How low can Taylor Marsh go?

Really low. Acting like a concern troll, her latest post: Barack Obama's Willie Horton, links Barack Obama with the domestic terrorist couple Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers. Yeah!

Some background: Dohrn and Ayers were involved in the 1969 anti-Vietnam War Days or Rage (when Obama was eight years old), and subsequent bombings in 1970. In 1981 they turned themselves in and did some jail time. In the next two decades, Dohrn became an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University, Ayers became a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois.

The connection with Obama? It began when State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of Dohrn and Ayers.

Anyway, back to Taylor Marsh. She writes:

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth won't have to make stuff up about Obama. His relationship with Ayers is a fact, as they also were both seated on a nine-member board of the Woods Fund in 1999, for three years. In lieu of that connection, even in the face of a measly $200 contribution from Ayers to Obama, as well as the Obama campaign's statement decrying Ayers' actions when he was with the terrorist group The Weather Underground, quotes like the one below from Ayers are a general election gift to your opponent, especially considering Obama has no problem sitting on a board with this thug, or taking a meeting with him when launching your political career:

Mr. Ayers wrote a memoir, "Fugitive Days," published in 2001, and on the day of the September 11 terrorist attacks, he was quoted by the New York Times as saying: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

I held out from writing about the Obama - Ayers connection in the hope that someone would finally go on the record to advance the story in a serious way. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen at this point. I simply could not get Alice Palmer or others in Illinois on the record, try as I might through many angles. ...

... think of the Obama - Ayers ad in the general election. It writes itself. The difference, however, is that Horton was a common murderer, while Ayers was a domestic terrorist who delighted in "disrupting the air war" and equated Marines with terrorists, all of which is on the record.

This is the vein in the Democratic party I will never understand, cannot accept on any level. What is it about some people who just don't get the problems with our Democratic nominee being friendly, even taking a contribution (however small), as well as having a meeting as recently as 1995 with an unrepentant domestic terrorist like William Ayers? ...

This goes well beyond the Rezko connection. In the bad judgment file, any association whatsoever with a domestic terrorist who actively tried to thwart an air war during the Vietnam war, calls our Marines "terrorists," while also being unrepentant about it, shows a lack of seriousness I will never accept.

Of note, the first entry in the usually pro-Taylor Marsh comment section is this:

Wow, Taylor, even for you this is slimy. Senator Clinton is not being served well by this sort of "support".

Oliver Willis | Homepage | 02.22.2008 - 2:46 pm

This was followed by a flame war between Willis and Marsh and her fans.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: It's not just Taylor Marsh. The Clinton campaign is also promoting this story. From ABC news:

The Hillary Clinton campaign pushed to reporters today stories about Barack Obama and his ties to former members of a radical domestic terrorist group -- but did not note that as president, Clinton's husband pardoned more than a dozen convicted violent radicals, including a member of the same group mentioned in the Obama stories.

"Wonder what the Republicans will do with this issue," mused Clinton spokesman Phil Singer in one e-mail to the media, containing a New York Sun article reporting a $200 contribution from William Ayers, a founding member of the Weather Underground, to Obama in 2001. (Obama's ties to the radical group first surfaced last week in a Bloomberg News article.)

In a separate e-mail, Singer forwarded an article from Politico.com reporting on a 1995 event at a private home that brought Obama together with Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, another former member of the radical group.

UPDATE 2: It's a coordinated attack. Phil Singer is not a loose cannon. From HillaryClinton.com's blog, this screenshot of a posting by Howard Wolfson, Communications Director (!)

The politico.com story linked to is titled:

Obama once visited '60s radicals

Wolfson referred to the story as:

Obama once visited '60s ‘terrorists’

And there's this Kos diary on the issue.

UPDATE 3: TNR reviews the issue. Also, a random blog. And another Kos diary. Over at MyDD, a comment that has a Washington Post 'fact check' on the issue. And the right-wing is now on the case. It's mentioned at the Liberal Fascism blog. But John Podhoretz defends Obama:

Barack Obama is in no way responsible for anything William Ayers might have said or done, and anyone who suggests otherwise is guilty of demagougery.

Newshoggers has a post that shows Hillary Clinton's connections to a former IRA terrorist. Expect this Obama-'terrorist' story to have legs.


posted by Quiddity at 2/22/2008 03:34:00 PM