Obama’s Relationship with Bill Ayers is Irrelevant

Obama’s association with Bill Ayers is yet another non-issue that the Republicans are trying to inflate. This is not a scandal; in fact, it shouldn’t even be a debate.

Basically, the McCain campaign has been unable to find any real skeletons in Obama’s closet, so it has tried to manufacture them. When the Clinton campaign experienced similar problems during the primary season, it tried to turn Obama’s clean history into a negative by implying that a scandal was inevitable. The possibility that he, a politician, actually had a clean record was just unthinkable. And yet still nothing substantial has come to the fore.

Barack Obama seems to lack the kinds of juicy scandals that typically headline effective smear campaigns. Here’s the current list of demerits on Obama’s past: illicit drug use when he was a teenager, a real estate deal involving a campaign contributor, a crazy preacher, and we can add friendship with a professor. That’s not a whole lot to work with. The Republicans were truly grasping at straws here. A thorough look at each “problem” in Obama’s past shows why McCain resorted to exaggeration.

The first problem on the docket is Obama’s illicit drug use as a teenager. If you believe that drug laws are necessary, then this is indeed a legitimate problem. Unfortunately, Barack Obama ruined the scandal potential for this item when he openly admitted to his unlawful behavior in his first book. He confessed without even being interrogated about it. The story is pretty weak already and chances are the McCain probably doesn’t want to discuss youthful mistakes. As a student at Annapolis, McCain had a reputation as a partier, and he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. Moreover, even if McCain did want to spotlight this issue, he can’t reference drug use without bringing up racial tensions. In short, it’s off-limits.

Next, we have the mythic Rezco land deal. Unfortunately for McCain, each development in this story made Obama appear more innocent if perhaps a little naive. A full timeline can be viewed here, but the story is pretty straightforward. Tony Rezco was a prominent campaign supporter and friend of Barack Obama. He had never tried to influence Obama’s policy in the state senate and so Obama trusted him. Obama ended up purchasing a mansion adjacent to a vacant lot that Rezco purchased around the same time. Obama later purchased some of this land from Rezco. Six months later Rezco was indicted on charges of fraud that were completely unrelated to Senator Obama. This is just another case of guilt by association.

The crazy preacher I alluded to earlier is Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He is best-known for saying, “not God bless America, God damn America!” He also thought 9/11 was an example of America’s chickens “coming home to roost.” Wright made these statements while he was condemning the interventionist foreign policy of the United States. If we took the time to read a history textbook, we’d notice that most of the things he said were actually pretty accurate. The statements were and are true, but American exceptionalism allows everyone to be outraged nevertheless. Wright’s statements were viewed as unpatriotic, and thus this supposed lack of patriotism was superimposed on Obama. In other words, their argument is that because Obama’s preacher allegedly hates America, Obama must also be unpatriotic. Guilt by association is again the modus operandi of Obama’s critics.

Finally, we come to the most recent associate of Obama’s to come under fire, William Ayers. Ayers was a member of the Weathermen, a terrorist group that formed to protest the Vietnam War. As recently as 2001, Ayers was quoted saying that he did not regret his actions, which involved bombing government buildings. In fact, he wishes he could have done more. That said, Bill Ayers is now a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois and a respected member of Chicago society. Obama served with Ayers on the board of an anti-poverty group, and Ayers threw a fund raiser for Obama’s presidential campaign. This is the extent of their relationship. Now instead of being merely unpatriotic, Obama’s association with individuals like William Ayers earns him the distinction of actually being linked to terrorists. This is the greatest exaggeration of all because Obama is not only being judged for actions of his associates, he’s being judged for actions that took place forty years ago. Sometimes I wonder if they’re serious.

As you can see, each allegation against Barack Obama is more ridiculous than the last. The only issue with any legitimacy is his drug use, but George W. Bush knows a thing or two about that as well, and we had no problem electing him, twice. The key problem here is the media’s acceptance of guilt by association. How can society function if a person held is accountable for the past and present actions of everyone they know? It can’t. Politicians should be no exception; they should be judged on the basis of their actions. Their advisers are also relevant, but friends and acquaintances must be exempt.

If guilt by association is legitimate though, we’d be remiss not to mention all the lobbyists working for for Senator McCain’s campaign. McCain consistently discussed fighting the influence of special-interests and yet his campaign was ruled by these interests. We never hear anything about this in the media even as these people actually influenced McCain’s policies. Aren’t they a little bit more important than Obama’s mere acquaintances?

Obama’s ties to William Ayers are insubstantial. But even if Ayers was Obama’s best friend, their relationship would have been equally irrelevant to the presidential election. Guilt by association is an absurd notion, and our society needs to move beyond it so that we can discuss real issues.