Glad the AP Could Clear That Up

Sarah Palin criticizes Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers is a white guy.

According to writer Douglass Daniel at the Associated Press, that means Palin is being racist.

Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as "not like us" is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

Emphasis mine. There are so many canards in this AP "analysis" that I could spend 1000+ words on it. Don't have time to right now, but I'd simply suggest the following:

Ayers wasn't a "homegrown anarchist." He was and is a committed leftist of the limousine liberal type - his entree into polite Chicago society is directly related to his lineage as the scion of the head honcho at Commonwealth Edison, the utility that has served Chicago for decades. In the go-along to get-along world of Chicago politics, Ayers's bombing campaign is simply a youthful indiscretion and no big thing. Mayor Daley himself has said that Ayers and Obama are pals. Maybe Daley is mistaken, but he knows where things stand in his fiefdom.

And as far as the distinction about what motivates terrorists is concerned, I don't think that John Murtagh would be any more bothered by the bombing that his family suffered if it had come from a radical Islamist instead of Ayers. The technique was the same and the desired result was, too.

I posted Mohammed Atta's picture with this piece on purpose. When this AP analysis says that terrorists are seen as "dark-skinned radical Muslims," it's worth remembering that Atta (and bin Laden and Zawahiri, for that matter) aren't especially dark-skinned. I share the ethnic heritage of the people who blew up Lord Mountbatten. Doesn't matter - the IRA were (and are) scum, too.

Obama isn't a terrorist. But he comes from a place where "community organizers" and unrepentant terrorists are absorbed into the bosom of the all-encompassing political machine. It's all good. Maybe it's okay with America. We'll find out on November 4.