Wm. Ayers v. Todd Palin

Wm. Ayers v. Todd Palin
04 Oct 2008 08:21 pm

In response to Gov. Sarah Palin's invocation of Barack Obama's "terrorist" "pal" William Ayers, Democrats have settled on a rhetorical response that inquires, innocently enough, whether Todd Palin's association with anti-American secessionists is fair game, especially in light of Palin's charge that Obama "is not a man who sees America as you and I do."

Todd Palin, a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, might well have seen America unlike his wife did -- that is, an America that one can secede from. He was comfortable belonging to and being associated with a political party whose founder seemed to delight in denouncing the principles that hold our union together.

Now -- maybe that's not fair. Maybe Todd Palin didn't believe in all of the principles the AIP espoused... indeed, the AIP seems to be a bit of a cultural relic in Alaska, a quirky old friend. A difference may be that many professional conservatives genuinely believe that Obama's association with William Ayers -- more accurately, he refusal NOT to associate with him -- is a genuine reflection of Obama's poor judgment, whereas no one really cares about why Sarah Palin stayed married to her husband. He seems like a good guy, a loving father, hard to find in a chaotic world, and that she didn't dump him because he associated with some dum-dum secessionists is probably a sign of good judgment.


"[Its] a laughable comparison," says Tracey Schmitt, Palin's spokesperson. "Bill Ayers was a founding member of the group that bombed the US capitol and the Pentagon."

On the other hand, there is very little evidence that Ayers's radical worldview ever influenced anything Barack Obama did, said or thought -- indeed, there is evidence of the opposite -- whereas one can easily assume that a husband and wife influence each other's beliefs quite often.

Forget about whether it's OK or intellectually honest or not.

Conservative groups have spent more than ten million dollars on ads tying Obama to Ayers, and so far, Americans don't seem to give a heck. (This tells us what about how we're going to make that mortgage payment?)

Maybe Palin's willingness to go there changes all that.