Busted

It's clear to anyone paying attention that Barack has been outright lying about his connection to Bill Ayers - but most people aren't paying attention. They prefer to focus on the issues. From my point of view, Barack lies about his positions on the issues even more readily than he does on his radical past, so I'm not sure what the benefit is in listening to him talk about the issues. The radical past can be investigated. The best way to know what he believes on the issues is to follow his roots.

Were Ayers and Barack close? In a book that Ayers published on parenting in 1998, this was his description of the neighborhood where he and Barack lived.

Were Barack and Ayers connected beyond seeing each other raking leaves? The blog Verum Serum offers:

(The) Chicago Annenberg Challenge website from 2002 shows the total amount of funds given to Bill Ayers’ Small Schools Workshop from 1995 to 2001. ..... According to this page, the total given under Barack Obama’s direct supervision was $1,056,162. Adding that amount to the money given by the Joyce Foundation and Woods Fund during Obama’s tenure brings the grand total to $1,968,718. Just shy of two million dollars! That’s a lot of scratch, to put it bluntly. And don’t forget, this doesn’t count the 3/4 million that went to John Ayers during the same time period.

..... (Also) Bill Ayers and Barack Obama shared an office. Ayers’ Small Schools Workshop, the one Obama directed all that money too (sic) is located at 115 S. Sangamon Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607.

..... In 1998, the address for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama presumably worked, was 115 S. Sangamon Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607.

They were clearly business partners for a number of years, but more importantly, it seems obvious that Ayers was mentoring Barack - giving him power and influence that he was unqualified for, but could use to build a political career.

For those who say they don't care about Ayers - they want to talk about the issues, not about Barack's shady past - I say fine. No need for you to care. However, Barack cares deeply that you don't know the truth. Doesn't the cover-up make you curious?

Watch the clip in this video where, when he was running for congress as an unqualified candidate in 2002, he doesn't hide his one executive position as he has done in the presidential race, but instead offers it as an important qualification.

One more thing - back to the book excerpt at the top of this post. Remember how Ayers labeled Barack a writer? Why would have called the politician a writer? Could this be evidence of the strong connection between them?

In his analysis of Barack's book, in which he promotes the idea that Bill Ayers provided the editing touch that brought Dreams of My Father from ordinary to great, Jack Cashill wonders about the "writer" label.

In 1997, Obama was an obscure state senator, a lawyer, and a law school instructor with one book under his belt that had debuted two years earlier to little acclaim and lesser sales. In terms of identity, he had more in common with mayor Sawyer than poet Brooks. The “writer” identification seems forced and purposefully so, a signal perhaps to those in the know of a persona in the making that Ayers had himself helped forge.