Barack Obama and William Ayers

The debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama didn't turn out too well for Obama.

He was so bad that he chose to address his dismal debate showing on the campaign trail. Naturally, Obama isn't saying he blew it. No, he blames moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.

They weren't fair. They were too tough. They didn't ask the right questions.

Other assorted Lefties have leveled the same charges. Tom Shales went off the deep end and mercilessly attacked Gibson and Stephanopoulos for, among a long list of things, being slanted against Obama.

I think the libs are mistaking a poor performance by the debate moderators for Obama's miserable performance.

The fact is Gibson and Stephanopoulos' questions revealed some of Obama's weaknesses. The libs want to blame the messenger.

All this criticism being directed at Gibson and Stephanopoulos is a clear indication that even his supporters believe Obama fell flat on his face.

From the Washington Post:

The political fallout from the Philadelphia face-off between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was all but eclipsed yesterday by a fierce debate about Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.

The ABC moderators found themselves under fire for focusing on campaign gaffes and training most of their ammunition on Obama. Huffington Post blogger Jason Linkins called the debate "utterly asinine." Washington Post television critic Tom Shales called the duo's performance "despicable." Philadelphia Daily News columnist Will Bunch said the moderators "disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself."

Tough crowd out there.

"I think the questions were certainly pointed -- tough at times, as they should be in a presidential debate -- but not inappropriate or irrelevant at all," Stephanopoulos said yesterday. "The questions have been part of this campaign and in the news. We did our job. You're not going to satisfy everyone."

In the first 40 minutes of Wednesday's two-hour Democratic debate, the moderators asked Obama about his remarks that small-town residents bitterly cling to guns and religion; the inflammatory sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Stephanopoulos follow-up: "Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"); why Obama doesn't wear an American flag pin; and his relationship with William Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical who has acknowledged involvement in several bombings in the 1970s.

In the only comparably aggressive question directed at Clinton, Stephanopoulos cited a Washington Post-ABC News poll challenging her honesty and tied it to her false tale of having once come under sniper fire in Bosnia.

"Senator Obama is the front-runner," said Stephanopoulos, the network's chief Washington correspondent and a former Clinton White House aide. "Our thinking was, electability was the number one issue," and questions about "relationships and character go to the heart of it."

Besides, he added, "you can't do a tougher question for Senator Clinton than 'six out of 10 Americans don't think you're honest.' "

Obama, for his part, complained about "gotcha games," saying yesterday: "I think we set a new record, because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people."

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson countered that "the press is supposed to ask every candidate tough questions. . . . If you can't handle tough questions from a TV anchor, how will you handle the Republicans or a hostile world leader?"

The pro-Obama libs are acting like whiny little kids.

Obama had a very bad night. Deal with it.

...The liberal advocacy arm of MoveOn.org, which has endorsed Obama, said it will run an ad against ABC if 100,000 people sign a petition accusing the moderators of abusing "the public trust" by asking "trivial questions . . . that only political insiders care about."

That's so ridiculous it's funny.

Maybe this Dem primary has gone on too long. The Left is really losing it.

...Some critics, including MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, pounced on the question about Ayers, saying that conservative radio hosts Sean Hannity and Steve Malzberg had suggested it when Stephanopoulos appeared on their programs this week.

But Stephanopoulos said he had been following the issue since the Politico reported it in February. "What finally tipped the balance on whether to ask it or not was that as far as we could tell, Obama had never answered the question," he said.

It's about time that Obama had to address the matter of his personal connection with William Ayers.

Obviously, Ayers is viewed as a problem for Obama or the libs wouldn't be going so crazy over Stephanopoulos' Ayers question.

As the AP notes, "Stephanopoulos' question about a former Weather Underground official had received barely little notice in the campaign."

That's exactly why it was a good question. Finally, more American people are learning about Obama's ties with this unrepentant enemy of America.

In an opinion piece from February 26, Jonah Goldberg provides some information on Ayers.

'Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon."

This excerpt from William Ayers' memoir appeared in the New York Times on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 -- a few hours before Al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ayers, once a leader in the Weather Underground -- the group that declared "war" on the U.S. government in 1970 -- told the Times, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough."

... Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is apparently a left-wing institution in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, and Obama visited Ayers' home as a rite of passage when launching his political career in the mid-1990s. The two also served on the board of the charitable Woods Fund of Chicago, which gave money to Northwestern University Law School's Children and Family Justice Center, where Ayers' wife (and former Weather Underground compatriot) Bernardine Dohrn is the director.

...The question of why Ayers isn't in jail is moot; he was never prosecuted for the dozen or so bombings the Weather Underground claimed responsibility for. But Ayers and Dohrn are unrepentant about their years spent waging a violent campaign against the government. "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at," Ayers was widely quoted as saying at the time (though he told the Times he couldn't remember if he said it).

Yes, Ayers has a blog, and a few weeks ago he wrote a post, "Episodic Notoriety–Fact and Fantasy," that attempts to dismiss his involvement in bombings against the government while justifying his actions.

He seems to think he's clarifying while he's actually contradicting himself.

Very odd.

Bottom line: Ayers says he has regrets but he has no regrets. He's a lot like Jane Fonda in that sense.

Obama is "friendly" with Ayers, this American terrorist.

That's the reality.