Say Anything Blog

Charles Gibson interviewing Barack Hussein Obama.

Sen. Barack Obama says the personal attacks levied against him by the campaign of his presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, particularly references to his association with 1960s anti-war radical Bill Ayers, are an attempt to “score cheap political points.”

“Why don’t we just clear it up right now,” Obama told ABC News’ Charlie Gibson in an exclusive interview for World News. “I’ll repeat again what I’ve said many times. This is a guy who engaged in some despicable acts 40 years ago when I was eight years old. By the time I met him, 10 or 15 years ago, he was a college professor of education at the University of Illinois . . . And the notion that somehow he has been involved in my campaign, that he is an adviser of mine, that . . . I’ve ‘palled around with a terrorist’, all these statements are made simply to try to score cheap political points.”

Should McCain say this to Barack’s face in the next debate, he will undoubtedly respond in like manner attempting to disparage the judgment of those who infer anything at all from his continued relationship with Ayers.  Strangely, Obama would have us accept his assessment of his relationship to Ayers.  He is counting on a naive electorate who will recoil at his attack on our own good judgment. 

So given the facts, how should McCain respond to Obama’s insistence that his relationship to Ayers is innocent?  Keep in mind that McCain’s answer, if done with brevity and wit, may make for a decisive moment in this last debate before the election. 

A good answer will expose the poor judgment and lack of discretion which prevent Obama from censoring Ayers while at the same time affirming the electorate’s discomfort with Obama’s affiliation with Ayers.

Rush Limbaugh offered the analogy of a couple getting up and leaving a restaurant when O.J. Simpson walked in.  This is good but is it enough?

An answer similar to the following may be sufficient:
Senator Obama, it is clear you don’t understand the discomfort many Americans have with your relationship to an unapologetic domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, and that is exactly why this relationship continues to plague your campaign.  Americans are not so naive as to dismiss the indiscretions of a Presidential candidate that so clearly portray his lack of character and judgment.  Given your history of questionable affiliations it is no wonder you would see no problem meeting with leaders such as Ahmadinejad.

What do you think?