Barack Obama, his Left-wing media accomplices, and the fringe Leftist bloggers are worried about Bill Ayers.
They're concerned that Obama's relationship with Ayers - his neighbor, friend, fellow board member, and Weather Underground founder - will hurt him.
They have reason to be concerned, but Ayers can only hurt Obama's standing with American voters if the truth about his "friendly" relationship (according to Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod) with the terrorist Ayers is told.
The mainstream media are doing their best to minimize the Obama-Ayers relationship.
They're doing more than minimizing the Obama-Ayers REALITY. They're trying to counter it by creating a Bill Ayers-type to hurt John McCain.
Thus, we have John Singlaub.
All day, the Associated Press has been updating this piece: McCain linked to group in Iran-Contra affair
Barack Obama has his William Ayers connection. Now John McCain may have an Iran-Contra connection. In the 1980s, McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America.
The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization's tax exemption.
The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league's chairman.
McCain's tie to Singlaub's council is undergoing renewed scrutiny after his campaign criticized Obama for his link to Ayers, a former radical who engaged in violent acts 40 years ago. Over the weekend, Democratic operative Paul Begala said on ABC's "This Week" that this "guilt by association" tactic could backfire on the McCain campaign by renewing discussion of McCain's service on the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, "an ultraconservative right-wing group."
In two interviews with The Associated Press in August and September, Singlaub said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain launched his political career. McCain was elected to the U.S. House in 1982.
Singlaub said McCain was a supporter but not an active member.
From Politico:
Dems hope Singlaub is McCain’s Ayers
Since the mid-1980s, there’s been almost no attention paid to John McCain’s long-ago association with a controversial group implicated in a secretive plot to supply arms to Nicaraguan militia groups during the Iran-Contra affair.
But now, with the Republican presidential candidate stepping up his negative blitz against Democratic opponent Barack Obama, some Democrats are hoping that the group — the U.S. Council for World Freedom, and its founder, John Singlaub — will become for McCain what Bill Ayers has become for Obama: a fleeting past association used as ammunition for political broadsides.
Over the past few days, a handful of Obama allies — none directly associated with his campaign — have called attention to McCain’s ties to the council to rebut the McCain campaign’s increasing focus on Obama’s ties to Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical Weather Underground.
“This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization; it was the U.S. Council for World Freedom. It was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. It was an ultraconservative, right-wing group.”
Since Begala made his comments, in which he mentioned the Anti-Defamation League’s 1981 condemnation of the council’s parent group as anti-Semitic, a growing group of bloggers have referenced Begala’s self-described “shot across the bow” and have tried to flesh out McCain’s ties to the council and to Singlaub, a decorated retired Army major general with a background in special operations and intelligence.
Some lefty bloggers urged Obama’s campaign, which on Monday unveiled an ad highlighting McCain’s involvement in the “Keating Five” savings-and-loan scandal, to expand its attacks to include the U.S. Council for World Freedom.
Of course, the "lefty bloggers" are the Daily Kos crowd.
The mainstream media are taking cues from Daily Kos and partisan Paul Begala. How low can they go?
I think there's a method to the madness. Having the AP run with this John Singlaub stuff all day will lend some legitimacy to raising the issue in tonight's debate.
It's likely that Bill Ayers will come up. When McCain speaks about Obama's long relationship with Ayers, Obama can counter with Singlaub, throw out the name and try to dismiss and brush off what the Obama camp calls the "guilt by association" matters as insignificant, being "tangentially related."
I don't think that will work.
Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain’s presidential campaign, issued a statement to Politico asserting that McCain “disassociated himself” from the group “when questions were raised about its activities, but that in no way diminishes his leadership role in ensuring that the forces of democracy and freedom prevailed in Central America.”
Rogers said McCain “fought long, hard and proud in opposition to communist influence in Central America throughout the 1980s at a time when many, including Sen. Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, tried to cut off money for anti-communist forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua.”
Begala told Politico that he raised McCain’s connection to the U.S. Council because he wanted to prove that “it’s really unwise for the McCain campaign to begin a campaign of guilt by association. And I was trying to demonstrate the way I think that Democrats ought to run their campaign. I could have just gone on and said, ‘Democrats need to counterattack.’ Instead, I thought: 'Why don’t I just do it?'”
Singlaub is no Ayers.
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