Excuse me, Mr. Obama, I mean Senator Obama, sir. Um, I know you are busy and important and stuff. I mean running for president is very important and, ah, I hate to bother you. I will only take a minute, ok sir?

See, I have these missing pieces that are holding me up, and I was wondering sir, if you could take time out of your busy schedule and help me out. You know, no big deal, just some loose ends and things.

Hey, you have a nice place here! The wife sees houses like this on TV all the time and says boy she wishes she had digs like this, you know? Is that painting real? Really? Wow. I saw something like that in a museum once!

Oh, sorry sir. I didn’t mean to get off the track. So if you could just help me out a minute and give me some details, I will get right out of your way. I want to close this case and maybe take the wife to Coney Island or something. Ever been to Coney Island? No, I didn’t think so.

Well, listen, anyways, I can’t seem to get some information I need to wrap this up. These things seem to either be “locked” or “not available.” I’m sure it’s just some oversight or glitch or something, so if you could you tell me where these things are, I, I have them written down here somewhere. Oh wait. Sorry about the smears. It was raining out… I’ll just read it to you.

Could you help me please find these things, sir?

• Your Occidental College records
• Your Columbia College records
• Your Columbia Thesis paper
• Your Harvard College records
• Your Selective Service Registration
• Your medical records
• Your Illinois State Senate records
• Your Illinois State Senate schedule
• Your Law practice client list
• A Certified Copy of your original Birth certificate
• Your embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth
• Your Harvard Law Review articles that were published
• Your University of Chicago scholarly articles
• Your Record of baptism
• The Chicago Annenberg Challenge documents

Oh hey, listen! I know you’re busy! Is this too much for you now? I mean, tell you what. I will come back tomorrow. Give you some time to get these things together, you know? I mean, I know you are busy, so I will just let myself out. I will be back tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.

Editor’s note: We received this via email, and we know it will go viral. So we did our best to source it. The earliest reference we can find is from Transsylvania Phoenix here — Columbo Has Questions for Barry O’Bama . We also credit forumguy for adding the bit about the Annenberg papers. That’s pretty important, because National Review Online (NRO) just got them released yesterday, and the dirt is starting to come out.

I confess to not having watched the speeches delivered on the first night of the Democrat nominating convention at all. So, instead of dissecting what they said from having watched television, listened to radio commentary and read, I believe it is useful instead to share with you Obama in some of his own words.

Some one accused me recently of “not giving the guy a chance,” and the accuser is absolutely correct. I do not want him to have a chance because if what he says is what he plans to do, we will not recognize the USA as the place it has been for the past two hundred years, that is, a land of freedom, promise and opportunity. It will become rather, a place where the government is so pervasive that the basic freedoms we enjoy will have to approved by some bureaucrat in a socialist/communist regime.

Barack Obama, shortly after having been elected to the US Senate on November 8th, 2004 in an interview aired on CNN in response to the question “Why have you ruled that out, running nationally?”

Obama said, “I am a believer in knowing what you are doing (ed note: “needing experience,” for my liberal friends) before you apply for a job, and I think that if I were to seriously consider running on a national ticket, that I would have to start now.”

Barack Obama on Abortion in a speech before Planned Parenthood. “…if they should make a mistake, they should not be punished with a baby.” “I will not yield and planned parenthood will not yield.” How about blest with a baby? If Obama spent half the time encouraging young people to be responsible as he has in giving them an escape, that effort would make a positive and real CHANGE.

Barack Obama on the war in Iraq in his book, “The Audacity of Hope.” “On the merits I did not consider the case against the war to be cut and dried.” But he voted against it. Why? Would it be because of his Indonesian Muslim roots?

Barack Obama on politics during a debate with Rodham-Clinton: “Right now, we need a different kind of politics, it does not mean changing positions whenever it is politically convenient.” But…

Here’s what Obama said on January 7th, 2007, “We can send 15 thousand more troops, 20 thousand more troops, 30 thousand more troops, I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately who believes that is going to make a substantial difference in the situation on the ground.” And…

On March 19th, 2007 Obama told Larry King, “But here’s the thing Larry, even those who support the escalation have acknowledged that 20 thousand, 30 thousand, or 40 thousand more troops placed temporarily in places like Baghdad are (not) going to make a long term difference.” And…

On Meet the Press on November 11th, 2007 Obama said, “…not only had we not seen improvements, but we are actually witnessing a worsening of the situation there.” But…

On January 5th, 2008, Obama said: “Now I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform that we would see an improvement in the situation and we would see a reduction in the violence.” And…

With Brian Williams on July 24th 2008 Obama said, “What I said at the time, even at the time of the debate in the surge was that when you put 30,000 American troops in of course its going to have an impact, there’s no doubt about that.”

