CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Oct. 13, 2008 – 6:23 a.m.
Fact-Checking the Ayers Allegations: So Wrong, It’s “Pants on Fire” Wrong
By Alexander Lane, Politifact.com
For most of the election, Sen. John McCain ’s campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the former ‘60s radical William Ayers.
No longer. A 90-second Web ad released Oct. 8, 2008, features sinister music, side-by-side photographs of Obama and Ayers, and a series of dubious allegations about their past connections, including this one:
“Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together.”
Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city’s civic life.
The McCain campaign said the “radical education foundation” to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001.
We’ll look at whether the foundation was radical. But first we have to grapple with whether Obama and Ayers ran it.
Obama served on the foundation’s volunteer board from its inception in 1995 through its dissolution in 2001, and was chairman for the first four years. So an argument can be made that he ran it, though an executive director handled day-to-day operations.
Ayers, who received his doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1987 and is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was active in getting the foundation up and running. He and two other activists led the effort to secure the grant from Annenberg, and he worked without pay in the early months of 1995, prior to the board’s hiring of an executive director, to help the foundation get incorporated and formulate its bylaws, said Ken Rolling, who was the foundation’s only executive director. Ayers went on to become a member of the “collaborative,” an advisory group that advised the board of directors and the staff.
However, Ayers “was never on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge,” and he “never made a decision programmatically or had a vote,” Rolling said.
“He (Ayers) was at board meetings — which, by the way, were open — as a guest,” Rolling said. “That is not anything near Bill Ayers and Barack Obama running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.”
Now, was the foundation radical?
The McCain campaign cited several pieces of evidence for that allegation, including a 1995 invitation from the foundation for applications from schools “that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn.” The campaign appears to have confused two different definitions of the word “radical.” Clearly the invitation referred to “a considerable departure from the usual or traditional,” rather than “advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs.”
Fact-Checking the Ayers Allegations: So Wrong, It’s “Pants on Fire” Wrong
The campaign also cited two projects the foundation funded, one having to do with a United Nations-themed Peace School and another that focused on African-American studies.
“That is radical in the eye of this campaign and we imagine in the eyes of most Americans,” said Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for McCain. “It is a subjective thing, and there are going to be people in Berkeley and Chicago who think that is totally legitimate.”
Teaching about the United Nations and African-American studies may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s hardly “radical” in the same way Ayers’ Vietnam-era activities were. Moreover, most of the projects the foundation funded (more on that below) were not remotely controversial.
The McCain campaign also cited an opinion piece by conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz in the Sept. 23, 2008, Wall Street Journal as evidence of the foundation’s radicalism. Kurtz wrote that Ayers was the “guiding spirit” of the foundation, and it “translated Mr. Ayers’s radicalism into practice.”
But Ayers’ views on education, though certainly reform-oriented and left-of-center, are not considered anywhere near as radical as his Vietnam-era views on war. And even if they were, there was a long list of individuals involved with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge whose positions provided them far more authority over its direction than Ayers’ advisory role gave him.
Let’s look at a few, starting with the funder. Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain. Kurtz might just as plausibly have accused Obama and the foundation of “translating Annenberg’s conservatism into practice.”
Among the other board members who served with Obama were: Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Journalism, and a host of other mainstream folks.
“The whole idea of it being radical when it was this tie of blue-chip, white-collar, CEOs and civic leaders is just ridiculous,” said the foundation’s former development director, Marianne Philbin.
The foundation gave money to groups of public schools — usually three to 10 — who partnered with some sort of outside organization to improve their students’ achievement.
In his opinion piece, Kurtz puts a sinister spin on this: “Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with ‘external partners,’ which actually got the money...CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN).”
Rollings said the foundation tried to fund the schools directly, but doing so proved to be a “bureaucratic nightmare.” But any external group that received money had to have created a program in partnership with a network of public schools.
And though ACORN is considered a liberal organization, the vast majority of the foundation’s external partners were not remotely controversial. Here are a few examples: the Chicago Symphony, the University of Chicago, Loyola University, Northwestern University, the Chicago Children’s Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.
Had Kurtz chosen to accuse Obama of carrying water for the conservative Annenberg, he might have written: “CAC disbursed money to various business-friendly entities, such as the Museum of Science and Industry and the Commercial Club of Chicago.”
Fact-Checking the Ayers Allegations: So Wrong, It’s “Pants on Fire” Wrong
See how easy it is?
The programs the foundation funded were designed to allow individuals from the “external partners” — whether the musicians in the symphony or the business leaders in the commercial club — to help improve student achievement. They were along the lines of mentoring by artists, literacy instruction, professional development for teachers and administrators, and training for parents in everything from computer skills to helping their children with homework to advocating for their children at school.
