Star One Smart Blog's

The withdrawal of Charlie Crist, Florida's moderate governor, from the Republican primary has left the way clear for conservative favourite Marco Rubio to claim the party's nomination.

Hailed as the first member of the Tea Party to have the potential to break into the Senate, Rubio has risen from political obscurity a year ago to poster boy for the Right-wing populist movement that has spread across the country in reaction to President Barack Obama's liberal agenda.

The Drama Principle:

Q: What do you get when you combine the Feiler Faster Thesis (voters are comfortable processing info quickly) with the Theory of the Two Electorates (the mass of voters who don't follow politics are less informed than they used to be and only tune in at the last minute) with the 50-50 Forever theory (elections will be close from here on out as competing parties and candidates continually adjust to please 51% of the voters--and the ideological and institutional barriers to this adjustment dissolve)?

A: You get elections that are a) close but b) might not look close three, two, or even one day before the vote. Typically, one candidate A will be ahead, but Candidate B will start surging, or A will start collapsing. with startling rapidity as the late-tuning electorate rushes to rapidly learn about the race just in time to vote. Candidate B will look like he or she is, yes, racing against the clock! But that could be deceptive. It could not be so much that voters are changing their minds from A to B--if B only had two more days B would win!--so much as that they are all making up their minds once and for all, in quite orderly fashion, but only doing this at the very end (if B had two more days it wouldn't make a difference).

I guess that's is a nicer way of saying "we really shouldn't even listen to that lying crapweasel", eh?

On the historical repressiveness of Democrats...

Would Barack Obama attempt the repressive measures of Woodrow Wilson? The moralistic tone of his pronouncements indicate that he is man who is unwilling to accede to any views except his own when confronted with a crisis. And his temperament might tempt him to try. By his own admission he spent his college years hanging out with Marxists, structural feminists, and radicals. His association with Bill Ayers is too well known to require repeating. These groups are not known for the tolerance of dissent.

And in all frankness the stress of being the first black man to be president may act upon Obama's mind in such a way that he might be tempted to coerce opponents into sub- mission.

Would a policy of repression succeed? Unlikely, for the political and legal system have matured to the point that the American polity would resist -- perhaps violently -- such an assault on its civil liberties. Yet Obama's campaign has demonstrated a willingness to use the legal system to intimidate the opposition into withdrawing or moderating criticism of Obama the candidate. Should he become president, he will have the vast power of the American presidency at his disposal. And given the adoration of him expressed by the mainstream media (and it willingness to overlook the troubling aspects of his campaign) it is unlikely that he would face the harsh criticism that Richard Nixon faced when he attempted to intimidate opponents.

A policy of political repression would destroy or seriously undermine the claim by the Democratic Party to be the champions of dissent. How would the Party answer such a charge? By denial and obfuscation, as can be seen by anyone studying the response by Democrats to the financial meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yet truth can be suppressed only so long. And if Andrew Jackson was the Alpha of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama may be its Omega. The intense desire for power, the determination to overcome all opposition, and the passion drove Jackson, that animated Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson may lead Obama to commit acts that might signal the end of the Democratic Party.

Journalists from three major newspapers that endorsed John McCain -- the Washington Times, the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News -- have been booted from Barack Obama's campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race.

The Washington Times reported Friday that it was notified of the Obama campaign's decision Thursday evening -- even though the paper has covered Obama from the start.

Executive Editor John Solomon told FOXNews.com that the Obama campaign said it didn't have enough seats on the plane, but "I don't think the explanation makes sense to us."

"We've been traveling since 2007 with him. ... We're a relevant newspaper -- every day we break news," Solomon said. "And to suddenly be kicked off the plane for people who haven't covered it as aggressively or thoroughly as we are ... it sort of feels unfair."

He said the newspaper protested but was turned down again by the campaign.

