Politeia: CNN Recover Objectivity Mode: Obama Lies

As some commentators put it - the New York Times' gatekeeper last weekend declared the disclosure of the Obama-Ayers axis admissible, CNN's Anderson Cooper's program shot into action and investigated matters.

Drew Griffin unearthed evidence that Obama's political coming out party in 1995 at the Ayers Chicago residence wasn't thrown by Alice Palmer, as Obama claims. Griffin spoke to two attendants, both asserting that Palmer had not been involved with the event, apart of briefly attending it. Apparently Obama and Ayers planned the event themselves.

Obama has lied repeatedly about his relationship with the unrepentant domestic terrorist Ayers. He spent years working for Ayers, promoting revolutionary causes. Facts have a nasty habit of turning up; now apparently to the point that even the MSM can't ignore them any longer.

Obama downplays his relationship with unrepentant terrorist Ayers, claiming "he is just someone who lives in my neighborhood who did terrible things when I was just eight years old". Another line Obama likes to take is that he just sat on a Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) board with Ayers. This is correct, but it is only partial truth. Smears!, cries Obama: the election is all about Unity, Hope, Change - McCain trying to 'hoodwink' and does 'swift boat style' attacks. Well, it's getting harder to pull wool.

The CNN program reports that grants made by the CAC were funneled to Ayers’ favored schools with radical agendas, when Obama was a little older than just eight years old. In the recent post "The Hidden Sinisterisms of the O Campaign" we quoted from unsuspicious quarters, blogger Global Labor, a unionist of the Social Democrat variety, deeply worried that Obama's brand of Socialism may turn out to be of the radical persuasion, per Messrs Castro, Morales and Chavez. Obama - we find - is a typical Postmodern Leftist. Postmodernism combines various strains of reactionary collectivist ideologies, all vehemently opposed to Capitalism, limited government and liberal democracy. In the post we wrote:

Obama and Ayers served together on separate Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) boards for over six years. The rent-free offices of the CAC were situated in the University of Chicago, where Ayers is employed. Although a self-confessed failure as far as improving education standards are concerned, CAC did manage to funnel some $ 100 million to their allies in the Local School Councils (LSC's).

Don't be fooled by that Orwellian term. LCS's are derided by the worried Social Democratic unionist blogger on Global Labor as vestiges, not of grassroots-up democratic institutions, but on the contrary, of strongholds of Marxist top-down authoritarianism. Global Labor:

"I do not think that the link made here between the LSC’s and “democracy” is, in fact, accurate," he writes. "I think that such “councils” look eerily similar to efforts by regimes like those in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas and Venezuela under Chavez to impose control over teachers and their independent unions by an authoritarian regime."

"Thus, it is not a surprise to me that Bill Ayers has traveled several times in recent years to Venezuela where he has spoken in front of Hugo Chavez and has enthusiastically applauded that regime’s efforts to link education policy to the Chavez “revolution.” As Ayers stated in a speech there in November 2006 “La educacion es Revolucion!” He applauded “the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez” and he said he “share[d] the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution.” (...)

In another eye-opening article Global Labor posts "Who Sent Obama?" (the answer by the way is, Bill Ayers) and writes: "(...) in retrospect the Ayers/Ayers (business from above [ed. Ayers' business man father, Tom Ayers], local activism from below) joint campaign against both the Chicago School District bureaucracy and the Teachers Union is reminiscent of the kinds of alliances one finds in neo-stalinist regimes like that of Cuba, China or Sandinista-run Nicaragua. In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, for example, Mao appealed to local activists to attack the party bureaucracy. These authoritarian movements often try to build their power against democratic institutions like unions." (...)

"Well-intentioned liberals even from the business community are often willing to support such efforts because they view the traditional labor movement as even more of a threat than the neo-stalinist authoritarians like Castro, Chavez or Ortega. While many on the left try to portray such movements as a new form of democracy, they are anything but" [our emphasis].

Here's CNN's Anderson Cooper: