ABC, Clinton play 9/11 card against Obama
Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday April 17, 2008
Since Rudy Giuliani exited the presidential race earlier this year, there's been a pronounced decline in the number of 9/11 mentions on the campaign trail.
Hillary Clinton changed that last night -- with an assist from ABC's debate moderators. Clinton invoked the worst terror attack on US soil to continue criticisms of Barack Obama. Clinton mentioned 9/11 five times to criticize his former pastor, his encounters with a member of the Weather Underground and his openness to talking to rogue leaders. She even worked a 9/11 reference into a question about energy policy.
But it was the question about William Ayers, who led the radical leftist group in the 1960s and 70s that provoked perhaps the most fireworks last night. (The question was suggested to ABC moderator George Stephanopoulos by at least two right-wing radio hosts, Steve Malzberg and Sean Hannity before the debate.)
Stephanopoulos invoked what some might see as a shaky 9/11 premise in his question about Ayers, and Obama seemed caught off-guard calling it an example of the kind of distracting kind of politics he wanted to move beyond.
"And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old," he said, "somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George."
Clinton picked up the ball and ran with it, though, claiming that an interview with Ayers that happened to be published on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, were "deeply hurtful" to her constituents in New York.
"And if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died," Clinton said.
While that statement is true, it does propose a relationship between Ayers' comments and the Sept. 11 attacks that simply does not exist. The juxtaposition of bombings decades apart perhaps led some viewers to conclude Ayers was referring to the 9/11 attacks when he was quoted by the New York Times saying "'I don't regret setting bombs ... I feel we didn't do enough."
Stephanopolous repeated the quote, which appeared in the Times the morning before the attacks in his question, and Clinton ran with the connection in her answer. Ayers interview was published in the Arts section of that morning's newspaper, meaning the interview happened well before the attacks took place.
Clinton took what one contemporary editorial referred to as the "gross coincidence" that Ayers comments appeared on the same day as the attacks and used it for a political attack.
On his own blog, Ayers reprinted a letter he wrote to the Times after the attacks saying their article was misleading. In it he described his book as a "condemnation of terrorism, of the indiscriminate
murder of human beings, whether driven by fanaticism or official
policy."
Regarding the attacks, Ayers wrote:
All that we witnessed September 11—the awful carnage and pain, the heroism of ordinary people—may drive us mad with grief and anger, or it may open us to hope in new ways. Perhaps precisely because we have suffered we can embrace the suffering of others and gather the necessary wisdom to resist the impulse to lash out randomly. The lessons of the anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s may be more urgent now than ever.
Clinton justified her jab at Obama by explaining that it was certainly a play that the Republicans would make in the fall. Judging by the origin of the question, she's probably right.
"I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about," she said. "And I have no doubt -- I know Senator Obama's a good man and I respect him greatly but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising."
Obama shot back that Clinton might have her own connections to the radical group because her husband, Bill Clinton, pardoned two Weather Underground members towards the end of his presidency.
Ayers and Obama both served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that focuses on developing community groups to assist the poor. A variety of business executives, journalists and academics serve on the board.
snip
Earlier in the evening, Clinton invoked 9/11 on her own accord to criticize Obama's former pastor's comments. She reiterated her earlier declaration that she would not have Wright as her pastor and again invoked the suffering of the people of New York to justify that view.
"But I have to say that, you know, for Pastor Wright to have given his first sermon after 9/11 and to have blamed the United States for the attack, which happened in my city of New York, would have been intolerable for me," she said.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Clinton_uses_coincidence_911_in_Obama_0417.html
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