"I can only hope that the candidate who describes himself as wanting to unite the nation doesn't have some sort of litmus test for who he decides gets to cover the campaign," Solomon said, noting that the Obama campaign's decision came just two days after the paper endorsed McCain.

According to the Web site The Drudge Report, the three newspapers' reporters were told to find alternative transportation by Sunday so that the plane could accommodate "network bigwigs" and reporters from two black magazines, Essence and Jet.

We've previously noted the gusher of illegal campaign contributions flowing into the Obama campaign from contributors such as "Doodad Pro" and "Good Will." More recently, incidents have been reported in which people have seen credit card charges surface suggesting they donated to Barack Obama when they did not. Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen noted one such incident earlier this week:

Now comes the story of Mary T. Biskup, of Manchester, Missouri. Biskup got a call recently from the Obama campaign, which was trying to figure out why she donated $174,800 to the campaign -- well over the contribution limit of $2,300.

The answer she gave them was simple. "That's an error."

Is the Obama campaign knowingly receiving illegal contributions? Yesterday one of our readers reported the results of an experiment he conducted:

I've read recent reports of the Obama campaign receiving donations from dubious names and foreign locales and it got me wondering: How is this possible?

I run a small Internet business and when I process credit cards I'm required to make sure the name on the card exactly matches the name of the customer making the purchase. Also, the purchaser's address must match that of the cardholders. If these don't match, then the payment isn't approved. Period. So how is it possible that the Obama campaign could receive donations from fictional people and places? Well, I decided to do a little experiment. I went to the Obama campaign website and entered the following:

Name: John Galt
Address: 1957 Ayn Rand Lane
City: Galts Gulch
State: CO
Zip: 99999

Then I checked the box next to $15 and entered my actual credit card number and expiration date (it didn't ask for the 3-didgit code on the back of the card) and it took me to the next page and... "Your donation has been processed. Thank you for your generous gift."

This simply should not, and could not, happen in any business or any campaign that is honestly trying to vet it's donors. Also, I don't see how this could possibly happen without the collusion of the credit card companies. They simply wouldn't allow any business to process, potentially, hundreds of millions in credit card transactions where the name on the card doesn't match the purchasers name.

In short, with the system set up as it is by the Obama camp, an individual could donate unlimited amounts of money by simply making up fake names and addresses. And Obama is doing his best to facilitate this fraud. This is truly scandalous.

Our reader was not yet done. He tried the experiment on the McCain site: "I tried the exact same thing at the McCain site and it didn't allow the transaction." He then repeated the experiment at the Obama site:

I went back to the Obama site and made three additional donations using the names Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Bill Ayers, all with different addresses. All the transactions went through using the same credit card. I saved screenshots of the transactions.

Our reader reports, incidentally, that he was using his MasterCard for the contributions. We submit this report in the spirit of inquiry and would especially appreciate hearing from readers who can illuminate how credit card procedures might (or might not) allow this to happen.

It's just that Obama's rhetoric on taxes and health care is scaring common wealthy people with large capital gains from investments made over the past decade, and a lot of them don't want to wait around to see whether it's just populist fluff that might be set aside once he takes office.

Plus, the Democrats who run Congress know that a weaker economy favors their nominee -- and they are loath to pass banking or trade legislation now to improve the nation's industrial standing over fears that it could backfire and give comfort to the Republicans. And finally, there is a well-founded anxiety that one-party rule in Washington for at least the next two years will bring about the sort of abuse of power that has gotten both parties into trouble over the past few decades.

Ayers, now a distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was a co-founding member of the radical activist group the Weather Underground in 1969. The group's extreme tactics to end the Vietnam War included planting bombs in the Pentagon and the United States Capitol.

In response to the McCain campaign's focus on Ayers' radical acts of the 1960s and 1970s, "Friends and supporters of Bill Ayers" are circulating a statement online to vouch for the professor he has become.

"I think he's doing a lot of positive, progressive, constructive work right now," said Brown University English professor William Keach, the first member of the university's faculty to sign the statement of support. Keach was referring to Ayers's work in the field of education.

Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted. It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle.
Without mass struggle there can be no revolution.
Without armed struggle there can be no victory.


...

The unique and fundamental condition of this time is the decline of U.S. imperialism. Our society is in social and economic crisis and assumptions about the U.S. are turned on their heads. These are hard conditions to live through. But they are favorable for the people and for revolution.
These conditions of constant change demand the weapon of theory. Like people everywhere, we are analyzing how to bring to life the potential forces which can destroy U.S. imperialism.


We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years. We are deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism.


Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle, to attack from the inside.
Our intention is to engage the enemy, to wear away at him, to harass him, to isolate him, to expose every weakness, to pounce, to reveal his vulnerability.
Our intention is to encourage the people, to provoke leaps in confidence and consciousness, to stir the imagination, to popularize power, to agitate, to organize, to join in every way possible the people's day-to-day struggles.
Our intention is to forge an underground, a clandestine political organization engaged in every form of struggle, protected from the eyes and weapons of the state, a base against repression, to accumulate lessons, experience and constant practice, a base from which to attack.

THE BANNER OF CHE

The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war. Revolution is the most powerful resource of the people. To wait, to not prepare people for the fight, is to seriously mislead about what kind of fierce struggle lies ahead.

Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit. Socialism means control of the productive forces for the good of the whole community instead of the few who live on hilltops and in mansions. Socialism means priorities based on human need instead of corporate greed. Socialism creates the conditions for a decent and creative quality of life for all.

I, Rosetta, Am A Proud Racist

*  As a racist, I believe in smaller government and lower taxes.

*  Because of my racist tendencies, I tend to dislike people that say “Goddamn America”, bomb the Pentagon or preach hatred of others and this country.

*  The racism that pulses through my veins leads me to believe that all life is precious including that of the unborn.

*  As an unrepentent racist, I believe it is my right to keep and bear arms and make swiss cheese of anyone that threatens me or my family.

*  As a racist, I embrace legal immigrants that make the arduous trek to come to this great country and make a better life for themselves and their families and do so with respect to our laws.

*  Being the racist that I am, I believe that being a well-spoken community organizer, a state Senator and a less-than-one-term U.S. Senator does not qualify you to be President of the United States.

*  Apparently it is my flaming racism that leads me to believe in fiscal responsiblity and balanced budgets.

*  Lastly, as a racist, I believe that freeing 58 million Iraqis and Afghans and giving them the opportunity at self rule was a wonderful thing.

So world, I would appreciate it from now on if you would address me as Rosetta the Racist because I proudly support all that has come to mean.  If any of my proud racist brothers and sisters are so inclined to link this post in a show of solidarity, I would be very appreciative from the bottom of my racist heart.

C. POWELL: When we confront a regime that harbors ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons of mass destruction and provides haven and active support for terrorists, we're not confronting the past, we are confronting the present. And unless we act, we are confronting an even more frightening future.

September 29 at 7:21pm

I saw on facebook that you went to Xavier, and if you don’t mind, I’d love to ask you some advice about a story. I’m a reporter at the New York Times, writing a profile of Cindy McCain, and we are trying to get a sense of what she is like as a mother. So I’m reaching out to fellow parents at her kids’ schools. My understanding is that some of her older kids went to Brophy/Xavier, but I’m trying to figure out what school her 16 year old daughter Bridget attends — and a few people said it was PCDS. Do you know if that’s right? Again, we’re not really reporting on the kids, just seeking some fellow parents who can talk about what Mrs. McCain is like.

Also, if you know anyone else who I should talk to– basically anyone who has encountered Mrs. McCain and might be able to share impressions– that would be great.

Thanks so much for any help you can give me.

Jodi Kantor
Political correspondent
New York Times
kantor@nytimes.com
212 556 4596

A lot of people want to know why we shouldn't begin "vetting" the media -- and by "vetting," I do in fact mean vetting. I mean starting a fund to put fucking detectives on them and begin outing them, one by one:

In the closet.

