{"id":16,"date":"2008-04-27T22:24:21","date_gmt":"2008-04-28T03:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/2008\/04\/27\/obama-and-bill-ayers-facts-opinions-and-truth\/"},"modified":"2009-11-20T21:18:10","modified_gmt":"2009-11-21T02:18:10","slug":"obama-and-bill-ayers-facts-opinions-and-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/2008\/04\/27\/obama-and-bill-ayers-facts-opinions-and-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama and William Ayers: Facts, Opinions, and Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facts and opinions, though they must be kept apart, are not antagonistic to each other; they belong to the same realm. Facts inform opinions, and opinions, inspired by different interests and passions, can differ widely and still be legitimate as long as they respect factual truth. Freedom of opinion is a farce unless factual information is guaranteed and the facts themselves are not in dispute. In other words, factual truth informs political thought just as rational truth informs philosophical speculation. <\/em>Hannah Arendt<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A colleague, Professor Doug Rossinow, recently published an\u00a0op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. <\/em>An American historian who specializes in the 1960s, Doug\u00a0has written\u00a0extensively on the New Left.\u00a0In his column, \u201cFlash: \u201960s radicalism predated\u00a0Obama,\u201d<\/a> Rossinow unmasks\u00a0an unscrupulous campaign tactic of\u00a0guilt by association: the linking of\u00a0Barack\u00a0Obama\u00a0to a former member of the notorious Weather Underground.<\/p>\n

The day\u00a0his column appeared, I sent\u00a0an e-mail to\u00a0our university community with the subject heading \u201cProf. Doug Rossinow exposes campaign \u2018Swiftboating\u2019 in today\u2019s Star Tribune.\u201d <\/em>I also\u00a0pasted the op-ed into the e-mail with the following preface: \u201cDoug Rossinow provides Minnesotans an invaluable civic service in today\u2019s Star Tribune<\/em>.\u00a0In the best tradition of a citizen-scholar, Doug exposes a presidential campaign fiction that the news media has failed to adequately fact check. He has done Metro State proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. I received several irate e-mail responses. The following message was the most cogent.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpinions are opinions. Facts are facts.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Mr. Bute,<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m not sure that a broadcast political message to faculty colleagues is an appropriate use of MnSCU\/Metro State resources, I\u2019ll let that rest for now. Remember that Professor Rossinow\u2019s article is an opinion piece, not news and if you wanted to alert your colleagues to the article, you might have done so without repeating the content.<\/p>\n

There is\u00a0room for disagreement in the article, and I quite readily admit that I do disagree with several of Rossinow\u2019s (and by extension, your own) conclusions. Allow me to be clear, up front. I have been a committed Democrat since my first campaign in the Fifties\u20131950s not 1850s.\u00a0I have been very active in every election since 1992, holding office in the local DFL organization and being campaign treasurer for four legislative campaigns.<\/p>\n

I am not a committed Obama supporter, nor am I a committed Hilary supporter. My choice didn\u2019t make it past Super Tuesday. I am fully prepared to support whoever emerges from the\u00a0Convention as the nominee, flawed though he or she may be. While\u00a0Rossinow may be a scholar of the Sixties and I am not, I lived through them. That should allow me to view the times through my perspective.<\/p>\n

Professor Rossinow talks about the Weathermen as if they were \u201cthe gang who couldn\u2019t shoot straight.\u201d I admit they were no Al Qaeda. A group who knowingly planted bombs and set them off, perhaps killing anyone who happened to be in the vicinity, is, to me at least, a violent and threatening group.<\/p>\n

Rossinow writes \u201c[Bill] Ayers and other Weatherveterans may have become wholesome, productive citizens since returning to polite society.\u201d Sara Jane Olsen became a productive citizen but is sitting in a jail cell today. There is evidence that she was a \u201cbrainwashed\u201d pawn. Ayers was a militant leader in a terrorist group.<\/p>\n

Rossinow soft-pedals their actions but does not the term \u201cterrorist\u201d fit? They were not teens hopped up on testosterone doing stupid things they were dangerous terrorists trying to overthrow our government by violence, or at least trying to get newspaper space and their message out. With Al Qaeda\u2019s money and today\u2019s technology, how dangerous could they be now?<\/p>\n

Rossinow continues, \u201cHillary Clinton\u2013at long last, having no shame\u2013suggests that Ayers\u2019 comment that \u2018we didn\u2019t do enough,\u2019 in an interview published on 9\/11, was an endorsement of Al-Qaeda\u2019s attack on America. She certainly knows that Ayers\u2019 interview was done before 9\/11. Whatever he meant, the timing of the interview\u2019s publication was simply unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wait a minute. Two conjectures, both wrong (in my opinion). Rossinow cannot deny that Obama\u2019s relationship with Ayers was a continuing one. More than just being a neighbor, they served together on a Board of Directors. They appeared together on at least one public panel. Rossinow\u2019s implication that Ayer\u2019s comment \u201cWe didn\u2019t do enough\u201d was innocuous because it was uttered before 9\/11 is flat out stupid.<\/p>\n

What did Ayers mean? Did he mean \u201cWe didn\u2019t plant enough bombs?\u201d \u201cWe didn\u2019t kill anyone. Maybe we should have?\u201d However he meant it, a former terrorist who says that, even before 9\/11, doesn\u2019t regret what he did do, he regrets what he didn\u2019t do. Those aren\u2019t the words of a \u201cwholesome, productive citizen.\u201d Anyone who knows history or lived through the Sixties should be shaken by that comment.<\/p>\n