This last activity — something suburban parents practice with zeal — is also suspect in Kurtz’s view: “CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents ‘organized’ by community groups might be viewed by school principals ‘as a political threat.’ ” That is typical of Kurtz’s essay – relatively innocuous facts cast in the worst possible light. That’s appropriate for an opinion piece, perhaps, but hardly grounds for a purportedly factual political ad accusing the group of radicalism.
We could go on and on with evidence that the Chicago Annenberg Challenger was a rather vanilla charitable group. For example, under the deal with Annenberg every dollar from him had to be matched by two from elsewhere. The co-funders were a host of respected, mainstream institutions, such as the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Chicago Public Schools.
In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals. Ayers’ involvement in its inception and on an advisory committee do not make it radical – nor does the funding of programs involving the United Nations and African-American studies.
This attack is false, but it’s more than that – it’s malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there’s ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving ailing public schools in Chicago. Yet in the heat of a political campaign they have been accused of financing radicalism. That’s Pants on Fire wrong.
Politifact sorts out the truth in politics every day.
Comments
The entire concept of "guilt by association" for members of public charity boards would be absurd if it weren't so pernicious. As someone who's spent nearly three decades in the non-profit arena, I can honestly say the '60's backgrounds of fellow board members was neither something I cared about nor was responsible for. It's not much of a leap for folks to be held responsible for their fellow PTA (PTO) board associates, associates on the boards of private schools and civic associations, religious boards, etc. Unlikely, you think? Let's be clear these gutter tactics have a way of establishing themselves as legitimate if they're even remotely successful. Volunteer board members beware! Your social future may be at stake.
Now let's do a fact check on the Palin's involvement in the ALASKAN INDEPENDENT PARTY, a faintly subversive group whose leader advocates secession from the lower 48 and who has uttered seditious rants in the Palins' presence...there's such a thing as domestic terrorism and these folks have the makings of such a group...
Nice whitewash! What about Kurtz's comments about the files stored in the UIC Library to which he documented his attempt to obtain. As far as Annenberg is concerned have your read this http://www.slate.com/?id=207187 lets get the whole story and not your biased whitewash
I consider Bill Ayers the equivalent of Timothy McVeigh. Both men hated their country and bombed buildings. Both were unrepentant about it. This is a stubborn fact; no matter how this article or previous respondents spin it. It is obvious this website is in the tank for Obama. I hope you like the America that Obama & the democrats create in 2009.
Cindi, please look up "fact" in the dictionary. Ayers didn't hate America, he was a war protester. Why would he protest the war if he hated America? He thought the war was detrimental to America as did more than a majority of Americans. Also, Bill Ayers never killed anyone, in fact the WU made their attack plans public before they bombed, just so that they wouldn't kill anyone. This man was no where near Timothy McVeigh. How can you claim an unbiased third party fact check, is in the tank for liberals?
Cindi provides a perfect example of how pernicious this kind of mudslinging is. Timothy McVeigh deliberately murdered more than 160 innocent men, women and children by blowing up a federal government building with a giant truck bomb. He was captured, tried, convicted and executed for his crimes. The only fatalities ever linked to the organization William Ayers was part of were three of their own people, killed by incompetence. The Weather Underground made a point of sending warnings so that no one would be injured or killed. Still wrong, but that's a crucial difference. Second, Ayers has been a public figure for more than 20 years. IF THERE WAS EVER ANY CONCRETE PROOF THAT AYERS WAS A 'TERRORIST,' THEY COULD HAVE TAKEN HIM AWAY AT ANY TIME!! Wonder why the Bush Administration, after 9/11, didn't haul him off to Gitmo? If he was such a dangerous domestic terrorist and all? Think it through before getting out that broad tarbrush, people...
It doesn't matter to the wingnuts what the facts are, they simply will not hear it. They believe what they are told from talk radio and Fox Noise and the voices in their heads, apparently. I have a feeling it's more than just having gone back to the barrel onces too often for a dip of the CONservative cool-aid but that they really are latent racists. My suggestion is that they try using some critical thinking skills and research the article and see the conservative links on the Annenberg board. The fact that the founders wife just endorsed McCain should be a big fat hint! Has anyone noticed how angry the repubs sound when they call into shows like C-Span. They are breathless with rage and act as if it a big conspiracy that Obama's message has more salience than McCain.
