Obama vs. McCain

Obama seeks to silence ad tying him to 60s radical:

"Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood [i don't know how big or tight-knit the neighborhood is] and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.
Obama also was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.
Obama has denounced Ayers' past activities.

'Barack Obama is friends with Ayers, defending him as, quote, 'Respectable' and 'Mainstream,'' the group's ad states. 'Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?'

In a letter to station managers, Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer wrote: 'Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity.'"

And the 'falsity' is where? What part of the ad is a lie?

I don't know about you, but I don't throw parties in my house for people unless they are friends of mine. And it was the beginning of Obama's political career - so that statement is true.

Now as I inserted above I do not know how close-knit the neighborhood is ... one does get the feeling that they do know their neighbors rather well - at least that's they way it has always been protrayed in the media coverage.

So who is Ayers? Well here is part of what I found on Wikipedia (along with their links):

"Later in 1969, Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot.[7] The blast broke almost 100 windows and blew pieces of the statue onto the nearby Kennedy Expressway.[no small bomb there then] [8] The statue was rebuilt and unveiled on May 4, 1970, and blown up again by Weatherman on October 6, 1970.[9][8]
Built yet again, the city posted a 24-hour police guard to prevent another blast.[8] He participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago that October, and in December was at the "War Council" meeting in Flint, Michigan.
...In 2001, the New York Times reported that Ayers admitted [1] in his biography that "he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972."
"

While he did have federal charges pending against him, he got off on a technicality!!!
And not to let you think that he's been a perfect citizen since the 70's, he was still running with the crowd in the '80's when he & his wife became the legal guardians of the son of two former bombing-pals who were convicted of robbing a Brinks armored truck.

Now I know a lot of people think "people can change over time", but that's only if they ever regret what they did -- Ayers has always maintained that he doesn't regret a thing - in one article he was quoted as saying he didn't think they had done enough during those years.

And this is a guy that Obama had touting him? Between that and the Rev. Wright ... and that guy with the bow-tie .... I don't know .... I really wonder about him .... I don't think we know enough about his standings on things yet (really) to know what's on his agenda.

and yes --- I do believe that anyone running for political office has an agenda, if they didn't what would be the point of running?