Hits his wife.

Fucking her editor.

Stoned out of his mind on coke half the time.

Etc.

And to reduce costs, I'm sure some budding citizen journalists-detectives would be wiling to take a night a week following these bastards around, taking pictures.

The media's position that Joe the Plumber who merely asked a question must be "vetted" out of existence certainly supports the full-blown "vetting" of them.

After all, far more turns on the questions they ask and... refuse to ask, more importantly.

We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.

Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. --  obviously have to put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's  right there in the jobs description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house when a politician picked him out as a prop for a 30 second newsbite for the cable news cameras. Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated, harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.

Godwin's Law! you say? if the jackboot fits, wear it.

If it's meta-memes and meta-meta-narratives these media headlice want, so be it. I hope you will join me in expressing a simple bit of solidarity with this guy, Spartacus style. I AM JOE. I am a Wal Mart schlub in flyover country who changes my own oil and unclogs drains without a license. I smoke and drink beer and toss the football in the front yard with my kid, and I figure I can fend my way without handouts from some Magic Messiah's candy bags. Most everyone in my family and most everyone I grew up with is another Joe, and if you screw with them, you screw with me.

Are you a Joe? Say it proud. Leave it on every goddamn newspaper comment section and online forum. Let these pressroom and online thugs know you won't stay silent when they try to destroy the life of a private citizen for speaking his mind -- because for every one of them, there are a million Joe Wurzelbachers. And for that we should all be thankful.

I tend to agree that Joe’s getting a bit of a raw deal here, but it was McCain who subjected him to this, not Obama. He didn’t start getting all this attention until McCain started trying to use him as a campaign prop.

And of course, Joe didn’t do himself any favors with the Sammy Davis, Jr. remark, and certainly hasn’t seemed to shun the spotlight now that it’s on him. So all things considered, my sympathy for him is limited.

Did Barack "Spread the Wealth" Obama Just Blow the Election?

October 16, 2008 11:37 AM ET

No. Really. You're kidding me. Barack Obama actually told that Joe the Plumber guy that he wants to "spread the wealth around." What, did Obama just get done reading the Wikipedia entry on Huey "Share the Wealth" Long or something? Was he somehow channeling that left-wing populist from the Depression? Talk about playing into the most extreme stereotype of your party, that it is infested with socialists.

A while back I chatted with a University of Chicago professor who was a frequent lunch companion of Obama's. This professor said that Obama was as close to a full-out Marxist as anyone who has ever run for president of the United States. Now, I tend to quickly dismiss that kind of talk as way over the top. My working assumption is that Obama is firmly within the mainstream of Democratic politics. But if he is as free with that sort of redistributive philosophy in private as he was on the campaign trail this week, I have no doubt that U of C professor really does figure him as a radical. And after last night's debate, a few more Americans might think that way, too. McCain's best line: "Now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes. We need to encourage business, create jobs, not spread the wealth around."

And by the way, I just noticed that the IBD/TIPP poll, the most accurate in 2004, has McCain down by just 3 points. If the contest is perceived by the voters as a contest between a wealth redistributor and a wealth creator, then it could be a long night come Nov. 4. This is still a center-right country, gang.

Officials: FBI investigates ACORN for voter fraud

MCCAIN: Yes, real quick. Mr. Ayers, I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist. But as Senator Clinton said in her debates with you, we need to know the full extent of that relationship.

We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy. The same front outfit organization that your campaign gave $832,000 for "lighting and site selection." So all of these things need to be examined, of course.

Those lines should have given uninformed Americans (yes, there are plenty of Americans who have no idea who Ayers or Wright are or what ACORN means...American Idol, the Obama edition, is playing large and firm at the dumbstream media center nearest their frightened hearts) pause and opened new avenues of questions to Mr. Obama. But he shook those lines off. No Shame.

