The lack of media interest in the role of former domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn in Democratic nominee Barack Obama's political ascent in Chicago is one of the most remarkable aspects of the 2008 presidential campaign. When the question is raised at all, reporters are quick to repeat Sen. Obama's claim that his relationship with the two former bomb-makers was fleeting and casual. Some cite Chicago mayor Richard Daley's defense of Ayers as a "distinguished professor of education" and "a valued member of the Chicago community." Why then should there be cause for concern?
Weatherman: bombs, rage and revolution
Weatherman was a revolutionary communist sect that split from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1969. Weatherman's founding document called for a "white fighting force" that would be "akin to the Red Guard in China" to work with the Black Liberation Movement and other "anti-colonial" movements to bring about a communist revolution and destroy "US imperialism." Weatherman committed at least 40 bombings between 1969 and 1975. Targets included the Pentagon, the State Department and the US Capitol, other government buildings, military bases, police offices and corporations. Two of the group's primary leaders were Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.
Defenders argue that Weatherman was not a terrorist group, since it frequently tipped off police about the devices. Bill Ayers recently called the bombings "a dramatic form of armed propaganda" and claimed "no one was ever hurt." In reality, the relatively low death toll from the bombing campaign was mostly due to technical incompetence.
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