Is this the kind of political change he promised? Is this sleazy politics or what? Is this, “telling the American people the truth?” One begins to get a feel for Obama that he will say whatever he believes will yield the most votes without regard to the facts. It is facts that the liberals and Democrats treat loose and fast. “Fact,” like “is,” is whatever they define it to be.

John McCain is not my favorite person for a variety of reasons, but John McCain is a giant of a man compared to his mental, psychological, moral, empty suit of an opponent. McCain is a man of integrity, a man of valor, a man of experience that his eloquent but empty suited opponent cannot imagine, much less emulate.

He may not be an eloquent speaker, he may not have a charismatic personality, he has questionable political ideas; and, although John McCain has manifest his human failures along the way, I will support him, I will work for him, I will vote for him and I will salute him in victory!

Semper Fidelis Copyright © August 27th, 2008, by Robert L. Pappas.

Some observations…

Preamble

By now everyone knows that Michelle Obama used lines from Saul Alinsky in her speech yesterday. From Gateway Pundit we have this:

What to make of Michelle Obama’s use the terms, “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be?” From whence do they originate? Try Chapter 2 of Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals. …. She said:

“Barack stood up that day,” talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods, “and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be…”

And, “All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.”

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals:

“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means… The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be.”

Little Boy, Geek Toy

Is it just me, or is everyone getting good and fed up with that stupid “Magic Map” in the CNN press area? We’re sitting at home wanting them to be a window on the convention for us, and all the time when good speakers are on the stage, this guy is playing with the touch-screen toy. Our TV monitor is filled with close-ups of his fore-finger dabbing the states between red and blue, blocking the view of the convention.

While there are both men and women in the CNN press corps, we can’t help but notice that none of the sensible females are playing with this stupid toy. It’s just a guy thing. Also, it is a pointless waste of viewing time. We have fiber-optic cable delivering to a big high-res digital display, and we still can’t make out what they are trying to show us. They should know better. A touch-screen device has a flat surface that diffuses light, so when the TV camera crew focuses in on the screen, it tends to “white out” from all the convention center lighting falling on it.

Mark Warner Was Credible

Standing out amid a night of canned rhetoric and get-em-to-their-feet hoopla, Mark Warner gave an intelligent and substantive speech. I couldn’t help wondering why he was a Democrat. In fact, the talking heads say the Democratic insiders had criticized him for being too bi-partisan.

While he was governor of Virginia, he pushed to extend broadband to remote rural corners of the state. That enabled small country towns to compete for internet-based jobs that might otherwise be outsourced to, say, India. Tech support for computer companies, for example. That’s a great idea, and one that should be applied nationwide.

Willie Stark Is Reincarnated

Does anyone remember Broderick Crawford in his Oscar-winning role as glad-handing country politician Willie Stark in the original version of All the King’s Men (1949)? Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana brought him back to life Tuesday night. He looked like Willie Stark, he sounded like Willie Stark, and he pumped up the gullible sheep in the crowd in a reprise of the Willie Stark role. Not since Huey Long have we seen his like in real life. What the heck has happened to the free-spirited independent westerners of Montana that they elected this character governor? He is the quintessential Dem pol.

Hillary Clinton Is a Pro

Whether you agree with her or disagree with her, you have to admit that this woman is self-disciplined, focused, goal-oriented, and very very capable in politics. All the talking heads agreed that there was no way she could endorse Obama, after what she said in the primary, and still sound authentic. But she pulled it off with style.

When I was young and learning etiquette, my parents taught me a terrific fall-back dodge. Quite often someone will show you something that they are very proud of, and then ask your opinion. Of course, what they want to hear is that it is wonderful — the cutest baby, an inspired work of art, the most impressive house, etc. But what if you think it is awful? Do you try to lie convincingly? No.

