While I did a little research on another topic, I noticed an unheralded change at Barack Obama’s website. His “Fact Check” page has a section missing from it — a section dealing with his relationship with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Until recently, the site insisted that the two unrepentant domestic terrorists were now “respectable fixtures of the mainstream in Chicago,” and that their violent and radical past was no longer relevant:

This entire section no longer appears on the website. Instead, the Obama campaign apparently relies on a description of Ayers as mainstream from Mayor Richard Daley rather than assert that themselves:

Ayers Advised Chicago Mayor Richard Daley On School Reform Issues. Bill “Ayers is now mainstream — an educator with distinguished professor status. He has written three books about education and has advised Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley on the subject of school reform.” [AP, 10/14/01]

So then the question is whether Barack Obama has himself retreated from the previous statements of his own campaign as to whether William Ayers is a “mainstream” figure. Or maybe this is an example of change we can believe in?