McCain Hits Obama Hard on Ayers
Yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, John McCain questioned Barack Obama’s ties to terrorist William Ayers. Bill Burton’s reply was swift but otherwise unimpressive:
Asked by host George Stephanopoulos whether he has any doubt that Obama shares his sense of patriotism, McCain brought the subject up.
“I’m sure he’s very patriotic. But his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question,” McCain said. “He became friends with him and spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his activities as a member of a terrorist organization, the Weathermen,” McCain said. “Does he condemn them? Would he condemn someone who says they’re unrepentant and wished that they had bombed more?”
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton responded aggressively, calling McCain’s salvo “smear politics. Unable to sell his out-of-touch ideas on the economy and Iraq, John McCain has stooped to the same smear politics and low road that he denounced in 2000,” Burton said. “The American people can’t afford a third term of President Bush’s failed policies and divisive tactics.”
Bill Burton’s yapping about smear politics won’t cut it except with Sen. Obama’s most rabid supporters. Trying to deflect criticism might work within the Democratic primaries but general election voters want to know about this connection. They won’t see it as a smear tactic. They’ll see it as an attempt to exploit Sen. Obama’s blindness to a terrorist.
What makes Burton’s response less effective is the fact that Sen. McCain is laying out a real economic agenda that I predict will gather support as he talks more about it. I don’t think it’s wise for Obama’s campaign to bring up the subject of the economy in light of his debate performance, especially after his meandering reply to a question about the capital gains tax.
The swiftness of Burton’s reply tells you that Team Obama realizes that this is a no-win situation for them. If this wasn’t hurting them, their reply wouldn’t have been this quick and this sharp. This problem isn’t going away. The bad news for Team Obama is that they don’t have a way to reply to this that’ll put this issue to rest once and for all.
Sen. Obama chose to associate with William Ayers because it was the politically expedient thing to do. Sen. Obama put political expediency ahead of doing the right thing. He should’ve said that he didn’t need the support of a terrorist. Instead of doing the right thing, Sen. Obama did the expedient thing, showing voters where his priorities lie.
Technorati Tags: Obama, William Ayers, Terrorism, Politics, Bill Burton, John McCain, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Let’s just keep in mind that Senator Obama wasn’t an eight year old when he sought Ayers endorsement.