John McCain made a star of Joe Wurzelbacher, the most famous plumber in America today.

MCCAIN: No. I would like to mention that a couple days ago Senator Obama was out in Ohio and he had an encounter with a guy who's a plumber, his name is Joe Wurzelbacher.

Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes.

You were going to put him in a higher tax bracket which was going to increase his taxes, which was going to cause him not to be able to employ people, which Joe was trying to realize the American dream.

Now Senator Obama talks about the very, very rich. Joe, I want to tell you, I'll not only help you buy that business that you worked your whole life for and be able -- and I'll keep your taxes low and I'll provide available and affordable health care for you and your employees.

And I will not have -- I will not stand for a tax increase on small business income.

MCCAIN: The fact is that businesses in America today are paying the second highest tax rate of anywhere in the world. Our tax rate for business in America is 35 percent. Ireland, it's 11 percent.

Where are companies going to go where they can create jobs and where they can do best in business?

We need to cut the business tax rate in America. We need to encourage business.

Now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes. We need to encourage business, create jobs, not spread the wealth around.

SCHIEFFER: Both of you have said you want to reduce the deficit, but the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget ran the numbers on both of your proposals and they say the cost of your proposals, even with the savings you claim can be made, each will add more than $200 billion to the deficit.

Aren't you both ignoring reality? Won't some of the programs you are proposing have to be trimmed, postponed, even eliminated?

Give us some specifics on what you're going to cut back.

Senator Obama?

MCCAIN: And of course, I've been talking about the economy. Of course, I've talked to people like Joe the plumber and tell him that I'm not going to spread his wealth around. I'm going to let him keep his wealth. And of course, we're talking about positive plan of action to restore this economy and restore jobs in America.

MCCAIN: You know, when Senator Obama ended up his conversation with Joe the plumber -- we need to spread the wealth around. In other words, we're going to take Joe's money, give it to Senator Obama, and let him spread the wealth around.

I want Joe the plumber to spread that wealth around. You told him you wanted to spread the wealth around.

The whole premise behind Senator Obama's plans are class warfare, let's spread the wealth around. I want small businesses -- and by the way, the small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now.

Who -- why would you want to increase anybody's taxes right now? Why would you want to do that, anyone, anyone in America, when we have such a tough time, when these small business people, like Joe the plumber, are going to create jobs, unless you take that money from him and spread the wealth around.

MCCAIN: Yes. Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.

Jeff Goldstein...

" I needn’t repeat my argument that the aim of the New Left, having adopted “progressivism” as its retro face, and having strategically moved its base back into the Democratic party among the “liberals” it once spat at for being hopelessly bourgeois and unwilling to engage in the kind of immediate, violent happenings of the radical set, has been to soften the face of radicalism, reframe it as “moderate” by dint of empty populism, and to package it for the masses in a pleasing and “historically important” candidate — one who represents the apotheosis of the progressive strategem: a young, charismatic minority candidate who promises hope and change without having to answer to how he plans on bringing such about, a man whose appeal is based on soaring oratory, the multiculturalist PC push of our media, corporate, and and educational institutions, historical timeliness of his candidacy (and its supposed “symbolism” and how such symbolism will be embraced by the “rest of the world”), and the outward advocacy of a progressive media culture trained with activism in mind by our “top” journalism schools."

Where we're going with this? One more sentence...

" If and when what some are calling the “Cold Civil War” comes, it will be fought along ideological lines between neo-Jacksonians and the coastal elites — the former not wishing to be ruled by the latter, and the latter indignant that the former would refuse to be so ruled, and absolutely adamant that they will no longer be subject to the “ruling” whims of their inferiors."

There's 20 posts, there, from most of us. And we still wouldn't have said the right thing.

Two freakin' sentences.

I think I checked off every category except, maybe, Baseball.

Oh...my World Series pick, Phillies over the Rays in 6.

