I'm not circulating the petition. The Hive is. You want to further rehabilitate Bill Ayers' reputation, here the petition is.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/stand-up-to-gop-mccarthyism-an.php

I don't create these bizarre moments in the Hive. I just report on them.

Billy Glad doesn't care about facts. He cares about his pet narratives.

That's because Billy Glad is John McCain.

Both of them paint themselves as old heroes of a bygone era. They thrive on a contrived outsider status, when in reality they are consumed with nothing more than being at the very center of the culture that they claim to apart from. For John McCain it's the Washington power structure. For Billy Glad it's the TPM Cafe.

Billy Glad is here to keep us honest just like John McCain will keep Washington honest. Be thankful for your old heroes.

"Most of the bombs the Weathermen were blamed for had been placed to do only property damage, a fact Mr. Ayers emphasizes in his memoir. But a 1970 pipe bomb in San Francisco attributed to the group killed one police officer and severely hurt another. An accidental 1970 explosion in a Greenwich Village town house basement killed three radicals; survivors later said they had been making nail bombs to detonate at a military dance at Fort Dix in New Jersey. And in 1981, in an armed robbery of a Brinks armored truck in Nanuet, N.Y., that involved Weather Underground members including Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, two police officers and a Brinks guard were killed."

From the NYT. Even if you dispute the pipe bomb in SF, you won't dispute the plans or the murder of the police officers and Brinks guard.

Or will you, JS?

Just so the record is clear. You can support the scumbag if you want to. Sign the petition.

Here's a cite (and a "site") you can believe in: Wikipedia. Normally, I'd rather complement talking points with a different location, but it's easy for the masses to get to:

"Radical history
Further information: Weatherman (organization)
Ayers became involved in the New Left and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[7] He rose to national prominence as an SDS leader in 1968 and 1969. As head of an SDS regional group, the "Jesse James Gang", Ayers made decisive contributions to the Weatherman orientation toward militancy.[5]The group Ayers headed in Detroit, Michigan became one of the earliest gatherings of what became the Weatherman. Between the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the June 1969 SDS convention, Ayers became a prominent leader of the group, which arose as a result of a schism in SDS.[5]"During that time his infatuation with street fighting grew and he developed a language of confrontational militancy that became more and more pronounced over the year [1969]", disaffected former Weatherman member Cathy Wilkerson wrote in 2001. Ayers had previously become a roommate of Terry Robbins, a fellow militant, Wilkerson wrote. Robbins would later be killed while making a bomb.[8]In June 1969, the Weatherman took control of the SDS at its national convention, where Ayers was elected Education Secretary.[5] Later in 1969, Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to riot police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot confrontation between labor supporters and the police.[9] The blast broke almost 100 windows and blew pieces of the statue onto the nearby Kennedy Expressway.[10] (The statue was rebuilt and unveiled on May 4, 1970, and blown up again by other Weathermen on October 6, 1970.[11][10] Rebuilding it yet again, the city posted a 24-hour police guard to prevent another blast.[10]) Ayers participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago in October 1969, and in December was at the "War Council" meeting in Flint, Michigan. Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant in the Weatherman group from the fall of 1969 to the spring of 1970, thought that "Ayers, along with Bernardine Dohrn, probably had the most authority within the Weatherman".[12]

Years underground
In 1970 he "went underground" with several associates after the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, in which Weatherman member Ted Gold, Ayers' close friend Terry Robbins, and Ayers' girlfriend, Diana Oughton, were killed when a nail bomb (an anti-personnel device) they were assembling exploded. Kathy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson survived the blast. Ayers was not facing criminal charges at the time, but the federal government later filed charges against him.[2]Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972, as he noted in his 2001 book, Fugitive Days. Because of a water leak caused by the Pentagon bombing, aerial bombardments during the Vietnam War had to be halted for several days. Ayers writes:

Although the bomb that rocked the Pentagon was itsy-bitsy - weighing close to two pounds - it caused 'tens of thousands of dollars' of damage. The operation cost under $500, and no one was killed or even hurt. [13]

While underground, he and fellow member Bernardine Dohrn married, and the two remained fugitives together, changing identities, jobs and locations. By 1976 or 1977, with federal charges against both fugitives dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct (see COINTELPRO), Ayers was ready to turn himself in to authorities, but Dohrn remained reluctant until after she gave birth to two sons, one born in 1977, the other in 1980. "He was sweet and patient, as he always is, to let me come to my senses on my own", she later said.[2] The couple turned themselves in to authorities in 1980. Ayers and Dohrn later became legal guardians to the son of former Weathermen David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin after the boy's parents were convicted and sent to prison for their part in the Brinks Robbery of 1981.[14]

