Campaign 2008

Posted: 9/10/08

 

Obama Talks with O'Reilly: Part Three

September 10, 2008
by Diane W. Collins
dcollins@marketingweb.com

 

Posted: 12:02 a.m., CST

 

Once again, hard to get through the rapid fire... but, O'Reilly's questions and his challenges to Obama's answers were valid, in my opinion. Let's take a look.

 

First of all, O'Reilly laid out some of Obama's questionable relationships. These included Rev. Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Bill Ayers, MoveOn.org, and the Daily Kos. All far Left radicals.

 

He asked Obama what he thought people were suppose to think regarding Obama's association with these people. The Senator responded he knows thousands of people... O'Reilly jumped in and replied that he did too, but he (O'Reilly) "didn't know anybody like that."

 

O'Reilly moved to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial former Senior Pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama attended for approximately 20 years. The more than unsettling remarks of Rev. Wright during sermons are well documented even to the extent that they were being sold on CDs by the church.

 

However, Sen. Obama who says he attended church probably two times per month, never heard Rev. Wright say (as O'Reilly put it) "White people are bad." Obama did say he heard Wright say, "racism is bad." Obama stated that his relationship with Rev. Wright was "ruptured" and is no longer an issue. I'm not so sure. A long term relationship with a person who is also your pastor can't help but have an influence on the way you view things.

 

O'Reilly turned to Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weathermen, a violent, radical left wing group active in the 60s and 70s. Ayers is unrepentant of his actions. Ayers was never convicted for his involvement with the 25 bombings the Weather Underground claimed; charges were dropped because of improper FBI surveillance. On 9/11/2001 in the New York Times, Bill Ayers was quoted as saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

 

Ayers is now a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. According to Obama, they met in 1995 while working on projects for Mayor Richard M. Daley, of Chicago. Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn (also a member of The Weathermen) supported Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate in 1995. Obama and Ayers have served on the board of "The Woods Fund of Chicago." They live in the same neighborhood, a few blocks from each other in the Hyde Park district of Chicago.

 

Ayers and Obama worked against a juvenile justice reform bill that introduced "blended sentencing" in which "juveniles who had committed serious crimes are given both a juvenile sentence and a parallel adult sentence. So long as the offender keeps his nose clean, doesn't violate parole, and participates in community-based rehabilitation, he never has to serve his adult sentence. But if the offender violates the provisions of his juvenile sentence, the adult punishment kicks in." According to the Weekly Standard, Ayers and Obama felt this was a mean-spirited "get tough on crime measure in disguise" and were successful in killing the bill.

 

O'Reilly went on to mention the Daily Kos, a far left web blogg which was allowed to attend the Democratic National Convention as part of the media and is said by some to be it's "new mainstream voice". The Daily Kos and MoveOn.org have taken pot shots at General Petraeus posting totally unfounded slurs. Obama said he was sorry for that and had apologized.

 

The interview didn't touch on Obama's relationship to now-indicted political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko perhaps because it has seen major coverage in the press. The association in part concerns the Obama's purchase of their home in Hyde Park and a portion of additional land next door, owned by Rezko. Obama has also done some limited legal work for Mr. Rezko.

 

Okay. The take away on Part Three of O'Reilly's interview with Obama was summed up in the following statments O'Reilly made.

 

#1. Obama seems to be "very comfortable in the far Left precincts."

#2. Obama has developed a "pattern of behavior."

#3. The American people need someone "they feel comfortable with."

 

Obama's response was, "My story is just like your story." To which O'Reilly had the best line of the night... "Yeah, but your friends aren't my friends."

 

I leave it there.

 

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Notes: A lot of this information was only briefly introduced in O'Reilly's interview with Obama and was delivered in rapid fire succession. At times it appeared facts on who did what when where getting jumbled. So, I researched the above given account of Obama's associations mentioned in the interview and included links for further reading.

 

It's yours to decide how you feel about all of this. My hope is to present a more cohesive description of Obama's relationships than what O'Reilly's interview seemed able to provide.