September 23, 2008
The Terrorist's Partner
Stanley Kurtz has published his long-awaited research into the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and the conclusions he draws are not surprising—Barack Obama blatantly lied earlier year when he tried to dismiss his relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers.
As Kurtz shows in his Wall Street Journal article Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools, Obama and Ayers were partners in a radical program that was focused more on indoctrinating children and their parents than education. Working together, Obama and Ayers funneled $160 million to to community organizers and far left peers of Ayers such as former SDS radical and Maoist Mike Klonsky.
Ayers and Obama used grant money that was supposed to be used for improving the educational experience of Chicago's children for political activism and agitation.
Kurtz concludes:
Mr. Ayers's defenders claim that he has redeemed himself with public-spirited education work. That claim is hard to swallow if you understand that he views his education work as an effort to stoke resistance to an oppressive American system. He likes to stress that he learned of his first teaching job while in jail for a draft-board sit-in. For Mr. Ayers, teaching and his 1960s radicalism are two sides of the same coin.Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.
The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.
Barack Obama was either an infamous terrorist's long-time patsy, or an infamous terrorist's long-time partner, and no one thinks Obama is enough of a rube to be his patsy. Obama earned his partnership with Ayers through a shared vision of radical activism.
Professor Steve Diamond's blog provides much-needed historical context, which shows that Obama/Ayers were using the CAC to fund an insurgent campaign in the "Chicago School Wars" that occurred from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, and which was fought over the fate of Chicago's public schools.
One side in this war was controlled by Mayor Richard M. Daley, Jr., son of the legendary Mayor Daley.And the other side was led by Ayers and a small group of reformers that had emerged several years earlier in 1988 during a battle to create a new power center in the Chicago schools, the so-called Local School Councils, or LSCs. The LSCs were an effort to rein in the power of unionized teachers, school principals and school administrators, in the wake of an unpopular teachers' strike in 1987.
This milieu around Ayers also included, as far back as the late 80s, Barack Obama and the Developing Communities Project (DCP) that had hired Obama as its Executive Director in 1985. The DCP was a leading participant in the campaign to establish the LSCs.
Thus, in fact, the "radical" Bill Ayers and his ally Barack Obama, a Democratic political activist and lawyer on the rise in Chicago, were engaged in an anti-union effort to influence the direction and nature of the entire Chicago public school system. It would lead them into a battle with Mayor Daley himself.
By all means, read all of Diamond's explanation to get a true understanding of just how radical of a leftist Barack Obama truly is.
Barack Obama is an authoritarian leftist, one who sacrificed the future of a generation of inner city children, using money meant to provide them with an education to further his political goals.
As parents, we can't risk giving him the opportunity to do so again.
Too bad the MSM isn't as interested in the four year resume gap (1995-99) in Obama's career, as they were about a few weeks of GWBush's Air National Guard service in Alabama.
Posted by: capitano at September 23, 2008 09:36 AMProposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down.
Given the need for the "jobs of the future," this just won't pay well.
Posted by: Neo at September 23, 2008 10:09 AMBut...but...Sarah Palin charged...well...the City of Wasilla charged....or the Wasilla PD charged...well, the hospitals charged victics of sexual assaults for rape kits. The fact that they were reimbursed has nothing to do with the evil Sarah Palin conspiring with hospitals. It's a hospital conspiracy, CY.
And all this is WAY more important than Obama's lifelong work with terrorists, their supporters, and people who want to destroy the United States.
Posted by: templar knight at September 23, 2008 10:15 AMAfter reading the snit by Ben Smith of "The Politico" last night, I left reminded that in this political season the 4th estate has done the American public a disservice.
After the Iraq War started, the 4th estate spent months before they finally decided that maybe they were vigilant enough with their reporting running up to the war.
In this election, the 4th estate repeats it's error by falling into the same trap.
Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me
In this election, the 4th estate has actually allowed one of the candidates to write his own narrative, based on two auto-biographical books, that is full of holes for large time sequences.
Today, with only 40 some days remaining till the election, a bit of one of those 4 year holes is filled in, but much is still left unknown.
Will the 4th estate be comtemplating the navel for that time or will they begin to ask the questions that will give the American people a complete story ?
Not only does the future of their craft stand in balance, the future of the country demands better.
If they are not up to the challenge .. we will look elsewhere.
Posted by: Neo at September 23, 2008 10:28 AMEven in Steve Diamond's clear descriptions of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, enormous questions are left unanswered, and Kurtz's article does not illuminate them either. References are made to some specific grants to various 'community organizations', but none of them are larger than about $200,000. To dispose of $150,000,000 at that rate, more than 750 grants must have been made.
The process of reading all the applications and deciding who'd get the grants (obviously not the math-and-science purveyors) must have kept a large staff working year in and year out. Were there any larger disbursements, or were there any grants that were funded year after year to eventually total significant millions?
Ayers apparently had in mind the founding of one or more radical political empires, and with the magnitude of monies he hijacked from their intended educational purposes, there must have been ample opportunities to skim off substantial amounts to fatten up his cronies and set up accounts to last for years.
Where did all those dollars go? Kurtz hasn't told us in his brief WSJ article. One can only hope that the information will appear in depth and detail in future reports. Let them appear sooner rather than later. And shame shame shame on the MSM, who have blinded themselves to such a hijacking of supposedly educational funds.
Posted by: Micropotamus at September 23, 2008 12:29 PMMicro, it is my understanding that the Kurtz project is intended to produce a book length treatment of this material. Of course even if he was finished with it now such a thing could not come out before the election. Kurtz is doing the work of five or six regular journalists, if we can speak of the Palin Ratio as the new industry standard. Luckily it seems the fruit is low hanging indeed. McCain had out a Chicago ad pasting Barry to Daley and others but including Rezko. I predict they will peel this down to just Rezko, as he is convicted and serendipitously to be sentenced at the end of Oct. The Money; Rezko. The Religion; Wright. The Ideology; Ayers. Can the army of Gucci-gulchers now hazarding their lives in Alaska paint such a vivid picture? If they could they would have by now.
Posted by: megapotamus at September 23, 2008 12:42 PMDo you think that Obama's team which scrubbed the library records before they were 'released' to Mr. Kurtz, would have left the details as to who received grants and for how much, in those documents to incriminate the Obamanation?
it is my understanding that the Kurtz project is intended to produce a book length treatment of this material. Of course even if he was finished with it now such a thing could not come out before the election.
Long live Mega!
It wouldn't take too much time to summarize where those grants went, and to put together an article pointing out how political ambitions trumped the intended educational benefits. Such cynicism deserves wide exposure, and apparently the MSM is complicit with it. The Annenberg Foundation should sue for recovery of the fraudulently squandered funds.
Posted by: Micropotamus at September 23, 2008 01:21 PMWell it seems Obama and his corrupt ways and cronies still get a pass - the TN grand jury adjourned today without an indictment against the cretin who hacked Palin's personal email account.
Posted by: Krystal at September 23, 2008 02:18 PM
