Bill Ayers: Obama a 'family friend'

By Thomas Lifson

Now that the election is over and he has a new edition of a book to peddle, Bill Ayers is comfortable telling the world that Barack Obama is a "family friend." Rex W. Huppke writes in the Chicago Tribune:

In a new afterword to his memoir, 1960s radical William Ayers describes himself as a "family friend" of President-elect Barack Obama and writes that the campaign controversy over their relationship was an effort by Obama's political enemies to "deepen a dishonest narrative" about the candidate.

Ayers describes phone threats and hate e-mail he received during the campaign, and he bemoans Obama's guilt by association.

During the campaign, Ayers' friendship with Obama was a favorite subject of conservative bloggers and talk show hosts who insisted the two were closer than the candidate was admitting. Ayers' new description of the relationship seems to contradict Obama's statements.

Obama had dismissed Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" and "somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know."

No word on whether or not the Ayers/Dohrn family dined together frequently with the Obamas, as some sources in Chicago reported during the election, or whether or not the Weathercouple baby sat for the Obamas, as others had contended. But we do know now that Barack Obama misled Americans about the depth of his relationship with Bill Ayers, whose neighborhood the Obamas moved to, a couple of blocks away, as soon as they were able to afford it, in the wake of his betselling book.

Hat tip: a reader