Obama Seeks to Stop Ads "Linking" Him to Terrorists

Posted by Damozel | The McCain campaign really is going over the top with the ugliness.  Sadly, plenty of idiots out there in TV land believe that anything they see on TV is real and that a presidential candidate would never say something that isn't true. 

This is really disgusting.  It's not that I wasn't expecting it.  It's just that I wondered whether Republicans would be willing to sink this low again. Why did I wonder?  There is no low too low for some of them to go.

The ad focuses on Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, a Hyde Park acquaintance at whose home Obama attended a gathering early in his political career. Ayers is a complicated figure: professor and adviser to the mayor of Chicago despite not having repented his past as a domestic terrorist with the Weather Underground.

"How much do your really know about Barack Obama? What does he really believe?" asks the ad, which also uses imagery from the Al-Qaeda terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?" asks the ad’s narrator.(Politico)

At least he's not just sitting back and pretending it's not happening. 

Obama not only aired a response ad to the spot linking him to William Ayers, but he sought to block stations the commercial by warning station managers and asking the Justice Department to intervene. The campaign also planned to compel advertisers to pressure stations that continue to air the anti-Obama commercial.

It's the type of going-for-the-jugular approach to politics many Democrats complain that Kerry lacked and that Republicans exploit.

Obama's target is an ad by the conservative American Issues Project, a nonprofit group that questions Obama's ties to Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that took credit for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago....(Breitbart.com)

Forty years ago.  How old was Obama then?  Obama was born in 1961, so if my math is right, this means he was...no, you do the math.  I think you'll find that whatever his connection with Ayers in recent years might be, the "connection" to Ayers' terrorism is as moot as McCain's adultery during his first marriage. 

I'm glad he is pushing back hard. It's increasingly clear that McCain doesn't have anything at all to offer the US except more of what Bush gave us, and that his only argument for why people should vote for him is that Barack Obama isn't a "real" American.  He hangs out with Sixties radicals---and celebrities! 

Amusing, the McCain camp is apparently quite upset at some footage Madonna incorporated into a recent concert in Cardiff.  I am waiting for McCain to denounce the Ayers ad as equally divisive....waiting....waiting.....

Still waiting.

The Obama campaign is fighting back.   This is a relief to me.  I did serious damage to my back molars during the Kerry campaign due to grinding my teeth. 

Obama’s campaign has written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,” the vehicle through which Dallas investor Harold Simmons is financing the advertisements. The Obama campaign — and tens of thousands of supporters — also is pressuring television networks and affiliates to reject the ads. The effort has met with some success: CNN and Fox News are not airing the attacks....

Bauer’s letter called on the Justice Department to open “an investigation of the American Issues Project; its officers and directors; and its anonymous donors, whoever they may be.”....

Obama’s campaign has written a pair of letters to station managers carrying the ads.

The letter calls the ad’s attempt to link Obama to terrorism “an appalling lie, a disgraceful smear of the lowest kind on the senator’s patriotism and commitment to the rule of law.”
(Politico)

Even so, the ad is being widely aired. That's a damned shame. 

One large group of network affiliates, the Sinclair Broadcast Group — which aired an documentary attacking John Kerry in 2004 — has been running the ads, Obama aides said. The campaign has launched a special effort to pressure Sinclair.

“Obama supporters have now sent more than 93,000 e-mails to the Sinclair stations that have decided to run the ad,” said Obama’s spokesman Tommy Vietor. “Other stations that follow Sinclair’s lead should expect a similar response from people who don’t want the political discourse cheapened with these false, negative attacks.”  (Politico)

Want to do something about it?  Nicole Belle says:

Sadly, the Sinclair network — the same ones who aired the Kerry SBVT smear campaign under the guise of a “documentary” has aired the ad in all of its outlets. 

If you want to become involved in fighting back against this kind of dishonest smearing, join up at fightthesmears.com.  (Crooks and Liars)

Memeorandum has more here.

