreme Court?
He doesn’t even know what his pastor says in church, Ayers’ past, nor Rezko. Obama must be the most aloof man in politics.
jencab on April 18, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Yakko, sure the Obama kool-aide drinkers either agree with him or don’t care/won’t listen to anything negative about him. I don’t think the majority of American voters are Obama kool-aide drinkers just yet.
The MSM will do anything they can to try to get the majority of American voters to become Obama kool-aide drinkers, and will apparently have the support of lunatics like Red Pill in their efforts.
Which is why I still fear that Obama could become POTUS. Thanks to loons like Red Pill, Valiant, and Bob Barr.
Just google some of these names from the 2002 event:
Obama hangs around with these people because he likes them and agrees with them.
Patricia Williams for Attorney General? Douglass Cassel for SCOTUS along with Harold Koh?
Yeah, McCain’s just as bad as Obama. If you come from Uranus.
funky chicken on April 18, 2008 at 12:06 PM
If we learned that a few years ago, John McCain accepted David Duke’s invitation to use his home for a reelection fundraiser, and the two had worked together on other projects, I think the press would be talking about it. It would be all the press talked about until the election, and with some justification. Same for Obama’s association with an unrepentant anti-American terrorist. Rev. Wright just talked trash. Ayers acted it out.
RBMN on April 18, 2008 at 12:08 PM
Geez, I hadn’t even thought about Obama’s cabinet…what a motley crew that’s going to be, shall we start taking bets?
Secretary of State: Jimmy Carter
Secretary of Defense: the short blonde chicky from Code Pink
Press Secretary: Chris Matthews
Chief of Homeland Security: Anybody from LaRaza
JustTruth101 on April 18, 2008 at 12:11 PM
Exactly.
We all need to vote on election day. If Obama becomes POTUS then….. I don’t even want to think about it. It’s too horrifying.
Yakko77 on April 18, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Andrew McCarthy has become quite an insightful man since his “Weekend At Bernie’s” days.
saved on April 18, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Patricia J. Williams (born 1951) is a prominent law critic and a proponent of critical race theory, an offshoot of 1960s social movements that emphasizes race as a fundamental determinant of the American legal system.
Williams received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in 1972, and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1975. She was a fellow in the School of Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth College and has been an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and its department of women’s studies. Williams also worked as a consumer advocate in the office of the City Attorney in Los Angeles.
Williams is a member of the State Bar of California and the Federal Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Williams has served on the advisory council for the Medgar Evers College for Law and Social Justice of the City University of New York and on the board of governors for the Society of American Law Teachers, among others.
She was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, which she held from June 2000 until June 2005.
funky chicken on April 18, 2008 at 12:16 PM
In some minds, there is only one man who can save us from this madness, and Red Pill prays to him every night that the Shi’ite Republicans be left to wander in the desert for 40 years.
a capella on April 18, 2008 at 12:18 PM
obama is toast.
jimmer on April 18, 2008 at 12:18 PM
Hey BO…this stuff DOES matter!! Did you actually think the entire voting population of the US was going to just faint at your feet?
Half of the population is brain dead but the other half does care about the country and our future. We have lives and families. We don’t want this great country totally destroyed and dismantled by a Socialist Utopian who hates this country. Unlike your nasty wife, we are very proud of this country and all it has done for the good of mankind.
Screw you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
libhater on April 18, 2008 at 12:24 PM
poison:
Read this whole article to learn more about Williams’s world view.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080324/williams
Grievance theater snippet:
Minor quibble: isn’t this “Flavor Flav” dude black? So we have a black guy putting on extremely offensive anti-black shows and that is somehow Whitey’s fault?
Well, of course. Everything is Whitey’s fault to these people.
funky chicken on April 18, 2008 at 12:27 PM
My son who’ll turn 18 in May will be voting for the first time this November. He wanted to vote for the fellow Black man. Having watched the last debate, he changed his mind. Even he has come to see Obama as an empty suit, a flashy well spoken empty suit.
Zaire67 on April 18, 2008 at 12:29 PM
Because the Emperor hasn’t been vetted, he’s being unveiled brutally, all at once, and he’s feeling the cold.
Entelechy on April 18, 2008 at 12:37 PM
While I feel the opinions expressed concerning “New Orleans Tragedy”, criminal activity and the opinions of overly compensated Black women are due great criticism. MTV & VH1 are extremely Liberal channels that are geared toward teenagers and young adults, not Black owned or operated. Please, could someone identify one program that doesn’t depict Blacks in a negative light on either channel? I can’t tell as I had those channels blocked from my home.
Zaire67 on April 18, 2008 at 12:42 PM
“Michelle Obama picked him (Ayers) to sit on a panel with Barack in 1997 on juvenile crime”…extreme irony.
“They participated in a panel together called “Intellectuals in Times of Crisis” in 2002″…aren’t intellectuals on the left always in crisis whenever they’re confronted by reality?
“Khalidi was a fanatical supporter of Yasser Arafat”…isn’t that a bit redundant when describing PLO members?
No criticisms here, I’m just pointing out the insanity of the terrorist mindset and those who support it.
Yea, Barry H. O. (and Hilly; there’s oodles of terrorist connections w/ the Clintoons), should just grow up and answer the questions.
Christine on April 18, 2008 at 12:43 PM
My first laugh of the day (its 6:44 here)- thank you.
HawaiiLwyr on April 18, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Zaire67 I don’t watch much TV, and MTV and VH1 don’t get viewed in my home either.
I don’t think the content on BET is terribly edifying either though.