Take the case of the newborn, whose parents are pushing a carriage. You bend over the pram, gaze at the wrinkled ugly little red rugrat with a rapt expression, and say with deep warmth of expression, “That’s quite a baby!” The parents read into your remarks what they want to hear, and you haven’t destroyed your credibility. That’s just what Hillary did.

She never said Obama would make a great commander-in-chief. She never claimed he had tons and tons of experience. She just said she was going to vote for him, and she wanted her followers to do that also, because he represented the goals of the party. But she did it so skillfully that the Obama folk can’t complain she failed to give full support. She’s in good shape for 2012, whether he loses this election all on his own lack of merit, or whether he gets elected and proves to be the most inadequate president since Harding or Hoover.

In Summary

The Obama folk are reportedly strong-arming the roll-call vote for tomorrow, to preclude any chance that Hillary might win. So he will likely be the Democratic candidate. But unless he does something very different and unprecedented on Thursday, I think the Democrats will be left with the vivid memories of Hillary’s presence and speech in comparison to his, and a ton of regret. She sounds very real, in articulating Democratic causes. He sounds like smoke and mirrors, an empty suit with a tape recorder inside.

There’s a direct philosophical lineage from the domestic terrorism of the sixties to the candidacy of Barack Obama. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room that the mainstream media refuses to talk about. That is an egregious failure of the Fourth Estate, because at the time of the last Congressional election (2006), 56.6 million of the 135.8 million citizens registered to vote were born after these events took place. That’s the last election for which we have data — we can assume that by now more than half of the voters are unaware of the criminal origins of the political genre for which Obama is the figurehead.

In 1959, socialists in the United States formed a national network of college organizations for students who were culturally very far left, called the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Forming the core of the 1960s counter-cultural movement known collectively as the New Left, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a radical organization that aspired to overthrow America’s democratic institutions, remake its government in a Marxist image, and help America’s enemies defeat her sons on the battlefield in Vietnam. The group developed from the Student League for Industrial Democracy, the youth branch of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy.

In 1968 events took a truly sinister turn, as an extremely radical faction took control of the SDS, advocating violence.

Weatherman (known colloquially as The Weathermen) was a political faction elected in 1968 to lead the radical group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)…. Emerging in 1969 as the most militant wing of the SDS’s Revolutionary Youth Movement, the fledgling Weatherman issued a “manifesto” eschewing nonviolence and calling instead for armed opposition to U.S. policies; advocating the overthrow of capitalism; exhorting white radicals to trigger a worldwide revolution by fighting in the streets of the “mother country”; and proclaiming that the time had come to launch a race war against the “white” United States on behalf of the non-white Third World….

FBI files from 1976, recently made public under the Freedom of Information Act, confirm the connections between Weatherman, Havana, and Moscow. Weatherman leaders … traveled illegally to Havana … to engage in terrorist training. There, camps set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine were educating Westerners both in Marxist philosophy and urban warfare.

William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were early leaders of The Weathermen.

William Charles “Bill” Ayers (born 1944) is an American professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, known for his work in school reform and community organizing. While a radical activist during the political upheavals of the 1960s, Ayers went underground for eleven years starting in 1969 as a co-founder of the violent and radical Weatherman group…. In 2001, the New York Times reported that Ayers admitted in his biography that “he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972.”

Bernadine Dohrn (born 1942), who became Ayers’ wife while they were both fugitives, is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the Director of Northwestern’s Children and Family Justice Center. In July 1969, representing The Weathermen, she traveled to Cuba to conspire with representatives of the North Vietnamese and Cuban governments.

While Dohrn led the Weathermen, the organization conducted a series of bombings against the U.S. government and symbols of authority in the early 1970s, bombing federal buildings and police stations. Dohrn was a principal signatory on the group’s “Declaration of a State of War” in 1970 that formally declared “war” on the U.S. Government, and completed the group’s transformation from political advocacy to violent action….

William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were devoted to destroying our government and our way of life. On May 21, 1970 an audiotape recorded by Dohrn announced a declaration of war on the United States.

Hello. This is Bernardine Dohrn.

I’m going to read A DECLARATION OF A STATE OF WAR.

This is the first communication from the Weatherman underground.

All over the world, people fighting Amerikan imperialism look to Amerika’s youth to use our strategic position behind enemy lines to join forces in the destruction of the empire.

