Obama accuses McCain of linking him to 'radical'

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has just released an ad in Ohio lashing out at Sen. John McCain for purportedly linking the Illinois senator to William C. Ayers, an unrepentant member of the Weathermen terrorist organization.

Obama's ad calls Ayers a "radical" and accuses McCain of focusing on the 1960s, although Obama worked with Ayers until at least 2002.

The ad unfolds as follows:

Barack Obama: I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message.

ANNOUNCER: With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the '60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?

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McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old.

Let’s talk about standing up for America today.

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John McCain wants to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas, selling out American workers.

John McCain, just more of the same.

The ad does not mention or address Obama's extensive ties to Ayers.

Ayers was one of the original grantees of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or CAC, a school reform organization in the 1990s, and was co-chairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one the two operational arms of the CAC. In 1995, Obama became chairman of the CAC under Ayers' leadership.

Also in 1995, the first organizing meeting for Obama's state senatorial campaign was reportedly held in Ayers' apartment.

In a widely-circulated article, WND first reported Obama served on the board of the Wood's Fund, a liberal Chicago nonprofit, alongside Ayers from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000.

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Ayers, who still serves on the Woods Fund board, contributed $200 to Obama's senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at numerous public speaking engagements.

Ayers, currently a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.

He has admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s.

"I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough," Ayers told the New York Times in an interview released Sept. 11, 2001

"Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," Ayers wrote in his memoirs, titled "Fugitive Days." He continued with a disclaimer that he didn't personally set the bombs, but his group set the explosives and planned the attack.

A $200 campaign contribution from Ayers is listed April 2, 2001, by the "Friends of Barack Obama" campaign fund.

The two appeared together as speakers at several public events, including a 1997 University of Chicago panel entitled, "Should a child ever be called a 'super predator?'" and another panel for the University of Illinois in April 2002 entitled, "Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?"

The charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.

Ayers is married to another notorious Weathermen terrorist, Bernardine Dohrn, who also has served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left four people dead.

To interview Aaron Klein, contact M. Sliwa Public Relations by e-mail, or call 973-272-2861 or
212-202-4453.