The Real Obama/Ayres Connection

This is almost too much to believe, but new information released last week from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge shows that Obama's connection to Weather Underground terrorist William Ayres was much closer and more involved than Obama has admitted. Certainly Ayres was a lot more than "just a guy who lived in my neighborhood."

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, founded by William Ayres, received a grant of $50 million from billionaire Walter Annenberg to "raise political consciousness" in Chicago's public schools. Ayres hand-picked ACORN "Community Organizer" Barack Hussein Obama to distribute that money. It is interesting to note that BO does not mention this executive experience in either of his auto-biographies. BO doled out the $50 million to his buddies at ACORN, and raised another $60 million from other politically left-leaning civic groups to augment it. ACORN used the money to pair up with public schools to conduct programs with the intent to radicalize the students and politicize them through leftist indoctrination. Academic success didn't count for much, but a school's success in indoctrinating students to ACORN's radical agenda determined how much money the schools got.

Barack Obama and William Ayres had a close collaboration administering the Chicago Annenberg Challenge funds from 1995 until 1999, revealing that their relationship was much more intimate than BO suggested, when he dismissively portrayed it as a passing acquaintance years in the past. In any case, it does prove that Obama was lying when he said that Ayres' only objectionable actions occurred when BO was eight years old and that Obama and Ayres have not worked together closely at any time.

Obama has gone to great lengths to hide the recent collaboration with Ayres on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The former terrorist was not convicted because of a legal technicality, but Ayres himself admits that he did carry out the bombings of the Pentagon, the home of a New York Supreme Court Justice, and various police stations. On September 11, 2001 he said that he not only does not regret those actions, but "wishes I could have done more." Maybe that explains why Obama did not wish to be openly associated with Ayres. Instead he carried out the activities in secrecy, doling out $100 million to his political backers in Chicago. That, even more than the meeting at Ayres home to launch Obama's political career, propelled Obama into a position to run for Congress.

This seemed too big to be true, but the following people have checked the facts in detail and are staking their journalistic credibility on it:

Dick Morris writing for "The Hill"

Stanley Kurtz in the Wall Street Journal