Black people have been fighting almost alone for years. We’ve known that our job is to lead white kids to armed revolution…. Tens of thousands have learned that protest and marches don’t do it. Revolutionary violence is the only way.…

Now we are adapting … classic guerrilla strategy … to our own situation here in the most technically advanced country in the world.

Che taught us that “revolutionaries move like fish in the sea.” The alienation and contempt that young people have for this country has created the ocean for this revolution.

That was the first of four Communiqués issued by Dohrn. From Communiqué #4 issued on September 18, 1970:

LSD and grass, like the herbs and cactus and mushrooms of the American Indians and countless civilizations that have existed on this planet, will help us make a future world where it will be possible to live in peace.

Now we are at war.

With the NLF and the North Vietnamese, with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Al Fatah, with Rap Brown and Angela Davis, with all black and brown revolutionaries, the Soledad brothers and all prisoners of war in Amerikan concentration camps we know that peace is only possible with the destruction of U.S. imperialism.

Ayers and Dohrn remained federal fugitives for several years, participating in numerous acts of domestic terrorism. They caught a break through a bureaucratic foul-up at the FBI, which caused some charges to be dropped:

Over the next decade, the Weathermen claimed credit for 25 bombings but eventually the movement broke apart, and Dohrn and Ayers began a life together in New York, still underground. Ten years later, Dohrn and Ayers finally turned themselves in, in Chicago. Federal bombing conspiracy charges had been dropped because of improper FBI surveillance.

Upon rejoining society, Ayers and Dohrn completed their educations and became university professors. Eventually, they became affiliated with the Democratic party machine of Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley.

That’s how William Ayers got where he was. When he came out of hiding because the federal government was unable to prosecute him (because of government misconduct), he got a degree in education from Columbia and then moved to Chicago and got a job on the education faculty of the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. How did he get that job? Well, it can’t have hurt that his father, Thomas Ayers, was chairman of Commonwealth Edison (now Exelon) and a charter member of the Chicago establishment. As Mayor Richard M. Daley said recently, in arguing that the Ayers association should not be held against Obama, “His father was a great friend of my father.”

Ayers was tapped by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to help found the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform program. Since 1999 he has served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty, philanthropic foundation….

Also a part of that Democratic machine was communist sympathizer Alice Palmer, a sitting Illinois state senator. When she decided to run for the US Congress in 1995, she presented her then protégé Barack Obama as her chosen successor. This announcement that launched his political career was made at an elite gathering of Chicago liberals at the home of none other than William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

In 1995, Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well-known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former members of the terrorist Weather Underground.

“I remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the Senate and running for Congress,” says Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care. “(Palmer) identified (Obama) as her successor.”

Palmer lost a primary fight for the Congressional race, and decided to keep her Illinois senate seat, but Barack turned on his mentor and things got nasty.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Obama operatives flooded into the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners on Jan. 2, 1996, to begin the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of Palmer and three other lesser-known contenders for her Illinois state Senate seat. They kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

The important point here is that the political career of Barack Obama was engendered in a group of liberal Chicago communist-affiliated America-hating radicals. Until he cosmetically reinvented himself for the national spotlight, everything he said and did, and everything his wife said and did, bespoke anger and resentment toward our country. His associates continue to reflect that attitude.

“God damn America” is their refrain.

William Ayers, with whom Obama continued to be assoicated on educational projects in Chicago, is still unrepentent. He was photographed in 2001 proudly stomping on the American flag. Apparantly, experience and affluence have not tempered his hatred of America.

Nor, likely, has time mellowed the racially prejudiced Obamas — Michelle, who was never proud of her country, and Barack, who disdains the ordinary folk who cling to their God and their guns. In previously published documents they cannot suppress, such as Michelle’s very childish thesis, and in careless remarks that they let slip in unguarded moments, their pervasive resentment and disdain is revealed. Voters would be wise to see through the recent veneer of civility to the litter of animosity and anti-Americanism that is strewn along the last two decades of the Obama family’s path.

References:

US Census Bureau — Voting and Registration Tables for 2006

American Issues Project — Weather Underground Timeline (PDF format)

Chicago Magazine — No Regrets

Discover The Networks — STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY (SDS)

Discover The Networks — WEATHERMAN

Weather Underground — Communiqué #1 May 21, 1970

Weather Underground — Communiqué #2 June 9, 1970

Weather Underground — Communiqué #3 July 31, 1970

Weather Underground — Communiqué #4 September 18, 1970

Public Broadcasting System — Transcript of interview in 1996 with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers

Yahoo! — Alice In Obamaland

U.S. News and World Report — Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers

A San Francisco widow is preparing to sue the city for the wrongful deaths of her husband and two sons, who were killed by a criminal alien gang member protected from deportation by the city’s “sanctuary” policy.

