Alarming if true: 
News arrives from best McCain camp source that Mr. McCain aims to confront Barack Obama during the final debate Wednesday 15 with regard Mr. Obama's long association and collegiality with the toxic and villainous Billy Ayers. This is alarming if true not because it wrong of Mr. McCain -- who believes that Mr. Obama is unqualified to take the oath of office because of Ayers - but rather because it will establish a tragic theme in Mr. Obma's campaign that will carry into his likely first term as the 44th president. The theme is false witness. Mr. Obama has not been candid about his friendship and close working relationship with Mr. Ayers at least since 1994. Nor has Mr. Obama been convincing in his denials. Instead of confronting the facts and explaining himself and his choices, Mr. Obama has veered between deception, distraction and deviousness. The facts will out, and, as the American voters learn in the first Obama Administration, if that is to be, that Mr. Obama has misstated deliberately and repeatedly the facts about him and Mr. Ayers and Ms. Bernardine Dohrn (below) in order to avoid a political shadow, the public anger, contempt and finally alienation will deepen. It is a tragedy in slow motion. At the same time the Ayers story spills out, gradually and completely once the usual story-chasing sources work again past election day, the unrelated but equally cynical game-playing by the convicted corrupter Tony Rezko will spill out of the ongoing Federal corruption investigations of the Cook County machine and will weaken the new president's credibility daily and expose him to criminal suspicions. I can not predict how the Rezko scandal will turn; it is too laden with crooks and liars. However with Ayers and Obama, it is easier to see the road ahead. There is no and was no criminal behavior with regard Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers. There were just opportunism and cynicism: two adults making convenient decisions to promote each other over many years. Did Mr. Obama know that Bill Ayers was unacceptable as a political ally outside of the amoral hothouse of Hyde Park? Yes. Mr. Obama is hollow not because of his present truths but because of his past false witness.
This is Mr. Obama's problem now; soon it will be an American problem.
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WHAT DOES OBAMA BELIEVE?
The signature issue is whether Obama's associations with Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, etc are because he believes what they believe. Is this what he's hiding with his false witness? Is it guilt by association or guilt by affiliation?
Interestingly, when asked whether immigrants should learn English, Obama's surprising answer was that we should all learn more than one language -- which is part of the CAC doctrine of radicalizing students, instead of teaching them math or science.
The Dems wanted money for ACORN as part of the $700B bailout [It was cut at the last minute.] Obama's campaign gave ACORN $800,000. [Was ACORN responsible for the caucus state victories for Obama?] When the subprime mess is sorted out years from now, part of this huge financial collapse will have to be the Dem's belief that everyone should own a home, whether or not he or she can pay for it. A big part of this philosophy accounted for Freddie & Fannie's bad accounting.
It's what's hidden that is scary. It's what's hidden that is harmful.
When Obama let slip his socialist approach the other day--he told a plumber in the audience that he [Obama] didn't want to "punish people with taxes," rather he wants to "spread the wealth around" because that's "good for everybody." THIS is what McCain needs to be focusing on. To the extent that Obama's history with Ayers and ACORN illuminates Obama's socialist leaning, Ayers and other associations are relevant. But as a character attack, focusing on Ayers will backfire. The new, young voters -- and even the Gen Xers who majored in history -- do NOT care about Ayers. The Weather Underground is irrelevant to them. I hope that McCain does NOT go down this road, because it will backfire and make it impossible for McCain to take a real stand against the rapid move to socialism that Obama represents. (As opposed to the slower move to socialism that McCain represents - sorry to say.)
Follow-up on ACORN/CRA:
From the 1996 article (COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT: VICTORY FOR SMART REGULATION By Neal R. Peirce) below:
"But President Clinton threatened to veto any bills weakening CRA. His Justice
Department has begun some of the toughest fair housing enforcement ever."
http://web.archive.org/web/20011218014839/www.alliance.napawash.org/ALLIANCE/Picases.nsf/e24ffc586e80044a852564ed006eb5be/d9d0c50b0e49fa8d8525647d004cef2d?OpenDocument
ACORN held rallies to support a veto threat. At one of their rallies (July 1996) Barney Frank was a speaker, BTW http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/88/shorttakes.html
I don't see any real significance to this. Our history is full of people who were "rehabilitated."
Joe Wheeler, former BG, CSA, commanded a Cavalry Division in Cuba in 1898 and Aaron Burr was a member in good standing of the NYS Bar until the day he died. Some people will always refuse to associate with such people (including some from their own movement: many former Confederates had nothing to do with Longstreet after he "joined the Republicans"--not sure he was "glad') and some associate with them freely.
I don't see where this gets McCain, Obama or the nation in general.
ACORN CONNECTION TO DEMS
In comment above, I made the connection between ACORN & the Dems, who wanted the $750B bailout to include an earmark for ACORN. However, I forgot to make the connection between ACORN and the subprime mess. It appears that ACORN used pressure tactics, some quite terrible like picketing banker's houses & their children's schools, to force banks to make subprime loans.
As to the comment "I don't see where this gets McCain....", it's quite possible McCain can't win now no matter what he says. However, if Obama were vetted properly by the press months ago, the Ayers' affiliation and other affiliations would certainly have shown Obama to be extremely liberal, if not a radical, himself. Right now he's a stealth candidate. What Obama really believes, as well as a good portion of his past, is still unknown. Surely, his false witness as to the Ayers' connection suggests that he believes the radical beliefs of Ayers and others (aside from terrorism).
When you add this to a Congress dominated by Pelosi & Reid, you get a radical liberal agenda, not unlike what created the subprime mess to begin with.
McCain hasn't called Obama a tax & spend liberal -- but that's what he is, as well as Pelosi & Reid. With all three in power, there will be no checks and balances. It will be liberalism run amuck.
