Michelle Obama wants to move on

Ms. Michelle Obama has been urging voters and the media to look past the Obama-Wright matters having to do with racism and anti-Americanism. Only I can't recall her saying they have to do with racism and anti-Americanism.

Anyway, Tom Maguire at Just One Minute goes along with Michelle Obama's request and posts concerning unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and his connections to Sen. Obama. Here's some of what Maguire says: - - -

…. Well, well. Please note the reference to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, because thereby hangs a tale.

In a White House ceremony in December 1993, philanthropist Walter Annenberg announced the Annenberg Challenge, putting $500 million towards efforts to reform public education.

Bill Ayers and two others formed and led a "Working Group" that produced Chicago's grant application; in 1995 Chicago was awarded $49.2 million, creating the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund ("CACF") in a well-publicized civic event.

The first chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund was Barack Obama. This is disclosed on Obama's Senate forms and he is mentioned in a history of the CACF [link, p. 54 of the text]. The board was responsible for hiring an Executive Director, Ken Rolling, who should have been involved on a daily basis (and does anyone know anything about Mr. Rolling?).

The "Working Group" mentioned above morphed into the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, co-chaired by Bill Ayers and one of his two co-founders of the Working Group. The Collaborative then worked closely with the CACF for several years. Ayers' role is noted in this history and at his own website on his resume.

A sidebar - my guess is that this link between Ayers and Obama has gone unreported because of the name game; despite a close working relationship, the Collaborative and the CACF don't leap off the page as being obviously associated, although the Ayers resume is clear enough - "The Annenberg Challenge" appears in parentheses right next to "Chicago School Reform Collaborative".

So, what was the nature of the Ayers/Obama relationship back in simpler times? Obama was asked about Ayers in the Philadelphia debate and described him as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago...". It was left to Hillary to mention the widely publicized link between Obama and Ayers, both of whom once overlapped on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago.

Obama's website then produced a Freudian's delight - a "Fact Check" (echoing the famous Annenberg FactCheck.org) purporting to explain the Obama/Ayers relationship but omitting any mention of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund.

A bit later, Obama was asked about Ayers during his Fox news interview and gave an answer that should have left reporters scratching their heads and doing some research[.] …

Maguire's entire post is here.

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Comments:

What Maguire presents is complex in places, involving as it does various boards and organizations that are connected in practice, but separate legal entities.

But if you stick with the post, you'll know when you come to the end of it that Ayers wasn't just some professor who lived in Obama's neighborhood.

The post is link-rich.

Maguire did an outstanding job reporting on the travesties which occurred during Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's multi-year investigation into the outing of "undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame," who for five years commuted by car from her home in Washington, DC to CIA headquarters across the river in Langley, VA.

If you're going to closely follow the Ayers-Obama relationship, Maguire's Just One Minute is a good place to visit.