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A Wacky Comparison

In one of the stranger moments of the debate, Obama tried to minimise the significance of his ties to William Ayers by saying that he’s also “friendly” with Tom Coburn (!), who has supported the death penalty for abortionists, as if to say, “Look, I’m friendly with all kinds of crazy people, but I’m not responsible for […]

In one of the stranger moments of the debate, Obama tried to minimise the significance of his ties to William Ayers by saying that he’s also “friendly” with Tom Coburn (!), who has supported the death penalty for abortionists, as if to say, “Look, I’m friendly with all kinds of crazy people, but I’m not responsible for them.”  See, Obama’s just a friendly guy!  But there is a huge difference between expressing a controversial opinion and, well, setting off explosives and killing people, and it is not at all obvious that Coburn’s position is even wrong, much less on par with willful destruction of property.  Indeed, it’s a wacky parallel: one person engages in terrorism, the other person wants to punish what he reasonably regards as an act of murder, and they’re supposed to be equivalent?  Presumably, they are supposed to be comparable because both are “extremists” in different ways, but of course the content of the “extremism” in question makes all the difference in the world, as do the actions of the two men being compared.  This is like the Wright/grandmother comparison in the Philadelphia speech, but much, much more reckless.    

Imagine the implausible case of, say, John McCain being “friendly” with Eric Rudolph.  Could McCain then say in his defense, “Well, I’m also friendly with Barack Obama, who has refused to support protecting infants who have survived abortion procedures, and obviously I don’t agree with him, either”?  Would that make a relationship, any kind of relationship, with Rudolph acceptable?  Now, obviously, Obama is not in any way responsible for what Ayers did or even for what Ayers has said now or in the past, but he is responsible for allying with him in local Hyde Park politics and for serving together with him on the same foundation board.  While his ties to Ayers are much weaker than those to Wright, the key difference between Wright’s blunders, which have been entirely rhetorical, and Ayers’ crimes is obviously that the former are awful but harmless words and the latter are violent and destructive acts. 

It is, of course, inconceivable that a major presidential candidate on the right could get away with having any political associations with domestic terrorists, regardless of how long ago those terrorists were active.  That Obama thinks it reasonable to compare such a terrorist to one of his colleagues in the Senate is striking.  This is a case of Obama’s urge to demonstrate his capacity for bridge-building spiraling out of control.

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