What do you mean by “overly compensated” in your post?
funky chicken on April 18, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Great comment from the thread down the page on this subject:
GTG, terrible headache.
funky chicken on April 18, 2008 at 12:51 PM
Yeah, but McCain isn’t conservative enough. And sometimes he shakes the hand of a Democrat.
exhelodrvr on April 18, 2008 at 12:51 PM
RP, accusing McCain of supporting the Communist Party is sort of self-discrediting. I respect that you have policy differences with McCain; so do it. But you might benefit in that debate by acknowledging that he is much closer to your positions than either of the Democrats, and not create bizarre communist conspiracies to support your position.
Jaibones on April 18, 2008 at 12:55 PM
He’s had everyone fawning all over him his whole life telling him he’s mister wonderful and has never been criticized like this before. He has no tools with which to handle it other than the “victim” fall back.
ronsfi on April 18, 2008 at 1:03 PM
Be careful. All of you are about to be labeled bitter, small-town racists. No one criticizes the Messiah and gets away with it.
sdd on April 18, 2008 at 1:08 PM
Great job, Ed. Doing the job the MSM won’t. Are you Latino?
d1carter on April 18, 2008 at 1:18 PM
Every voter should think about the “bad” people they’ve voluntarily associated with over the last 20 years, or their whole life if under 30.
We all have a few. The guy from high school who ended up in jail. The co-worker who got caught embezzling or insider trading. Somebody with a DUI or drug arrest.
But how many of us can even be remotely associated with any one of these, much less all of them:
• A racist, anti-American, anti-Semitic, conspiracy theorist “spiritual mentor”
• A shady Syrian financier, from whom generous financial contributions and assistance with a $1 million+ home purchase came over the course of 17 years
• An unrepentant anti-American terrorist bomber and his wife
And the media and Democrats expect us to just overlook all that? It’s not like the neighborhood is teeming with these kinds of people.
Seems to me Obama’s associations are the result of conscious choice, not just random circumstance.
Gilda on April 18, 2008 at 1:22 PM
Reverend Wright, William Ayers, Bernadine Dorn, Tony Rezko, Rasheed Khalidi.
I wonder if Obama has T-Mobile. His “Fave Five” is already set. He should do commercials for them.
rihar on April 18, 2008 at 1:27 PM
Page 14 of William Ayers Woods Fund annual report is interesting.
Woods Fund gave grant to the Inner-city Muslim
Action Network (iman). Identified, developed and engaged 20 additional leaders to mobilize around incarceration
alternatives for nonviolent offenders. provided public testimony and public education in support of the new criminal
justice code;Expanded outreach to former offenders, held community forums, and printed newsletters
to increase public engagement on issues of concern.
• Received a three-year grant from the Marguerite Casey Foundation and were invited to
submit full proposals to the Chicago Community Trust and the Wieboldt Foundation.
faraway on April 18, 2008 at 1:42 PM
Also, on p.17. Woods Fund funded Prison Reform Inc. (PRI) was founded in 2003 by Minister Abdullah
Muhammad, National Director of the Nation of Islam’s Prison Reform Ministry, as
a community-based extension of the work conducted by the Ministry
faraway on April 18, 2008 at 1:44 PM
Obama has done so little in public office, that he has to be taken to task on his personal life. He has no real resume of any great length.
Like I said…don’t blame him, he hasn’t done anything…
*
But look at his cronies, and you get a sense of where his mind and heart is.
right2bright on April 18, 2008 at 1:55 PM
So if you are an anarchist bomber, a Jihadi racist or a Black racist, that qualifies you to be an “intellectual”? It seems the lunatic Michelle Obama thinks so. Is that a way of softening the danger these people pose?
That’s not who a future president should be associating with. Save that for pathetic ex-presidents. The president of this nation should be protecting against those type of people, not sitting on panels with them. Leave that to the U.N.
Hening on April 18, 2008 at 2:29 PM
Guilt by association?
Barack Hussein Obama has surrounded himself with anti-Semites, terrorists and terror apologists.
SNOBama’s “fathers”:
SNOBama’s “money men”:
SNOBama’s anti-Semitic “advisors”:
Judging by the people he surrounds himself with, Barack Hussein Obama intends to “Wipe Israel Off the Map”.
DANEgerus on April 18, 2008 at 2:33 PM
great comment danegerous.
funky chicken on April 18, 2008 at 2:40 PM
Hey, you know. Mccain and ObamaX actaully have something in common.
They both hung out with Communists in their 20s :)
faraway on April 18, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Thanks, Ed. McCarthy’s article is read and printed.
I was a Canadian spear-carrier against the likes of Dohrn and Ayers back in the 70s. Think FLQ. I remember how Liberation Theology slipped into mainstream Christianity. Forty years later it has eaten into the fabric of North American Christianity to the extent that it now has a Nominee for the Presidency.
It’s not like Obama was just standing on the same subway platform with these scary people. He counts them as intimates and and mentors.
“Beware this boy.”
Randy
williars on April 18, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Get out your tinfoil, was it a coincidence that William Ayers article ran on the morning of 9/11?
Can fire melt steel? or did William Ayers know about the attack before hand?
BWAHHAHAA!
Chakra Hammer on April 18, 2008 at 3:45 PM
No. It was of the many pieces of evidence that God, aside from being the Great ‘I Am,’ is the Great Comedian.
baldilocks on April 18, 2008 at 4:50 PM
Well when I was, like, you know, um 8 years old, my Mom told me “You will be judged by the company you keep”.
She also told me, the more you use like and you know as an effort to speak your mind, you will be judged an adolescent, when you’re over the age of 25… an idiot.
You should have listened to your Momma, Senator.
bloviator on April 18, 2008 at 6:36 PM