Not even left-wing kook Katha Pollitt can stomach Bill Ayers and his romaticized revisionist vision of himself.
UPDATE: Slate's Timothy Noah was onto Ayers back in 2001.
Money Q:
Chatterbox (Noah's blog) isn't sure he's ever read a memoir quite so self-indulgent and morally clueless as Fugitive Days. (He's certainly never before read one festooned with glowing blurbs from respectable folk like Scott Turow--"a gripping personal account.") "Memory is a m*****f******," begins Ayers, establishing the book's literary tone and unreliability in one compact sentence.
Throughout Fugitive Days, Ayers reminds his readers that he's had to omit or change many facts throughout his narrative because they describe actions on his part that are, well, illegal. In the turbulent early 1970s, Ayers helped set off bombs in two dozen places, including the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. Supposedly nobody was hurt--the Weatherpeople always issued agitprop-laden bomb threats in advance--though Chatterbox has never seen a scrupulous accounting. (Ayers never did jail time for the bombings because of prosecutorial misbehavior.) Ayers was also a leader of the Days of Rage, a vandalism spree in Chicago in which bystanders were assaulted, though Ayers neglects to mention that.
To acquire false IDs needed to survive underground, Ayers does confess, "[w]e stole wallets and purses ... without much concern for our victims." Characteristically, though, Ayers dwells not on this latter point but on his foolishness for risking exposure.
Read the whole thing.
Spencer-
ReplyDeleteIt seems her biggest complaint is that Ayers didn't apologize "for the harm he did to the antiwar movement and the left.... I'd like him to say he's sorry for his part in the destruction of Students for a Democratic Society. He's sorry he helped Nixon make the antiwar movement look like the enemy of ordinary people."
"True, the damage wrought by the Weatherpeople is trivial compared with the war itself and has arguably been more thoroughly denounced. After all, John McCain most likely killed civilians while bombing Vietnam, and he got to run for president as a war hero. Henry Kissinger is fawned upon wherever he goes. I'd be happy to forget all about the Weatherpeople, many of whom have done good things with their lives since. But if we're going to talk about them-- and Ayers can't leave it alone-- let's tell the truth. Of all the sectarian groups from that era , Weather, in all its permutations, was the least effective and the most destructive to the movement. It was all about the romance of itself. And it still is. "
So, it seems she's upset that Ayers wasn't more effective (which happens to be Ayers' regret as well). And she goes after McCain and Kissinger for innocent civilian deaths.
If you are looking to the left for criticism of Ayers, and that's the best you can do, it's time for you to pack it in on this issue and return to your Withered Underground.
"So, it seems she's upset that Ayers wasn't more effective (which happens to be Ayers' regret as well)."
ReplyDeleteAnd that he is a liar and a white-washer.
Of course, she drags John McCain into it as a killer of innocent civilians - as we said, she's a left-wing kook.
Comparing decorated American war heroes to white-washing, self-justifying terrorist scum is what left-wing kooks do.
leave Bil lAyers out of it, there's no connection, Barack Obama's too clean to befriend any known terrorists!
ReplyDeleteDo you mean like the way the Swiftboaters (and you) attacked decorated war hero John Kerry?
ReplyDeleteLeave it to Left-wing kook DDD to defend Ayers.
ReplyDeleteLol. Traitor Hanoi John is only a "war hero" to anti-war, anti-America Libs.
ReplyDeleteAnd to the US government that awarded him purple hearts and silver star.
ReplyDelete