Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:49 pm
During the 2008 presidential campaign Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin tried desperately to link Barack Obama to 1960s radical Bill Ayers. Now, it turns out that Ayers is opposing Obama’s decision to send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan.
An interview with Ayers will be on Fox News Channel’s Hannity program and here is what he said about Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, “It’s a mistake. It’s a colossal mistake. And, you know, we’ve seen this happen before, Alan. We’ve seen a hopeful presidency, Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, burn up in the furnace of war. I fear that this brilliant young man, this hopeful new administration, could easily burn their prospect of a great presidency in the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere.”
Ayers’s assessment of the Afghanistan situation sounds like a pure 60’s radical. I also believe that he is completely wrong. I don’t see the comparison between Afghanistan and Vietnam, but more importantly if Obama was the kind of radical that conservatives tried to paint him as during the campaign, you would think that he and Ayers would agree on this issue. In fact, the McCain campaign tried turning Ayers into a de facto advisor for Obama, but obviously nothing could be further from the truth.
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Much to the dismay of many on the far left, or in Ayers’s case, the very far left, Obama is turning out to be much more of a moderate than they expected. Obama was never going to be a far left liberal. Presidents can’t effectively govern in this country from the far left or right. Obama is correct to get the nation out of Iraq, where unlike Afghanistan, there are no terrorists. President Obama was never a close friend of Bill Ayers, and his comments of FNC, show how stupid that attack was.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
