GAFFNEY: Obama's sleazy friends

Unfortunately, even if it were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that all these people had a huge impact on the Anointed One's life, and were in fact still involved with him, I'm pretty sure the MSM would pooh-pooh it, and those kool-aid drinkers would still pull the lever for him. Pretty sad.

Frank: What was Bill Ayers convicted of? When? Surely the President of the Center for Security Policy wouldn't screw up such a basic fact. Surely the editors of the Washington Times would catch a mistake like that. - Thomas

Thomas (aka WinterSoldier): As with many in the liberal Seventies, Ayers was let off on a technicality. This is common knowledge which, unless you have been on some other planet, you know. Why not mention Ayers' own words on the subject; a New York Times reporter quoted him thus: "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough"! Al Capone was never convicted of his gangster activities either; he was brought down for tax evasion. Surely an honest person as yourself would not screw up such basic facts.

This is just the sort of manure that today's leading article in this newspaper so solemnly and properly condemns. I presume that the hysterical Gaff(ney) jnr. (along with his peripatetic pal, Steyn) will be looking for a new job on Tuesdays now that the WT has decided to 'up' its standards. Or is WT practice to continue in cognitive dissonance with what the WP preaches?

ScottVA: The problem is that Mr. Gaffney writes above that Mr. Ayers is a "convicted" terrorist. That is a) inaccurate and b) probably libelous. I suspect you and I probably have different opinions regarding Mr. Ayers, to which we are entitled, but we are not entitled to our own facts. The Washington Times should print a correction. - Thomas

I think this is a great piece of writing in that it spells out for the reader the relative importance of focusing on substantive issues like what somebody that you know did before you knew them and how that clearly reveals a nefarious agenda for subversion versus the pithy, overworked, and extremely dry issue of what somebody says they are going to do about the problems this country faces. Bravo! This is highbrow journalism at its pinnacle. I smell a Pullitzer! Or maybe I'm smelling something I stepped in on the sidewalk on the way to my office...

I agree with Mr. Gaffney about bringing this issue up in the debate. Who will ask the question? Not Brokaw, and submitted questions will be "filtered." Rest assured, "Change" is just code for "communism."

Sure this is the issue of our time. Obama was 8 years old when Ayers did his repungnet act, and while its deplorable, the handful of times that Ayers and Obama's paths have crossed does not mean that they get together for tea every day at 4. This is nothing more than the same old politics of distraction and the American People are far too scared about their economy to buy into the garbage this time. This works great with the base, as they yell "Terrorist" in the audeince when JSM III asks, "Who is Barack Obama" While McCain and Palin try to scare us about Obama, and try to incite terrorism with the base, the people are scared about their 401ks and whether or not they will have a job next week. This article is the epitome of whats wrong with the American Media. Gaffney, you sir, are a scum bag.

Dynodick, You are one of those folks who buys that liberal media myth? I am sorry that you chose not to think for yourself. Free thought is a marvelous thing, and I am sorry that you abandoned it. The media "Filter"!? Seriously, is that because Palin could not name a single supreme court case beyond Roe v. Wade? That was a "Liberal Media Gotcha Question?" Perhaps Couric should have asked what her favorite color was? I am sure that would have been a "Gotcha Question" too.

And Dynodick, I have to ask... If change is 'Code' for communism, what is 'Reform' code for? Fascism?

I want what Frank Gaffney's smoking.

Finally someone telling it like it is, and from the posts I see the left is out in force trying to make people think the oridinary people are so far to the left they can't see the center.

Joe six, if anything, reform is code for turning back the tide of marxist socialism.

Okay, so the likes of Gaffney enjoys picking random "characters" out of the air that people may or may not have come in contact with and who may or may not be as "Stalinist" or "an admirer of suicide bombers" without offering any proof offered whatsoever for those characterizations. In the case of the not-so mysterious "Frank" from Obama's books, Obama ruefully describes him as a radical who he didn't really agree with on a lot of things but who he personally liked and admired. I also remind readers that in the 1980s there were still a number of surviving depression era communist party members, some of whom stayed loyal to the party, a lot more who didn't and some somewhere in between. I've met a few myself and had some nice chats -- and, then and now, I find soviet-style communism as deplorable as any far-right fascist state. In any case, I haven't seen any evidence that Frank Marshall Davis was a Stalinist. How do we know he wasn't, say, a former Trotskyite like so many of today's best respected neoconservatives? Did McCain never meet some far-right oldster, perhaps a veteran who had done some admirable and some not so admirable things, who he might have enjoyed a nice chat or two or three with? Heaven help McCain if that oldster was a member of an far right organization like the John Birch Society or one of the more blatantly bigoted and anti-semitic extreme right wing groups. And what about Sarah Palin whose own husband was a member of an Alaskan secessionist group founded by a man who, openly and literally, hated the United States of America with a burning passion. Doe the "character" of Todd Palin count? I've got anther one for that other "Frank," as is Gaffney. Obama, and his family, has been seen palling around with -- and actually holding hands with -- members of the bin Laden family, whose best known member promotes the hardest of "hard Jihads." Woops! That would be President George W. Bush, who has also lied about his association with convicted racketeer Jack Abramoff, whose associations include a Marriannas island sweatshop that routinely forced its female workers to have abortions. Look, conservatives like Gaffney know that political life brings you into contact with a wide variety of people not all of whom you'd want to be associated with. I promise you that for every far-leftish person Obama has come in contact with, John McCain and certainly and provably Sarah Palin have come in contact with extreme right figures. That's just how it works. If they really want to play that game, though, both sides get to.

EDITORIAL: Lake County election hijinks must end (www.nwitimes.com/opion/editorial) With Indiana up for grabs in the presidential election for the first time in decades, new and updated voter registrations have come in at a furious pace. Now it's time to carefully sift through them. Lake County Elections Board Director Sally LaSota said more than 12,000 voter registration forms need to be processed from recent days. Porter County has processed at least 3,500 voter applications since the May primary. But it wouldn't be an election in Lake County without fears of election hijinks. LaSota said of the 2,000 new voter applications dropped off Monday by members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, "about 1,100 are no good." Hundreds of other applications among the 5,000 forms ACORN submitted in Lake County prior to this week contained incomplete information, unreadable handwriting or are otherwise unusable. Some ACORN representatives apparently pulled names and addresses from telephone books and forged their signatures. One of the clues was when "Jimmy John" was listed as an applicant on a form that listed the address of a Crown Point sandwich restaurant named, of course, "Jimmy John's." Another application that was singled out listed the name and address of a Gary man who died Nov. 16. It isn't unheard of for dead people to vote in Lake County, but registering to vote for the first time? ACORN said Monday its administrators screened out the 1,100 registration forms in question and warned Lake County officials. An ACORN spokesman said the organization has fired and reported to law enforcement any of employees suspected of vote fraud. ACORN said Monday its administrators screened out the 1,100 registration forms in question and warned Lake County officials. An ACORN spokesman said the organization has fired and reported to law enforcement any of employees suspected of vote fraud. Lake County Republican Chairman John Curley last week asked for a federal investigation into hundreds of voter registrations bearing fictitious signatures or the names of dead and underage people. That's a good suggestion. Confidence in the government requires confidence in the electoral process. Now that the deadline for registering to vote has passed in Indiana -- today is the last day in Illinois -- make sure fraudulent applications are tossed out so we can have a clean election this year. We can't afford to compromise the electoral process.