William Ayers: Media Darling

The MSM, fresh from carrying Barack Obama's water during the campaign, has decided to move onto other matters now that the campaign is over. Among them appears to be the concerted effort of reparing the damaged reputations of some of those that Republicans targeted in attacking President Elect Obama. Throughout the campaign the MSM did everything in its power to bury William Ayers and his connection to Barack Obama. Now that the campaign is over, William Ayers has become a fixture on television, print, and the internet. Yesterday, he was on television ripping on Fox News.



Prior to that, ABC gave him time on Good Morning America.



In the middle of these rants, Ayers also had time to show up on the liberal site, Democracy Now.



While all of this went on, he was also interviewed by Walter Shapiro of the liberal web site, Salon.com.


He has now become a full fixture on the talk show circuit. This about face by the MSM is not only hypocritical and duplicitous but it is perverse. The MSM had absolutely no interest in reporting on anything related to William Ayers throughout the campaign. They found his connection to Barack Obama entirely inconsequential. Yet, now that the campaign is over, William Ayers is among the most important topics for the very same MSM. There is of course nothing new to this story, and if anything, he should be even less significant now. Yet, after carrying the water of Barack Obama, they are now carrying the exact same water for William Ayers.

The mere fact that he finds an audience at all is perverse enough, however to add insult here, the MSM allows him to constantly obfuscate, equivocate, and flat out distort. Over and over, he maintains that he never killed anyone during his radical days. This is of course nonsense. The Weather Underground, the group he lead, killed police, judiciary, civilians and accidentally even members of the group. Beyond this, Ayers continues to insist 1) that his bombings weren't acts of terrorism and 2) the real terrorists were the members of the U.S. government. He also is allowed to make absurd claims about the nature of his relationship with Barack Obama. Here is what he said about it to Shapiro.

Let's come back to Obama. I'm curious. How many conversations have you had with him over the years? Fifteen? Twenty?

A dozen or 15 perhaps. There was a big thing made this morning [on "Good Morning America"] that I was coming out of my silence. Nothing could be further from the truth. I haven't been silent. I teach, I lecture at universities, I write, I'm not silent.

This claim is absurd on its face. He served on two boards with Obama, made more than one speech together, had him in his home to kick off Obama's campaign, and their kids go to the same school. Barack Obama told BillO'Reilly that the two of them worked on the crime bill together in Illinois. Furthermore, Obama wrote a blurb in Ayers' book in the 1990's. All of this supposedly happened with a tangential relationship of no more than 15 conversations. Beyond this, here is how Ayers characterizes Obama.

What have your impressions been of Obama over the years?

I met him sometime in the mid-1990s and, as I said, I know him about as well as thousands and thousands of other people do. And like millions of other people, I wish I knew him a lot better now. My impression of him from the start was that this was the smartest person who walks into any room he walks into. An incredibly bright, an incredibly quick person. A compassionate, kind person. And everyone who knew him thought that he was politically ambitious. For the first two years, I thought, his ambition is so huge that he wants to be mayor of Chicago. And that's where my imagination ran out of steam, apparently, because clearly he had his sights on something else and I'm delighted for him and for the country and the world that he was able to accomplish this.

That is a rather conveniently positive and detailed perception that Ayers has of Obama given that they supposedly only had 10-15 conversations. He says that for the first two years he had an impression that Obama would run for mayor. How could he have any kind of impression given that they couldn't have talked more than two or three times at that point?

This is the sort of insanity that the media tour of William Ayers is bringing. Yet, Ayers isn't concerned much with his public image. Instead, he is peddling a book. That's his agenda with this media tour. In fact, had he been convicted of the crimes he so openly admits committing he wouldn't even be able to publish this book. If he isn't violating the letter of the law that prohibits criminals from profitting from their crimes, he is certainly violating the spirit. While he may not be breaking any laws by making this media tour in support of his book, there is also nothing that says that the MSM must oblige a former and still unrepentent domestic terrorist as he attempts to profit from his former terrorism. That they have so openly embraced the same man they tried so hard to keep under wraps is another example of their bias, hypocrisy, duplicity, and the perverse nature in which they operate.