Reply #15: Please Goldie don't twist the facts to try and make a point [View All]

[grantcart]

His interview was published prior to the attacks. He never said that he wished he had more bombing. He was never convicted of a crime.

These are the facts.


Beyond that you are using the rightwing's oldest tactice against progressives - guilt by association. Judge Obama on what he says and does not the progressive friends that his work on prorgessive issues brings him into contact with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ayers


In 2001, Ayers published Fugitive Days: A Memoir. Ayers's interview with the New York Times about his book was published, by historical coincidence, on September 11, 2001,<5> and opens with his statement, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."<4> Ayers later explained that by "no regrets" he meant that he didn't regret his efforts to oppose the Vietnam War, and that "we didn't do enough" meant that efforts to stop the war were obviously inadequate as it dragged on for a decade; the two statements were not intended to elide into a wish they had set more bombs.<6> The interview also includes his reaction (in his book) to Emile De Antonio's 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen: "He was 'embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism."<4> New Politics reviewer Jesse Lemisch has contrasted Ayers's recollections with those of other Weathermen and has alleged serious factual errors.<7> Ayers, in the foreward to his book, states it was written as his personal memories and impressions over time, not a scholarly research project.<4> His history occasionally surfaces, as when he was asked not to attend a progressive educators' conference in the fall of 2006 on the basis that the organizers did not want to risk an association with his past<8>.




Ayers is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. His interests include teaching for social justice, urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble with the law, and related issues.<1>

He has edited and written many books and articles on education theory, policy and practice, and has appeared on many panels and symposia. He was tapped by Mayor Richard M. Daley to shape Chicago's now nationally-renowned school reform program.<2>

His degrees include a B.A. from the University of Michigan in American Studies (1968), an M.Ed from Bank Street College in Early Childhood Education, an M.Ed from Teachers College, Columbia University in Early Childhood Education (1987) and an Ed.D from Columbia University in Curriculum and Instruction (1987).<1>


Philanthropy
Ayers has also served on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a anti-poverty philanthropic foundation, since 1999. United States Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama served on the same board from 1999 to 2002.<3>