I am sure - absolutely sure I will like what Obama does as a leader in 2009. Anyone who looks at this article and portrays this web site as a "tank" for Obama is just looking for dirt on Obama - and in the strangest of places. I did not have to look to hard to find Keating, who we would definitively call a domestic terrorist, after this 9/11 type of financial crises. McCain's involvement with him is not questioned - and not reported on. Those who are looking for "dirt" are having to dig under Obama's fingernails. He has been under scrutiny for more than two years and ... .there is nothing hidden. It appears there are those who want to find "dirt", but cannot and get really angry when everything shows up clean. It is good to know there are some web sites who are performing good clean research and reporting facts. I would rather hear the facts that teh slander.
its the chew baca defense from the rePUGs that makes me laugh. after all why would an eight foot tall wookie live on a planet with three foot tall ewoks?
This article explains why McCain has chosen not to level specific charges against Obama with regard to Ayers. If you notice, they have all been about Obama "not being honest about his relationship with Ayers." That is what you say when you know there is nothing. I used to respect McCain. No longer. The only thing that will keep me from thinking McCain is a fundamentally dishonest man is his apology.
Cindi has been listening to Rush Limbaugh. I on rare occasions listen to hear what he is pushing. Last week he was praising himself for coming up with the brilliant insight that Bill Ayers = Tim McVeigh. The dittoheads will now repeat that tp all of their friends. If you want an idea of where the hatred for Obama is being stirred up, listen to Rush and Hannity. I feel like I need a shower after listening to them.
"I hope you like the America that Obama & the democrats create in 2009." Thanks, Cyndi. Coming from the smoking heap of rubble our once-great nation has been reduced to under your right-wing leaders, that means a lot.
Try telling the family of Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell that the Weather Underground never killed anybody. You people are amazing. "They told everybody they were going to set off their bombs, so it's okay!!!!" They apparently forgot to tell Judge Murtagh they were going to try and kill him and his wife and children: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0430jm.html. Oops.
Mr. Lane presents his unqualified and undocumented conclusions as fact regarding Mr. Kurtz's thorough research and analysis, which Mr. Lane regards is totally opinion. Mr. Lane's work is clearly not worthy of reading if someone is looking for truth or even well founded opinion. There is no presented research or source of knowledge other than to discount Mr. Kurt's work. It's not even very good typing Although Mr. Lane may be a fast typist, the quality of his thoughts demonstrate that his words are cheap. To determine so abruptly as Mr. Lane has done that Obama had no relation of any consequence with Ayers is akin to the then-President Clinton saying he never had sex with that woman. If one is looking for integrity in writing, Mr. Lane should be avoided at all costs.
Ayers, Wright, Phelger= Obama destroying this great Country we have. Shame on you people who see nothing wrong with this. If Obama, has nothing to hide, or feels, he did nothing wrong why doesn't he just come out and tell the truth? It took him how many weeks to tell America about his relationship with Wright? How many weeks will it take for him to tell the truth about Ayers?
It is fascinating, albeit tragic, to read/hear this constant refrain from the self-deluded that "If Obama has nothing to hide, or feels he did nothing wrong, why doesn't he just come out and tell the truth?" For Pete's sake. The facts are there, presumably you read the facts in this and other articles and reports, and Obama has told the same thing many times. Do these people, particularly McCain and his people, have information that contradicts what has published by the fact checkers? If so, why not publish it rather than rely on this pernicious innuendo and outright lies? Or not. The more they insist on using lies, the more McCain's poll ratings slide into oblivion. As far as I'm concerned, that is a good...and just...thing. Other than that: People get a clue. You already HAVE the FACTS. Any honest, unbiased web search will give you the same facts.
It is clear to see here what has happened to the Republican / Conservative movement: it has become a dictatorial, fascist movement. If you're not on board, you're "in the tank" or "whitewashing" things. These people are sick. They see only black-or-white, and they are clearly prepared to hate and attack anyone who doesn't belong to their little group. This is how democracy falls: when a minority attempts to declare the election illegitimate ("OH NOES! TEH ACORN!!1!") even as their cohorts inside the DOJ attempt to disenfranchise millions of legitimate voters. Why is the so-called "liberal mainstream media" not screaming bloody murder about how the Republicans are attempting to fix/steal the 2008 elections?
Cindi, you say "I hope you like the America that Obama & the democrats create in 2009." Tell us how you like the America that "W" and the Republicans have created in 2000-2008?
teni3e I woudl like to answer that question also. Well at least after 8 years, of GWB, we are still alive, and we still have all our rights. After 4or 8 years, with a President, who doesn't know how mant staes we have, or a V.P. who doesn't know how many letters it takes to spell JOBS,I'm not so sure how safe we will be with them.
