Is misinformed better than completely ignorant? Part 1

There are several issues that are all over the media lately and will likely come up in tonight's third and (thankfully) final presidential debate. Top on the list is Barack Obama's supposed "association" with the "domestic terrorist" William Ayers.


I'm all for rooting out past corruption on any candidate. What I'm not for is the main stream media (MSM), or the other candidates' campaigns spinning these stories and making them national issues when they don't really merit being so, or vice versa.


I decided to try to find for myself what Obama's association was with Bill Ayers, and for that matter, who the hell this Bill Ayers guy was. Washington Post had a decent summary here. Apparently in the late '60s and early 70's, Bill Ayers was part of a radical group called Weather Underground which claimed responsibility for a dozen or so domestic bombings between 1970 and 1974. Bill Ayers was never convicted of any crime but told the New York Times in an article published in Sept. 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough."


So the guy was obviously quite the radical in the early '70s. Now I wasn't alive then, but if I remember history and some stories I've heard from elders, that was a pretty tumultuous time. Does that excuse violence? No, of course not. But let's keep the era in mind here. Ayers is/was obviously big on politics, albeit maybe TOO big at times.


Now, what is the connection between Obama and this Ayers guy? These days, Bill Ayers is a well-respected professor at University of Illinois-Chicago and well established in the "intelligencia" community. Obama's only real ties to the man are that they live in the same general area of suburban Chicago and move within the same liberal-progressive circles. Early in Obama's political career, Ayers contributed....wait for it....a whopping $200 to his congressional re-election campaign. Aside from that, the only real "interaction" they seem to have had is that they both served on the board of a Chicago anti-poverty group called the Woods Fund of Chicago between 1999 and 2002.

So it seems to me that Obama's interaction with Bill Ayers doesn't merit being put on the national stage. Unfortunately, much of the media, and definitely a lot of the McCain campaign (ahem, Sarah Palin) is painting Obama as one who hangs out with terrorists. Yet, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that "Obama's Ayers connection never bugged anyone." Sometimes I wonder if complete ignorance on the issue isn't better than the misinformation and ridiculous spin being put on it because I can guarantee that few people will actually search out the truth. Obama didn't exactly 'pal around' with a 'terrorist' who was never actually convicted of anything and was part of an organization that operated when Obama was about six years old.

I'm all for people being well informed but I think people should be "well" informed. To be "well" informed, one's information should not come from stirring, fear-deriving, fanatical chain emails and half-stories in the all-to-often biased media.

Done ranting for now. See part two.