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Comments

[daveinboca]

I knew Ayers & his then-girlfriend Diana Oughton back in Ann Arbor in early '69, when Mark Rudd stayed at my apartment during an SDS confab. Diana was a decent human being, but not a good bomb-maker, as she died in a Greenwich Village townhouse explosion making a bomb to kill US troops in Fort Dix, an action Ayers never repudiated.

Obama was stupid to respond to the ad, which will make it mainstream & viral. Methinks the "shifty and untrustworthy" [Jake Tapper's quote of a Hillary spokesperson yesterday] Obama's strange bio will be unpeeled layer by layer like an onion---the Ayers episode & the Wright decades-long dalliance with black racist undertones will begin to erode the Messianic Aura of this upstart.

If McCain chooses Lieberman or Condi Rice, he will certainly make Biden look like a plagiarizing hair-plug B-Lister.

[Deb Cupples]

Dave,

I don't know whether doing a response ad was smart or not.

I haven't watched the smear ad, because I already suspect from reading descriptions of it that any innuendo linking Obama to terrorism is crap.

If Obama feels that he has technical grounds to sue the "American Issues Project" (or its members) for defamation, then he SHOULD try his luck in civil court.

If Obama has evidence that AIP has violated campaign-finance or electioneering laws, then he SHOULD complain to the FEC (as other candidates have done in similar situations).

Here's what unnerves me:

"Bauer’s letter called on the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT to open 'an investigation of the American Issues Project; its officers and directors; and its anonymous donors, whoever they may be.'"

Unleashing federal prosecutors on loud-mouthed political enemies because they make nasty innuendos (or even false statements) about a public figure?

I’m going to email a First Amendment scholar and see what she thinks about the implications.

Frankly, I wonder if former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman will be (privately) plagued by a wicked case of dejas vu when he reads about a political candidate’s ASKING our nation’s top law-enforcement agency to intervene in a political mud-fest.

[DavidL]

The ad makes very few assertions with respect to Obama himself, to wit he knew Ayers, defended him and worked with him on a board. The Obama campaign has not refuted any allegation made. I.e, the campaign is not arguig that OBama does not know Ayers. The ad question Obama's judgement. The facts are not in dispute.

Obama might be able to supress this one ad. He can supress the facts stated in the ad. I hope he tries.

[Deb Cupples]

Dave,

I finally watched the ad -- then realized that I've already seen it.

If everything the ad SAYS is true, then Obama might not have a good defamation case. (I don't know all the facts and case law.)

I've done only a tiny bit of research since reading the Obama campaign's lawyer's letter to Justice, and my memory of the BCRA and of McConnell v. FEC is very foggy.

That and I'm not familiar with the federal regulations relevant to the Obama campaign's claims.

It seems (from my LIMITED) research that the question of legal violations by the AIP MAY turn on whether the ads were released within the 60 day period before the general election.

At this point, I think we're still outside that 60-day window, so the ads MIGHT NOT even be considered "electioneering communications."

Again, I've done only LIMITED research, as I have job-related work to do.

Anyway, my main point in the previous comment is that I find it troubling that ANY political candidate would even think about using federal prosecutors to stop political enemies from exercising First Amendment rights -- unless, of course, criminal laws really were broken.

[Rich]

This is just stupid. Why are you trying to associate a 1960's terrorist with Barack Obama who was 8 years old during the Weatherman time. Grow up!

[Deb Cupples]

Rich,

I'm not sure what it is that you think is stupid.

Frankly, I don't think of Obama as a terrorist and don't care what his friends did 40 years ago -- but that's not the point.

The issue that Damozel brought up in her post is that Obama is hitting back over the false ads.

The issue that I brought up in my comments is whether it is appropriate to involve the Justice Department.

Are you actually responding to what we've written, or are you venting about something else?

[Damozel]

I understand Deb's concern, but I think this case is distinguishable. Obama isn't the boss of Michael Mukasey.

Certainly the DoJ allegedly at one time went after Democrats with a certain zeal. If Obama believes a violation of federal law might have occurred, why may he not call it to the DoJ's attention? Unlike Bush Inc., Obama can't bring any pressure to bear on the DoJ or influence their policies.