The fact that Obama sees nothing wrong with their association shows poor judgment on his part at best. Personally, I\u2019d stay as far away from Ayers as I could. Hillary\u2019s comments on the association are fair game. Can she claim Obama was sympathetic to terrorists in the Sixties? Of course not. Can she imply that Obama\u2019s continuing and voluntary association with a Sixties terrorist who apparently has no regrets for his past actions show poor judgment on Mr. Obama\u2019s part? Hell, yes!<\/p>\n

Did Hillary know Ayers\u2019 interview was before 9\/11? I don\u2019t know that. Maybe Rossinow does. If she knew it and still tied Ayers\u2019 reference to 9\/11 that was wrong. Shameful? I don\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n

The point of this all? Opinions are opinions. Facts are facts. Professor Rossinow doesn\u2019t let the facts get in the way of his opinions. The article should be read that way.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cFactual truth informs political thought.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mike,<\/p>\n

First off, I sent out that e-mail with pride; a Metropolitan State University\u00a0faculty member had a column in the state\u2019s premier newspaper. One\u00a0distinguishing characteristic\u00a0of Metro State is that our faculty tries to communicate\u00a0not only with\u00a0specialists in\u00a0our fields but with\u00a0the well-informed public as well. As a faculty member at a university that gets little or no respect, I admit I\u00a0am quick to point out our achievements.<\/p>\n

Second, it\u2019s interesting that you insist on identifying Professor Rossinow\u2019s op-ed as a \u201cpolitical message,\u201d which you deem as\u00a0inappropriate for \u2018broadcast\u201d on a\u00a0workplace e-mail system. Internal communication about\u00a0faculty\u00a0achievements is quite common. Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are only too glad to have their faculty\u2019s op-eds in the New York Times,<\/em> Washington Post<\/em>, or Wall Street Journal <\/em>identified with their respective universities. They don\u2019t make\u00a0such a\u00a0sharp distinction between \u201cfact\u201d and \u201copinion\u201d because this line of demarcation is far murkier than you allow.<\/p>\n

You seem to have\u00a0an ideological\u00a0criterion for\u00a0distinguishing \u201cfact\u201d from \u201copinion.\u201d\u00a0 I\u00a0read Rossinow\u2019s column\u00a0as an example of solid\u00a0investigative reporting: he busted\u00a0journalists for\u00a0passing off \u201copinion\u201d as \u201cnews.\u201d\u00a0He\u00a0exposed\u00a0the new media\u2019s failure\u00a0to vet a planted story.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0for\u00a0William Ayers, no matter how odious his behavior in the 1960s, he is, and has been for years,\u00a0a professor at Illinois State in Chicago. Until this story broke, I doubt that\u00a0most of his colleagues were aware of what he had done 40 years ago. It is also\u00a0unlikely that Barack Obama knew of his background as\u00a0a leader of the Weather Underground.<\/p>\n

Over the past 40 years, I have served on numerous boards and spoke on many panels. No doubt some of my\u00a0fellow board members or panelists have committed past\u00a0transgressions\u00a0that I have no knowledge\u00a0of\u2013just as some of them would\u00a0be\u00a0startled by some of my\u00a0activities\u00a0in the Sixties. The point being, one is not guilty by association with someone whose previous behavior we have no knowledge of.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Weather Underground would be,\u00a0by today’s standards, a\u00a0“terrorist\u201d organization. Yes, they were a physical danger to innocent victims who\u00a0might have been \u00a0injured by their bombings. Your next assertion, however,\u00a0is\u00a0a perplexing equivocation:\u00a0\u201cThey were dangerous terrorists trying to overthrow our government by violence, or at least trying to get newspaper space and their message out.\u201d<\/p>\n

You got\u00a0half that sentence correct: yes, they were self-promoting caricatures of media-inspired fantasies; no, they were not real revolutionaries who were trying to violently\u00a0seize power.\u00a0A pathetic lot, they had almost no support, even among radicals of the day. Further, they did not have the foggiest notion of how to make revolutionary\u00a0change. And even if we were to allow that they were \u201cdangerous terrorists,\u201d what does that have to do with Obama, particularly if he had no knowledge of Ayers\u2019 ancient history?<\/p>\n

By\u00a0failing to\u00a0\u201dfact check\u201d these\u00a0spurious\u00a0claims made by Hillary Clinton and Republican operatives, the mainstream media has been engaging in \u201copinion.\u201d If the Obama-William Ayers\u2019s story is not a case of media complicity with \u201cSwiftboating,\u201d I would love to see\u00a0evidence for\u00a0your\u00a0explanation of these events.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I remember reading\u00a0the September 11, 2001, issue of the New York Times. <\/em>When I finished the Ayers\u2019 interview that morning\u00a0I thought, \u201cwhat an unreconstructed moron that guy is.\u201d Only later in the day, after the terrorist attacks, did I recall the Times <\/em>interview. I saved that issue and, to this day, it\u00a0sits on display in\u00a0my office. If Hillary\u2019s brain trust did not realize that the interview had occurred days before publication, they are too stupid to be in the White House; if they did realize it, they are too treacherous to be in the White House.<\/p>\n

Monte<\/p>\n

\n

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts.\u00a0 Abraham Lincoln<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Does\u00a0Lincoln\u2019s 19th century faith in the people\u2019s ability to discern truth and to\u00a0confront national crises extend to the American polity\u00a0of the 21st century?\u00a0The answer to that question may depend upon whether we can \u201cbring them the real facts\u201d before November 4,\u00a02008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facts and opinions, though they must be kept apart, are not antagonistic to each other; they belong to the same realm. Facts inform opinions, and opinions, inspired by different interests and passions, can differ widely and still be legitimate as long as they respect factual truth. Freedom of opinion is a farce unless factual information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[194,174,714],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-obama","tag-sixties","tag-william-ayers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1252,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/1252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}