I would like to share a shocking - but true story with my fellow Americans. Everyone is welcome to draw their own conclusions, of course. But I, a 'yankee' living in the tiny South American country of Paraguay have seen the Bush empire and the CIA's handywork, first-hand. Please take a moment to ask yourself: which party is interested in YOUR interests ? And which party do you think is interested only in stuffing the pockets of the wealthy ? ..... You be the judge. I have shocking information regarding: the recent visit of former US Ambassador James C. Cason. [Former Ambassador Cason now works for the Bush oil interests, he and the Bush's are attempting to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected government of former-bishop, Fernando Lugo.] During this past year, the Bush's have acquired 400,000+ acres of land in Paraguay near the Bolivian border, where oil deposits are believed to be located. During the administration of George H.W. Bush, his father, more than 1,300,000 hectares, which is more than 3 million acres were directly or indirectly acquired. (It is also interesting for me to note: that the US Army cartographers were here in Paraguay during the early 1990's , during his father's term in office. In addition to the expected GPS coordinates; they were busily taking "specific gravity" measurements. Specific gravity measurements serve to indicate whether or not there may be oil present below the surface. ALL OF THIS AT THE US TAXPAYERS' EXPENSE !)There are stories circulating here about cases of money delivered to the former President Nicanor Duarte Frutos; who solicited the Army's collaboration in a coup plot in September. There is CIA involvement. The US Ambassador during George H.W. Bush's tenure, was John Glassman. The Republican administration attempted to pass him off as a 'political appointee -allegedly Dan Quail's ex-press secretary. The real John Glassman is a "spook" (someone who works for the CIA.) Ambassador Glassman during his term here in Paraguay "palled around" with the former general who was involved in this past September's coup conspiracy. ** please refer to the footnote at the bottom for a bit of background information on this character. Also with specific regard to TERRORISM: unscrupulous persons here in Paraguay still produce falsified Paraguayan passsports and falsified U.S. entry visas. One of these persons, in the early 90's was directly involved in obtaining a Paraguayan Diplomatic passport for the infamous Abu Nidal while occupying the position of "secretary" in "Migraciones'. [The terrorist wanted in connection with the Lockerbee disaster.]Presently this scoundrel is a prosecutor; and has continues to be involved with passports for terrorists and has branched out into 'phoney U.S. entry visas' as well. I have in my possession the account number of one of TWO accounts this person has in the USA, 2 year end statements from one; numerous e-mails and letters which I have written and delivered to the US Embassy; one e-mail ADVISING that this person was using 2 persons affiliated with the US Embassy to cash checks drawn on USA bank accounts where this criminal has ferreted money away; that these funds come from terrorism-related activities; yet the US Embassy did NOTHING ! This indiviual still enjoys a multiple entry visa to the USA. THE LETTERS, E-MAILS, AND BANK STATEMENTS THAT I HAVE IN MY POSSESSION PROVE THAT THE 'REPUBLICAN' US EMBASSY HERE, IT'S FORMER AMBASSADOR CASON WHO NOW WORKS FOR A BUSH OIL COMPANY VIOLATED THE "WILLFULL BLINDNESS" CLAUSE OF THE PATRIOT ACT, AS WELL AS SEVERAL OTHER GLARING IRREGULARITIES. Although disclosing this information may indeed put me in peril, I feel that the American public should be made aware of what a shameless sham this"Bush dynasty" has perpetrated on the American public. Thank-you for your time. *** Former U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay, John Glassman's less than sterling past: In January 1981 four dugout canoes were "discovered" on a Salvadoran beach. The US claimed that the boats had carried 100 armed Sandinista guerrillas from Nicaragua to support leftist insurgents in El Salvador. Neither weapons nor Nicaraguans traceable to the boats were ever found, but Washington drew attention to the fact that the wood from which the boats were made was not native to El Salvador. This kind of "proof" might at first seem laughable but this was no trivial matter. The Reagan administration successfully used the incident to justify lifting the embargo on US arms to El Salvador that President Carter had imposed after members of the Salvadoran National Guard raped and murdered three US nuns and their lay assistant. The names of those four women now sit atop a long list of Americans and Salvadorans subsequently murdered by US weapons in the hands of the National Guard in El Salvador. (b) In February 1981, the State Department issued a sensational "White Paper" based on alleged Salvadoran rebel documents. Authored by a young, eager-to-please Foreign Service officer named John Glassman, the paper depicted damning links between the insurgents, Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. A smoking gun. Unfortunately for Glassman and the Reagan administration, Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny got access to the same documents and found little resemblance to what was contained in Glassman's paper. Glassman admitted to Kwitny that he had made up quotes and guessed at figures for the Soviet weapons supposedly coming to the Salvadoran insurgents.
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