Ayers, James Rhodes and the 60's

Since they cannot win on the actual issues of this campaign the right wing once again are trying to smear Obama because he happens to know someone. The latest target is Bill Ayers.

But who is Bill Ayers. He was in fact the founder of a radical group called the Weather Underground that did some horrendous violent acts in the 60's to protest the Vietnam War. I don't for a minute excuse what Ayers and his group did. But though I was a child in the 60's I know it was a very different violent time in our country. Atrocities occurred on both sides, not the least of which was that the Governor of the Ohio James A. Rhodes sent National Guard Troops to Kent State who then fired on unarmed students resulting in the deaths of 4. The only time outside the civil war and the atrocities against native Americans, that American Troops have fired on American citizens.

40 years later how are the two men perceived. Ayers is being used by the right wing to attack Obama for knowing him. Despite the fact that Barrack Obama was a child at the time of the Weather Underground, regardless that since his radical youth Bill Ayers has been a respected educator, author and advocate for school reform and despite the fact that Ayers said in 2001, "I condemn all forms of terrorism--individual, group and official."

As the right vilifies Ayers and labels him for life for the things he did in his youth, how do they treat James Rhodes who was responsible for the murders of 4 students at Kent State?

They erected a statue.



Does the right really want America to judge the candidates based on who they associate with?