Later reflections on his past

Fugitive Days: A Memoir
In 2001, Ayers published Fugitive Days: A Memoir, which he explained in part as an attempt to answer the questions of Kathy Boudin's son, and his speculation that Diana Oughton died trying to stop the Greenwich Village bomb makers.[15] Some have questioned the truth, accuracy, and tone of the book. Brent Staples wrote for The New York Times Book Review that "Ayers reminds us often that he can't tell everything without endangering people involved in the story.[16] Historian Jesse Lemisch (himself a former member of SDS) contrasted Ayers' recollections with those of other former members of Weatherman and has alleged serious factual errors.[17] Ayers, in the foreword to his book, states that it was written as his personal memories and impressions over time, not a scholarly research project.[14]

Statements made in 2001
Chicago Magazine reported that "just before the September 11th attacks," Richard Elrod, a city lawyer injured in the Weathermen's Chicago "Days of Rage," received an apology from Ayers and Dohrn for their part in the violence. "[T]hey were remorseful," Elrod says. "They said, 'We're sorry that things turned out this way.'"[18] In the months before Ayers' memoir was published on September 10, 2001, the author gave numerous interviews with newspaper and magazine writers in which he defended his overall history of radical words and actions. Some of the resulting articles were written just before the September 11 terrorist attacks and appeared immediately after, including one often-noted article in The New York Times, and another in the Chicago Tribune. Numerous observations were made in the media comparing the statements Ayers was making about his own past just as a dramatic new terrorist incident shocked the public.

Much of the controversy about Ayers during the decade since 2000 stems from an interview he gave to The New York Times on the occasion of the memoir's publication.[19] The reporter quoted him as saying "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all again" as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility."[14] Ayers has not denied the quotes, but he protested the interviewer's characterizations in a Letter to the Editor published September 15, 2001: "This is not a question of being misunderstood or 'taken out of context', but of deliberate distortion."[20]

In the ensuing years, Ayers has repeatedly avowed that when he said he had "no regrets" and that "we didn't do enough" he was speaking only in reference to his efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War, efforts which he has described as ". . . inadequate [as] the war dragged on for a decade."[21] Ayers has maintained that the two statements were not intended to imply a wish they had set more bombs.[21][22]

The interviewer also quoted some of Ayers' own criticism of Weatherman in the foreword to the memoir, whereby Ayers reacts to having watched Emile de Antonio's 1976 documentary film about Weatherman, Underground: "[Ayers] was 'embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.' "[14] "We weren't terrorists," Ayers told an interviewer for the Chicago Tribune in 2001. "The reason we weren't terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam by the United States."[2]

In a letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune, Ayers wrote, "I condemn all forms of terrorism — individual, group and official". He also condemned the September 11 terrorist attacks in that letter. "Today we are witnessing crimes against humanity on our own shores on an unthinkable scale, and I fear that we may soon see more innocent people in other parts of the world dying in response."[23]

Views on his past expressed since 2001
Ayers was asked in a January 2004 interview, "How do you feel about what you did? Would you do it again under similar circumstances?" He replied:[24] "I've thought about this a lot. Being almost 60, it's impossible to not have lots and lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do something that was horrendous, awful? ... I don't think so. I think what we did was to respond to a situation that was unconscionable." On September 9, 2008, journalist Jake Tapper reported on the comic strip in Bill Ayers's blog explaining the soundbite: "The one thing I don't regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being.... When I say, 'We didn't do enough,' a lot of people rush to think, 'That must mean, "We didn't bomb enough shit."' But that's not the point at all. It's not a tactical statement, it's an obvious political and ethical statement. In this context, 'we' means 'everyone.'"[25][26]"

Wikipedia on Bill Ayers

Swarm! Swarm! Swarm!

Yawn. I actually got "bombed" myself. Pipe bomb at a Civil Rights meeting in 1961. Bounced off the window and exploded in the window well outside. Nothing was damaged except attendance at the next couple of meetings. Of couse all those things were equally wrong. I don't think anyone who bombed a church or a Planned Parenthood clinic should have their reputations rehabilitated either.

Life outside your femnazi presence wouldn't be worth living, your majesty. I'm ready for the vats.

Obama was only a kid when Ayers was making bombs. You can hardly blame Obama.

I went to the web site, hoping to sign the petition. Turns out it's an anonymous blog. Who are the educators circulating this petition. Got a list of their names?

In Billy Glad's Fascist World, it does not matter what the petition said. It does not matter that it was posted by one blogger. Billy Glad seized on the posting of one blogger, and made it the theme of his daily attack on a group of unnamed bloggers. He likes to sneeringly refer to them as "the hive". One blogger posted it, and Billy declared "I hold in my hands, this piece of....." you know the rest of Joe McCarty's tactics.