And, PacMan was suspended, indefinitely, for drunken brawling. With his bodyguard. That'll cost the Titans a 5th round pick to the Cowboys. For sending them that worthless piece of crap.

The National Rifle Association is endorsing Republican presidential nominee John McCain despite differences with the Arizona senator on gun-show rules and campaign finance restrictions.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and the chairman of the NRA's political action committee planned stops Thursday in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada to talk about the move.

WASHINGTON - The National Rifle Association is endorsing Republican presidential nominee John McCain despite differences with the Arizona senator on gun-show rules and campaign finance restrictions.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and the chairman of the NRA's political action committee planned stops Thursday in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada to talk about the move.

LaPierre said the two agree on many issues important to the group.

"He's cast more than 60 votes in the Senate in support of the Second Amendment," LaPierre said.

The NRA's Political Victory Fund has spent more than $2.3 million opposing Democratic nominee Barack Obama. The chairman of the political action committee, Chris W. Cox, says its spending in the presidential race will grow to "eight figures" by Election Day. Besides ads, encouraging battleground-state gun owners to vote will be a key focus, he said.

The PAC was running an ad Thursday in USA Today accusing Obama of waffling on gun-rights issues and challenging his statements that he supports the right to bear arms. Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment but doesn't think it precludes "some commonsense gun laws so that we don't have kids being shot on the streets of cities like Chicago."

The NRA PAC's future spending will target Obama on gun issues and start publicizing the records of McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, LaPierre said. McCain's selection of Palin was a plus, LaPierre said.

"She's a hunter, she's a Second Amendment supporter and she's a tremendous asset to the ticket," he said.

Palin, an NRA member, received an A-plus rating from the group when she ran for governor in 2006. That compares to an NRA grade in the average range for McCain in his last Senate race.

Palin has been an NRA booster, particularly for its education and safety programs, during her career in government. As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she used $750 from her city campaign fund to upgrade her NRA membership.

The NRA doesn't always endorse presidential candidates. It has backed President Bush but declined to endorse Bob Dole in the 1996 race or President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Obama has been endorsed by the American Hunters and Shooters Association, which calls itself a "mainstream group of hunters" that supports safe and responsible gun ownership.

Who Wrote Dreams From My Father?

"In my career in advertising and publishing, I have reviewed the portfolios of a thousand professional writers, all of them crowded with writing samples, but only a handful of these writers would have been capable of having a written a book as stylish as Dreams. I have also written a book on intellectual fraud, Hoodwinked, and examined any number of bogus biographies that excited the literary left to the point of complicity, Edward Said's and Rigoberta Menchu's prominent among them, Menchu winning a Nobel Prize for hers. Obama's ascent seems to follow a century-old pattern."

Under water grottos, caverns

Filled with apes

That eat figs.

Stepping on the figs

That the apes

Eat, they crunch.

The apes howl, bare

Their fangs, dance . . .

"I bought Bill Ayers' 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, for reasons unrelated to this project. As I discovered, he writes surprisingly well and very much like "Obama." In fact, my first thought was that the two may have shared the same ghostwriter. Unlike Dreams, however, where the high style is intermittent, Fugitive Days is infused with the authorial voice in every sentence. What is more, when Ayers speaks, even off the cuff, he uses a cadence and vocabulary consistent with his memoir. One does not hear any of Dreams in Obama's casual speech.

"Obama's memoir was published in June 1995. Earlier that year, Ayers helped Obama, then a junior lawyer at a minor law firm, get appointed chairman of the multi-million dollar Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant. In the fall of that same year, 1995, Ayers and his wife, Weatherwoman Bernardine Dohrn, helped blaze Obama's path to political power with a fundraiser in their Chicago home.

"In short, Ayers had the means, the motive, the time, the place and the literary ability to jumpstart Obama's career. And, as Ayers had to know, a lovely memoir under Obama's belt made for a much better resume than an unfulfilled contract over his head."