Friday, April 25, 2008

TPM on this Ayers nonsense

One of the more unfortunate aspects of this campaign is the focus on William Ayers, the one-time member of the Weather Underground. He's a casual acquaintance of Obama, but some people, including Hillary, have tried to tar Obama by associating the two of them, and therefore implying that Obama is less than trustworthy. I gave my opinion of it here.

Today, Josh Marshall lays out some more of the details. When Hillary mentioned this in their debate, Barack responded that Bill Clinton had pardoned two members of the Weather Underground when he was president, which, he pointed out, is a much more serious endorsement than merely being on the board with one guy. Hillary has said that she didn't know anything about it. As Josh points out, Newsday has a chronology that is not favorable to Hillary's claim - there was a lot of publicity about the cases in New York during the fall of 2000, when Hillary was running for Senate.

What Josh doesn't point out is that this goes against Hillary's claim that being First Lady is relevant experience for being president. When it's in her favor, she says that she was on the front lines of all kinds of policy debates and diplomatic initiatives. But when it's NOT in her favor, all of us a sudden she develops amnesia. Her claim of experience is very selective - she remembers the good, but not the bad.

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