I find it interesting that there's such a willingness to dismiss the Obama - Ayers connections and to attribute those who question it to simple mudslinging, but all things being equal, would everyone be willing to do so if instead of Ayers it was Timothy McVeigh with whom Obama served on boards together with? or ran into and chatted with occassionally when dropping kids at school or walking in their common neighborhood? or attended a political event (some say even his "coming out party") at Timothy McVeigh's house?

Perhaps I speak for myself only, but if you were to put me in the place of Obama in any of those situations with Ayers (or McVeigh), I would have immediately divorced myself from those situations. Furthermore, I would have denounced the involvement of Ayers in the organizations that I was a part of, and taken a "him or me" approach. Substitute Timothy McVeigh (who is no different than Ayers, just more notoriously successful) and I would have never been anywhere NEAR the guy, no matter what my ambitions were.

Now, I can understand that an ambitous, eager, idealistic and inexperienced up and coming politician might have erred along the way and or allowed others to convince him that he shouldn't buck those organizations that way. And I'd be willing to overlook that if Obama were to have come out proactively and said something to the effect of:

"You know what? When I was younger and just breaking into the political process, I allowed myself to become involved however peripherally with a dishonorable son of a _____, but I never should have. Had I been more mature and of better judgement at that time, I never would have allowed it to happen and even though we had some commonalities with respect to causes we championed, I don't nor did I ever agree with his views on most things and especially his terroristic views. Here are all the times that I ever had associated with him or could be assumed to have associated with him, and I regret them, and I repudiate him. When you consider what Ayers had done in the past (even though I was 8), any of those associations were not acceptable, and I should've known better at the time, but unfortunately, my judgement was not good in those instances. However, those issues are long past and I have since learned a good lesson from that. And so that I be true to my stated ideals and don't continue with the typical political crap that we have gotten from our presidents over the last 30 years, I'm not going to side step it, down play it, or be dishonest about it. I'm going to tell you about it, proactively and fully expose it, and apologize for it."

Whatr bothers me is that he has been unwilling to approach the situation with even a shadow of something to that effect. He's presented the same dodging, hope no one focusses on it approach that most politicians utilize. That's not change and certainly not the kind of change we need or that we can believe in. And when you STOP and REALLY consider that this situations is with respect to a terrorist who sought to bomb our government buildings, not with someone who made a questionable real estate deal, personally for me it's a game changer. When you approach that kind of relationship, however minimal it is, with down playing it, it is completely unacceptable.

If you simply substitute Ayer's name with McVeigh's, all other things being equal, would people be as willing to dismiss it, justify it, qualify it? I certainly would completely change my opinion of ANYONE if I knew that they even attended, much less were the center of attention at a political event hosted by and held at Timothy McVeigh's house. I feel no different about it being at Ayer's house. Just because McVeigh was executed for his crimes, and Ayer's was not, doesn't separate the depravity and the heinousness of that type of person's mentality or their crimes. They are treason of the highest order, and for our potential President to somehow "justify" his "normal" interactions with such a person is reprehensible IMO.