posted October 08, 2008 01:13 PM            

Ayers Controversy Plagues Obama
Tuesday, October 7, 2008 4:37 PM
By: Charles R. Smith

Once again controversy rears its ugly head for Barack Obama, and once again Sen. Obama has claimed ignorance as his defense. According to Obama's top political adviser David Axlerod, Obama "didn't know the history" of his close friend and trusted comrade William Ayers.

For those of you who don't know, William Ayers once tried to bomb the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol during the 1960s. Ayers stood on an American flag in a photograph published on the very same Sept. 11 that the terrorists brought down the twin towers. Ayers noted in a The New York Times article that he felt no remorse at planting bombs in America and that he "didn't do enough."

Obama not only knows Ayers, he has worked with him in the leftist foundations set up inside Chicago and even launched his political career in Ayers living room. When the senator and the unrepentant bomber worked together on the Woods Fund board, the Fund awarded $6,000 to Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church "in recognition of Barack Obama's contributions of Woods Fund as a director."

Yet, according to Axlerod, Obama didn't know his friend was once a mad bomber who wanted to kill Americans.

Of course, the "ignorance" defense is something that Obama has used before. Obama also claimed that he did not hear the radical preaching of the Rev. Wright during the 20 some years he sat in front of Wright every Sunday. For those of you who don't know, the Rev. Wright has once referred to the U.S. as "AmeriKKKa" and is well regarded in some circles to be a preacher of vicious racial hatred and anti-Semitism.

In 2007, the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award was given to a man it said "truly epitomized greatness." That man was Louis Farrakhan. Wright once called the United States "the No. 1 killer in the world." He also has accused the U.S. government of having "started the AIDS virus." After 9/11, he said, "America's chickens are coming home to roost” and he once called upon God to “Damn America.”

Still, this "ignornance" philosophy of the Obama campaign did not prevent them from sending Rep. Alcee Hastings to Florida in an effort to reassure the Jewish community that Obama never saw the anti-Semitic award of the year to Farrakhan by Wright.

According to the Washington Times, Hastings, who was once impeached and thrown off the federal bench for taking a $150,000 bribe, told a gathering of retired Jews,” If Sarah Palin isn't enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well better pay attention. Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks."

Clearly Obama runs a campaign concerned about the feelings of bitter little folk clinging to their guns and bibles.

Then there is the problem of Obama and Antonin "Tony" Rezko. If the name doesn't sound familiar, it's because the press hasn't shown much interest in Tony "the fixer" and Obama.

Rezko was among Obama's earliest supporters. In 1995, when Obama ran for a seat in the Illinois Senate, Rezko, through two of his companies, gave Obama $2,000. Obama won election in 1996 in a district that coincidentally included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.

In 2003, when Obama said he'd run for the U.S. Senate, Rezko held a lavish fundraiser at his Wilmette home. Rezko was convicted of taking millions of dollars from the state of Illinois through deals filled with kickbacks while working for the administration of current Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Did Rezko find jobs for Obama supporters? That is one of several unanswered questions the Chicago reporters wanted to ask before Obama cut short a press conference.

In 2005, when Rezko was under federal investigation for influence peddling, Obama and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a Chicago doctor. The doctor sold one parcel to Obama for $1.65 million, $300,000 below the asking price, while Rezko's wife paid full price, $625,000, for the adjacent vacant lot.

Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a 10-foot-wide strip of her land, allegedly so that he could have a bigger yard.

The deal rendered the Rezko parcel too small to build on, thereby increasing the value of Obama's property. The real story is that Rezko used Obama to allegedly hide money from his creditors by putting the property in his wife's name. Did Obama know of Rezko or was he just "ignorant" again?

Another prime example of Obama's "ignorance" is the fact that he has taken the advice of two ex-CEOs of Fannie Mae, James Johnson and Franklin Raines. Both men stand accused of having more than their fair share of problems while serving the now bankrupt mortgage firm.

Johnson had to leave the Obama campaign in disgrace after being accused of allegedly taking low interest loans from a company tied up in the subprime loam business with Fannie Mae. Meanwhile, Raines was accused of falsifying records by the auditors of Fannie Mae in order to obtain millions in bonus money that he should not have earned.

Obama also appears ignorant about Anthony Lake, a member of his close knit, ex-Clinton, advisers. During the Clinton years, Lake played an important role in the oversight of advanced military space technology sold to China. Worse still, Lake once wrote a letter on behalf of Enron to the president of Mozambique, threatening to cut off humanitarian aid unless the African nation agreed to an exclusive gas deal with the now-defunct energy company.

Either Obama is wearing blinders or he is unwilling to take personal responsibility for his errors of judgment in selecting associates and advisers. If he was indeed ignorant of all these problems then he is poorly suited to serve in the highest office of the land.

Ignorance is no excuse — and if applied inside the White House can lead us all to disaster.