Read through this blog of Billy's and you will find that Billy used the posting of one, just one blogger, to demand that all others take a loyalty oath. Then of course that Desidero creature rushed in play Roy Cohen to Billy's Joe McCarthy.

Billy Joe McCarty gets to decide who is not asked to take the loyalty oath, so of course his constant boot lickers, such as Ready To Burst..., and so one, are granted dispensations, but by God, all the rest of you, since you are on TPM, on the same day that one person posted a blog petition, then you better swear a loyalty oath or Billy Joe McCarty will have you blacklisted.

Yes. Apparently Ayers said he didn't do enough. But this shouldn't be about Obama. The issue here is Ayers. Others brought up Obama. They suspect Obama agrees with them. Personally, I don't think he does. Ayers is a bad deal for Obama. One he got into before he had his feet under him.

I have no problem discussing this Mr. Ayers chap. I just will not tolerate Billy Glad grabbing the work of one blogger, and then brow beating all others, except his usual cadre of boot lickers, with it.

Billy Glad engages in guilt by blog association. If you are a blogger on TPM on the same day as one blogger posted a petition, then Billy Glad insists that you come clean to him , unless you are one of his pre approved boot lickers.

For the record: I think Mr. Ayers, does not deserve any sympathy because his father, was very wealthy and influential in Chicago, and greased the skids to get his son and daughter in law restored to proper society. Mr. Obama had no way of knowing this when he encounter him in the Hyde Park circles.

I side with the likes of the Berrigan Brothers, catholic priests, who engaged in non violent civil resistance, and served time as conscientious objectors. I side with Mohammad Ali who was willing to do time for his beliefs.

There were a lot of people who went on the run and who have have later been caught and are now serving time. Mr. Ayer's father saved him from that. So, in my view, Mr. Ayers was not willing to have the courage of his convictions like The Berrigan brothers, and others were.

Mr. Ayers has had it both ways, he gets to honor his past, while not having to ever face the consequences of his past.

For that reason, I will not sign any petition to support him. His father has already let him skate all the consequences of his actions.

He did not even go on hunger strike for a single meal. He is just another version of a legacy hero. Not to me, he isn't. He never faced the music.

quinn, this is going to get lost in the indents, but the reason people have trouble talking about how they feel about the Weathermen is they have it rolled up with Obama. Their dilemma is if they say the Weathermen were right someone will smear Obama with it.

In watching the interviews in the Weatherman doc gasket put up, I was struck by the fact that one of them, I think it was Rudd, was obsessed with Vietnam even on his acid trips. That's probably not the best thing to trip out on. The other striking fact is that all of them still think they had something to do with ending the war.

As a matter of fact, the war ended when Nixon and Kissinger ended the war.

And, if anybody pressured them to end it, it wasn't the 30 or so Weathermen.

People did a lot to end the war. A small group of people felt enough wasn't being done and made some bombs. Others settled for more mainstream solutions, like fighting the cops in the streets of Chicago and other "conventional" acts of protest. I don't know many people from those times who thought they "didn't do enough."

But then... if you suggested this was the late 60's, and you had NO effective democratic outlet, would you take violent action to try and stop it? Like Ayers did. The question just falls flat.

Q. You don't see how it's possible that some of us wouldn't have done the same? Look. There's quite a big difference between thought and action in this case. You can say, "Hell, I felt like that once," but that's still a giant leap from actually setting bombs.

I'm a quote kinda person. I collect 'em. They always express me better than myself. So I'll leave you with one to sum up my thoughts on this:
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”

I won't sit here and pretend that violence never works. It does. And I also won't pretend I have any true idea of what the 60s were like. Books and stories of those who were there are all I have. And of course, when you're actually thrust into a situation where the question arises, anything's possible. But. Still, there's a difference between planning for it and giving in to it in the face of it. But we are left with no moral authority if we can't even try to control our own rage. If we can't at least try to make better choices than those we condemn.

The McCain Hives are another problem altogether. You can go over there and report on one of them if you want to. Count me out. This one is too much fun.

Interesting, maybe. But its simply not true. The weatherman is really a 2 part story. Before the Greenwich bomb that exploded prematurely killing 3 or the weatherman and after that explosion.

Ayers only wants to talk about the mode of operation after 3 of his friends where killed. As if he can erase the years before that blast. After the explosion they met and decided to change strategy. After that explosion they were careful to avoid human fatalities. They called up bomb sites to warn people to get out of the building.

Before the Greenwich explosion that was not the case. They did not call, they did not warn.

LOL. You always say that.

I was pretty sure you were speaking for the Hive, no matter what those other pinheads said. But let's say adios now. I've got a basement full of personal trolls right now. Obama has the damage contained. You can go back to Kos and look for more garbage that can hurt Obama. Even MoveOn wasn't stupid enough to touch the Ayers stuff.