McCain Blasts Obama Over William Ayers

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) questioned Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) affiliation with a sixties radical today, foreshadowing the kind of cultural divide that will likely dominate any contest between the two parties during the general election.

In his appearance on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," the presumptive GOP presidential nominee questioned why Obama had compared William Ayers -- an academic who belonged to the Weather Underground, a violent group opposed to the Vietnam war -- to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a McCain supporter who supports the death penalty for abortion providers.

During last week's Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia, Obama deflected a question about Ayers by saying it was akin to asking whether he endorses the positions of Coburn, a senator with whom he is cordial, "who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions. Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those, either."

McCain, however, drew a sharp distinction between Ayers and Coburn, arguing that Obama's analogy highlighted how the Illinois Democrat holds values that are far from mainstream. Obama's relationship with Ayers, McCain told Stephanopoulos, "is open to question.... Because if you're going to associate and have as a friend and serve on a board and have a guy kick off your campaign that says he's unrepentant, that he wished [he] bombed more -- and then, the worst thing of all, that, I think, really indicates Senator Obama's attitude, is he had the incredible statement that he compared Mr. Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist, with Senator Tom Coburn, Senator Coburn, a physician who goes to Oklahoma on the weekends and brings babies into life -- comparing those two -- I mean, that's not -- that's an attitude, frankly, that certainly isn't in keeping with the overall attitude."

While the spat between McCain and Obama underscored the enormous generational gulf between the two men -- a contest between the two would represent the largest age gap between any two presidential candidates in U.S. history -- McCain is likely to try to tie Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to 1960s radicals, as well, should she win her party's nomination.
McCain Blasts Obama Over William Ayers | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

It'll be interesting to see if the Superdelegates really feel that this issue plus more will just disappear. Clinton is still in the running....

Tell me what company you keep and I'll tell you what you are.
Miguel de Cervantes
Spanish adventurer, author, & poet (1547 - 1616)

Have a good one!:s4:

It's about time a prominent political figure pointed this out for the world to see. Many Americans, and surely many Obama fanatics, won't have even heard of Ayers and his ties to Obama until now.