The Bolognas were a model American family. Father Tony was a loving husband and father, and a steady wage-earner who, according to his boss, had a “fantastic” work ethic. He had worked in grocery retail for 25 years. He had coached youth baseball and basketball for eight years at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic School, leading the teams to three baseball and one basketball championships. His eldest son, 20-year-old Michael Bologna, was a star athlete at Lincoln High School in San Francisco and was attending the College of San Mateo, playing basketball and baseball. He also had a son Matthew, 16, and two daughters, with his wife Danielle.

Early on Sunday afternoon, June 22, Tony Bologna and his two sons were driving home from a family barbecue so he could get some sleep before starting his job as the night-shift supervisor at a San Mateo grocery store. An illegal immigrant drove alongside the Bologna car and shot all three occupants, killing the father and eldest son on the spot. Matthew died on Tuesday night at San Francisco General Hospital.

Police eventually arrested Edwin Ramos, 21, a member of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), one of the most violent street gangs in our country. He had a criminal history, but because of San Francisco’s sanctuary policy, was not referred for deportation. Now the Bologna widow and her relatives have filed a claim for damages with the city. The city attorney has forty-five days to respond. If their claim is rejected, they can then follow up with a lawsuit.

The San Francisco Chronicle explains:

San Francisco’s immigrant sanctuary policies played a “substantial” role in the slayings of a father and two of his sons by allowing city officials to shield the alleged killer from deportation, despite his violent history, according to a legal claim filed Friday on behalf of the victims’ family.

The claim is likely to be followed by a wrongful death lawsuit in which the family of Tony Bologna and his sons could seek millions of dollars from the city….

The city attorney has 45 days to respond to the Bologna family’s claim. The city typically rejects such claims, after which plaintiffs are free to file suit….

Even among the city’s taxpayers, there is substantial support for the widow and her family. The failure of the city to protect its own citizens in favor of illegal aliens is so egregious in this case as to generate a lot of sympathy for her cause. Many blame San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome. Gayle Kesselman, co-chair of New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control, writes in her email newsletter:

It is a shame that it takes a tragedy of this magnitude, namely the death of a father and his two sons, to lead to a legal challenge to San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” policy. But these are the times we live in…. I only wish they could sue Mayor Gavin Newsome personally and leave him with nothing but his underwear! It seems that that is the only thing these politicians understand.

References:

Father of 4, son innocent victims of road rage

Gang member arrested in killing of dad, 2 sons

Slaying suspect once found sanctuary in S.F.

The man charged with killing a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month was one of the youths who benefited from the city’s long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation….

Family blames sanctuary policy in 3 slayings

Tony Bologna Murders: The Madness Runs Deeper…

I heard Gavin Newsom brag proudly on Ronn Owen’s radio program last year about how SF was a sanctuary city and they would do NOTHING to support the Federal Government in dealing with illegal immigration….

Obama, for some misguided reason, made an ad asking why John McCain is talking about the sixties and his friendship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers. I guess he wants everyone to continue to talk about this. I’m stuck on this joke now:

What do Obama and Osama have in common? They both have a friend that bombed the Pentagon.

Obama’s question is a stupid one. The reason we are talking about his friendship with this radical bomber is because Ayers is still “unrepentant”. The key word here is “unrepentant”. He isn’t sorry for what he did, won’t renounce it, and actually wished they had done more! This, to most Americans at least, reflects horrible character.

Even though Obama gave lip service and denounced what Ayers did, he will not denounce him. To this day, he remains friends with him. To have as deep a relationship as Obama has with Ayers and his horrible character is definitely poor judgement and poor character on Obama’s part. Get a clue, Obama. This is why McCain is talking about it, because you remain friends with someone that hates America and stomps on the American flag for magazine covers.

