(Military Times) Op-Ed: Characters Count

[unhappycamper]

Characters Count
Frank Gaffney | October 06, 2008

Suddenly, the presidential campaigns are addressing an issue that should have been at the forefront of this year's election long ago. Call it "characters count." We know people – especially public figures – by the company they keep. And we need to know much more about, to put it charitably, the characters that have figured prominently for years in Barack Obama's life.

Over the weekend, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin brought the issue to the fore by observing caustically that the Democrats' would-be commander-in-chief has "palled around with terrorists." The Obama campaign immediately deployed talking points and a television ad conjuring up Charles Keating, a one-time friend and supporter of John McCain who was a driving force behind the 1980s-era savings and loan debacle.

The problem for Barack Obama is that convicted – and unrepentant – terrorist William Ayers is not the only person with a profound animosity towards this country with whom he has "palled around" since his youth. It is not, as the Democratic candidate maintains, a distraction or a sign of desperation on the part of his opponents that serious questions are finally being asked about the nature and the implications of the judgment he has exhibited in the past – and may exhibit in the future – as evidenced by his myriad and profoundly troubling personal ties. That is especially the case since so little is known about the junior Senator from Illinois and what he really means by "change."

Take for example, the formative influence in Barack Obama's youth that he calls in his memoirs simply "Frank." As it happens, the Frank in question was Frank Marshall Davis, a well-known Stalinist Communist in Hawaii whose attachment to the Soviet Union and hatred for an America he loathed as racist and imperialistic caused the FBI to keep him under surveillance for at least 19 years. Evidently, young Obama and his father spent hours in the company of this mentor, presumably soaking in not only his alcohol but his virulent hostility towards America.

We now know that a similar view was espoused routinely from the pulpit of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ. Sen. Obama maintains that somehow he had not heard any of Wright's loathing of this country – epitomized by the latter's notorious plea, "God damn America." When confronted with evidence of it, he could not bring himself to disassociate from his pastor of twenty years until that tie properly threatened to scupper his candidacy during the Democratic primaries.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,176757,00.html?wh=news

[Lerkfish]

1. bullshit meter peaked off the scale.

this is all they got, at this point.

[tinymontgomery]

2. If Ayers is a terrorist then why isn't he in jail?

Also didn't the Vietnamese consider or considered mccain a terrorist during the war.

[Lerkfish]

3. AFAIK, Ayers was NOT convicted, in spite of what the smear job article states

[NJmaverick]

4. That's the ironic part, the author is actually the one that is completely lacking in character

[unhappycamper]

5. Ding, ding, ding.

We have a winner here, folks.

[NYVet]

6. Only because the police screwed up with the wiretap on his phone

and has has said that his group didn't do enough to fight the government.