"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare." Voltaire
This is the way to the people's heart. If opportunity arises, then the good Senator should voice his disapproval of the associations as indicative of a character flaw and then rest his case and allow the people to decide what influences those may have. But, always speak from inner Truth manifested.
Also, a good one would be, if availed the chance to say, that Mr Obama may not be of sufficient age and experience to have fully realized a sustainable Truth, and is therefore more susceptible to outside influences and manipulations. Maybe, in other words, it is simply that he doesn't know what his Truth is. Otherwise, he wouldn't be so fearful of explaining it.
JB:
Once again, you hit the nail on the head -- McCain must not at this point, with the economy as the #1 topic, depend on the Bill Ayers line of attack on Obama's character.
However, Mac can and absolutely should remind everyone of the old Washington maxim that "policy is people." This would open up the whole field of BamBam's associations and alliances with shady characters and radical groups to the highly relevant charge that they represent or signficantly influence his still-murky policy views. Is ACORN representative of what a President Obama would advocate on housing policy, mortgage lending, voter registration, and on how to deal with dissenting opinion (i.e., strong-arm thuggery and intimidation)? Would Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, or Typhoid Jamie Gorelick continue to offer President Obama policy advice or even be appointed to positions in the executive branch? Are Rev. Wright and Louie Farrakhan indicative of an Obama Administration's approach to race relations, including the reparations and affirmative action issues? And, since Candidate Obama claims education is his top priority issue, do his views on education policy coincide with those of Bill Ayers who wants to brainwash our children into left-wing political activism and radical rejection of their parents and country? After all, did not those same radical views inform their joint grant-making at the CAC and the Woods Foundation? How about Obama's radically socialist approach to the American economy and tax policy? His radically pro-Palestinian approach to Israel and his already sponsored mega-giveaway of the American taxpayers' wealth to the mega-crooks at the UN?
Such a line of argument would focus on Obama as the real radical in question, not Bill Ayers -- who by the way is not "rehabilitated," as he defiantly claims to be the same old USA-hating Weather Undeground radical, just minus the terror-bombings he remains so proud of -- and illustrate how BamBam is not only too "risky" for America but too radical, especially in regard to those he would depend on to staff the executive branch and offer him policy inputs on the most critical issues.
So Obama wants to "spread the wealth around," does he?
His remarks call to mind Lee Kwan Yew, who has said that when Singapore won its independence he was a young socialist firebrand bent on redistributing that city-state's wealth. Then he realized with a start that that meant Singapore had better get some wealth--fast!
Whatever wealth Obama thinks he's going to spread around is disappearing fast, both on Wall Street and in our wars.
I wonder how mainstream media will fare since it was their job to vet out this information a year ago when the primaries were warming up. It should not be John McCain's job in the last 3 weeks of the election to be bringing the issue into the public arena. The press has been grossly grossly negligent and has really not served this country well at all by elevating this man, Obama, to this point. They will have just foisted another failed presidency upon the republic (if things unfold as JB predicts) which will benefit noone. How will the media fare in this melodrama. Will the public overlook the gross negligence or will they too turn against the media? Will we see a total collapse in the confidence we have in media to mirror the collapse in the dow Jones? I really believe that the Columbia school of journalism should throw out all of it's journalistic ethics courses (what a joke!) which aim to be objective (which I believe is part of that ancient quest for universal truths) but which in fact ends up pushing an totalitarian sort of uniformity of thought. The internet and talk radio with citizen journalists bringing in facts and diversity of opinion and perspective and raucous passionate debate, I think does a far far better job at informing people.
I recall a speech excerpt, which I have not been able to track down (it was early, perhaps Iowa), of Obama telling an audience that schools needed to include more history of race, gender and women struggles in elementary and secondary curricula. He has not moved from that revolutionary approach to education and we can expect to see this Marxist strain introduced into our schools.
Another frightening theme, one I have not seen discussed, is made up of the following threads: Michelle O. telling a crowd "we cannot change this country without your participation", BO campaign intimidating radio station, threatening legal action against stations running anti-BO ads, FAIRNESS doctrine, racism charges, threat of Congressional investigations of Bush, Cheney et al. to determine if criminal charges should be filed.
The theme: speaking out against any action of the incoming BO administration will be met with censorship, intimidation, threats and charges of racism. The masses who support BO will be mobilized to intimidate into silence opponents and resisters. These are not doctrinaire liberals: these folks are Marxists and in the best Mao method, there will be coercion and compulsion to agree with the Supreme Leader. It is no accident that so many of his posters and pix look Soviet. These are very dangerous times and the darkly humorous part is that all this now makes Hillary look like Lady Liberty!!! The lechery and venality of the Clintons are now replaced with the muffled and revolutionary plans of one very ominous set of characters.
Now we have the new york times running an article on how McCain going negative has produced only negative results. Really? How is in McCain's best interest to listen the the times? I would posit it has only turned off the left. Who cares? McCain has been shooting himself in the foot for a year now and now the times is going to be Ellworth Toohey to his Peter Keating? In some ways that comparison is fair, but I have to ask, who is running that ship? As much as he has more baggage, and I do not like his autocratic style, Rudy Giuliani would have been a much better opponent against Obama. No matter what happens tomorrow night, it's been a depressing last few weeks to say the least. So, what's with Jesse Jackson? Angling for a job or throwing Obama under the bus?
Ayers has a daughter who is an intern for Hugo Chavez. Ayers was in Venezuela with Chavez and made that statement that the United States made him sick at his stomach. He is a despicable person.
Oddly, Sen. McCain did not reach too much for Mr. Ayers. I think that was wise.