Allahpundit has this to say:

His argument is so weak that it doesn’t really qualify as an argument: Yes, we’re friendly, but it’s ancient history and I denounced what he did, so what’s the big deal about socializing with, um, an unrepentant terrorist? As for the submoronic point about Ayers’s crimes having been committed when Obama was eight — a staple of the left’s feeble defense of him on this subject — imagine what the reaction would be if Bobby Jindal, say, had struck up a chummy pen pal correspondence with Charles Manson while in his late 20s. Think the left might find that relevant to his character? Think the fact that Jindal wasn’t even born when Manson’s crimes were committed would get him off the hook? Of course not, because as even an eight-year-old can understand, the salient point isn’t how old Obama was when the crimes were committed, it’s how old he was when he formed the moral judgment that led him to associate with Ayers in the first place.

Here’s the response from the McCain camp to Obama’s question:

“The fact that Barack Obama chose to launch his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist raises more questions about Senator Obama’s judgment than any TV ad ever could. And the fact that he’s launching his own Convention by defending his long association with a man who says he didn’t bomb enough U.S. targets tells us more about Barack Obama than any of tonight’s speeches will.”  ~~McCain spokesman Brian Rogers

It’s pretty simple, Barack, why we are talking about it. You keep a close relationship with someone that feels no guilt in committing terrorism against the United States, while we are at war with terrorism! Obviously, your judgment and character are seriously lacking and this particular friendship you refuse to denounce is scary!

Alarmed that the truth might come out, Obama is trying to block the ad. From Politico:

Obama to DOJ: Block terrorist ad!

Sen. Barack Obama has launched an all-out effort to block a Republican billionaire’s efforts to tie him to domestic and foreign terrorists in a wave of negative television ads.

Obama’s campaign has written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,” the vehicle through which Dallas investor Harold Simmons is financing the advertisements. The Obama campaign — and tens of thousands of supporters — also is pressuring television networks and affiliates to reject the ads. The effort has met with some success: CNN and Fox News are not airing the attacks, and some local affiliates have refused as well.

Obama has also launched his own response ad, directly addressing Simmons’ attempt to link him to domestic terror.

The project is “a knowing and willful attempt to violate the strictures of federal election law,” Obama general counsel Bob Bauer wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney last week in a letter provided to Politico. Bauer argued that by advocating Obama’s defeat, the ad should be subject to the contribution limits of federal campaign law, not the anything-goes regime of issue advocacy.

Bauer’s letter called on the Justice Department to open “an investigation of the American Issues Project; its officers and directors; and its anonymous donors, whoever they may be.”

“This is a sad ploy to circumvent the First Amendment by a campaign who has no arguments with the merits of our ad. It’s the classic maneuver: If you can’t win on the merits, file a lawsuit,” said a spokesman for the American Issues Project, Christian Pinkston, who said his group’s non-profit status allowed it to participate in elections as long as it does a majority of policy work, which it plans to do.

Way to go Barry, now everyone will be talking about this! Way to launch the Convention!

Reference: Here is a good summary of the Obama/Ayers relationship — What Do Osama and Obama Have in Common? by Rich Carroll.

And here is the ad prepared by the American Issues Project — Know Enough?:

Editor’s update, Tuesday, August 26

Terrific observation from Commentary Magazine:

The Biggest Goof Yet

The conservative blogosphere is agog: what was Barack Obama thinking? He took a story largely confined to the internet, (only briefly raised in the primary) about Obama’s connection to former terrorist Bill Ayers, put it in his own ad, and then filed a claim trying to force the third-party 527 ad that first brought up the Obama-Ayers connection off the air. In the next 24 hours thousands if not millions of voters who never heard of or didn’t understand the extent of the Obama-Ayers relationship are going to get a full education.

Also from NRO’s The Corner we have this:

Obama’s Misfire

Senator Obama’s new ad, trying to explain his association with the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, may rank as among the worst tactical mistakes of the campaign. It puts into play an issue that has been largely ignored by the MSM. It will drive at least some responsible members of the press to cover the truth about Obama’s association with Ayers, which is certainly enough to seriously harm Obama. And it once again raises the problem of Obama’s other troubling associations over the years….

Michelle Malkin posts this:

Fighting back against Obama’s thugs

I cannot stress how outrageous the Obama campaign’s attempt to silence the creators of the Ayers ad is. Mr. Hope and Change is applying Chicago-style mafia tactics to intimidate those who want to alert the nation to Obama’s troubling ties to, and longtime relationship with, the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist….

Editor’s update, Wednesday, August 27 very early

USA Today — Obama dogged by links to 1960s radical

American Issues Project spokesman Christian Pinkston says Ayers’ influence is an open question, but “it’s hard to see how one actually could resolve having any sort of relationship with an admitted, remorseless domestic terrorist.”

The ad notes that Weathermen bombed the Capitol and asks why Obama would “be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?”

More from NRO’s The Corner — Schmidt Fires Back on Ayers Ad

Here’s Obama’s problem with regard to Ayers. When he was asked directly, Obama described Ayers as just a guy who lives in his neighborhood. We know that’s not accurate. Before we get to the place where we can ask, “Why does Barack Obama have a relationship with an unrepentant terrorist?” we have to ask, “Why is Barack Obama not being forthcoming about his relationship?”

Tail wag: No Quarter — Quibbles and Bits

Patching an unqualified presidential candidate with an experienced veep is wishful thinking by the Dems.

Ron Fournier has the best analysis about BO picking JB:

“The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn’t beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack.”

Some wishful thinking Dems are saying that JB is BO’s Cheney, a reference to the 2000 Republican ticket of Bush-Cheney. It sounds good until you actually look beyond the wishful thinking. In 2000, GWBush had been elected and reelected governor of Texas.

Like most governors, such as Reagan or Clinton or Dukakis, GWBush did not have foreign policy experience. After all, our foreign policy is run out of Washington DC, although big state governors do have substantial commercial relations with other countries. What GWBush had, as well as Reagan and Clinton, was executive experience.

Texas is one of the top 15 economies in the world. The Texas GDP, and booming economy, means that our governor spends a tremendous amount of time dealing with other countries about commerce and trade.

Obama has zero foreign policy experience. Worse than that, he has zero executive experience. BO has not even been a second shift supervisor at a 7-11!

Some wishful thinking Dems are trying to say that Obama is like JFK in 1960. Again, it does not work.

JFK had been in the US Senate for 8 years in 1960. As a US Senator, JFK took the time to learn about the national security issues of the time. Also, JFK had served in the House, 1946-52. JFK had also been decorated in WW2 for the PT-109 incident. In other words, JFK did not have a formal executive job, in the form of a governor or private sector CEO, but he did have experience leading men in battle.

You can learn a lot about a man’s character by how he faces life and death situations. JFK had the aforementioned PT-109 incident. Bush-41 was shot down as a Navy pilot in the Pacific and survived hours in the water.

Let me say it again: You can learn a lot about a man by how he survives a life or death situation!

Again, what men has BO ever led into anything? The answer is none, except when he took a bunch of guys to a baseball game at Wrigley Field!

The wishful thinking Dems say that JB will help BO communicate with Catholics and those rural evangelical folk who cling to their guns and Bibles. Again, it won’t fly.

Suburban and rural mothers (and grandmothers) are not going to vote for BO’s radical abortion position because JB was born Catholic. You don’t get “small town values” because your VP was born in Scranton, PA.

We vote for President. You can’t borrow experience from your VP nominee.

Is Joe Biden a good man? Yes.

Has he dealt with serious adversity in his life? Absolutely yes!

The good news is that Biden is a decent man. The bad news is that he is the VP and we don’t vote for VP!

Now that Saddam Hussein — the most destabilizing figure in the Middle East — is six feet under, Iraq has a Democratic government and talks are underway to withdraw American troops, where are all the leading Democrats who opposed the war and the troop surge which engendered the current situation?

To wit….where are Sens. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and John Murtha?

If we had listened to them, Iraq would still be involved in civil war and the gains we see today would not have been achieved.

It appears that they were either mistaken in their judgement OR they didn’t have the best interests of the American people at heart OR they were media pawns who took those positions for flashy sound bites and headlines.

If they made a mistake, why haven’t they come forward and honestly said: “I’m sorry, I misjudged the situation. I’m glad America is winning in Iraq now.”

But I guess that would be expecting too much decency from a critter called a politician.

I suspect that the true motivation behind their positions against the war was that they didn’t truly have the best interests of the American people at heart.

They opposed the war because it was being sponsored and promoted by a Republican administration.

It was more important for them to promote the Democratic party — by taking the side opposite the Republicans — than it was to stay the course and call for an American victory in Iraq.

What a sad state American politics has come to.

Sad! Sad! Sad!