We're All Terrorists Now
Via TPM:
This expansion of the guilt-by-association game ends up netting some unusual suspects. For instance, the man who briefly replaced Alberto Gonzales as Acting Attorney General, Peter Keisler, worked at Sidley during the 1980s (and is currently a partner there). He was the guy who prosecuted the Hamdan case for the Bush Administration. I'm sure he'll be surprised to learn that he's a terrorist-sympathizer.
Bradford Berenson is also a partner at Sidley. He was Associate White House Counsel to President Bush from 2001 to 2003. According to his bio, while at the White House, he worked on "the USA Patriot Act, the Military Order authorizing the use of military commissions, detainee and anti-terrorism litigation, presidential action against terrorist financing, and the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security."
The terrorists have infiltrated everywhere. We've got terrorists writing anti-terrorism laws and prosecuting terrorists. This is madness! Somebody alert the McCain campaign.
The McCain campaign is now broadening their attack on Obama's past association with William Ayers to include Michelle Obama -- even though McCain has repeatedly said spouses should be off limits during the campaign.I don't work for Sidley Austin, but I did interview with them after law school and was offered a job. I suppose that makes me a terrorist too.
The attack? Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers' wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as well.
That's the entire attack. We wish we were joking. But we aren't....
The firm's Chicago office currently employs more than 500 lawyers. Murtagh didn't even bother alleging that the two even knew each other, instead suggesting that they might have. If so, he said, the Obamas have known the two longer than suspected.
"If it is true" that the two women knew each other, Murtagh said, "the relationship is almost a decade older than Senator Obama has acknowledged. And that can very easily be resolved by Senator Obama, by Mrs. Obama, by Mr. Ayers and by Ms. Dohrn."
"And incidentally, I would emphasize that we've all been focusing on Senator Obama," said Murtagh. "I think we need to speak to his wife."
Keep in mind that this wasn't any surrogate speaking off the cuff. He was on a call organized by the McCain campaign, and he was apparently reading from a prepared statement, which would of course have been vetted by McCain aides.
This expansion of the guilt-by-association game ends up netting some unusual suspects. For instance, the man who briefly replaced Alberto Gonzales as Acting Attorney General, Peter Keisler, worked at Sidley during the 1980s (and is currently a partner there). He was the guy who prosecuted the Hamdan case for the Bush Administration. I'm sure he'll be surprised to learn that he's a terrorist-sympathizer.
Bradford Berenson is also a partner at Sidley. He was Associate White House Counsel to President Bush from 2001 to 2003. According to his bio, while at the White House, he worked on "the USA Patriot Act, the Military Order authorizing the use of military commissions, detainee and anti-terrorism litigation, presidential action against terrorist financing, and the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security."
The terrorists have infiltrated everywhere. We've got terrorists writing anti-terrorism laws and prosecuting terrorists. This is madness! Somebody alert the McCain campaign.
posted by A.L. at 4:09 PM
10 Comments:
Do either you or Greg Sargent at TPM even know who John Murtagh is? For any of the readers who don't know, the unrepentant terrorists (to this day) Ayers and Dohrn and their Weather Underground vermin fire-bombed Murtagh's house in 1970 (Murtagh was 9 at the time).
Are Barack or Michelle Obama terrorists. No. Do they, especially Barack, hang around with them? Most assuredly yes.
I'm still trying to figure out why liberals encourage people to believe that terrorists like Ayers and Dohrn are somehow decent people.
John McCarthy.
I was wondering when they'd get to the Mrs.
Steveil,
Oooh, so, by virtue of his special authority of having been in a house that was fire-bombed, Murtagh is an expert on the relationship of Obama and Ayers?
Okay. Yup, how can anyone fail to be utterly convinced by such a blatant "appeal to authority?"
Steveil,
It's been a while since I've looked at the comments here. Seems you're still at it, gobbling up the latest McPalin dog food - yum yum! - and regurgitating it for everybody here. You're the local Old Faithful, my friend.
But you know what? Here's the good news: the American people have finally woken up to this web of lies that you serve. An irrational, hate-filled mob is all McPalin have left, and it's being seen for what it is, and it's shrinking by the day. Having destroyed their own reputation, McPalin are well on their way to total failure, and will be remembered as a historic trainwreck. Enjoy tagging along!
p.s. "Ayers and Dohrn are somehow decent people" has nothing to do with anything. Can't you come up with a better red herring than that? Time to crack open the troll books again.
McCain is a prisoner of Bush's gruesome "base" of simpletons.
He basically admitted that (by accicent)
All those drooling ogres at McCain-Palin rallies are fed racist misinfo from Limbaugh.
Okay, so lets say X = "some bad thing." The degree to which you can be fairly culpable for X is as follows, in order of decreasing importance.
1. You did X.
2. You materially contributed to X.
3. You knew about and had the power to stop X, but didn't.
4. You helped conceal X after the fact.
5. You condoned, but were not involved with X.
6. You made excuses or justifications for X.
What I find so amazing is that right wing hacks will endlessly make excuses for Republicans when X is relevant to the current political environment (falsifying of intelligence, unlawful survelliance, torture, etc.) and the level of culpability is in the 1-4 range.
But these same hacks pitch a hysterical hissy fit about Democrats when X has no current political salience and there is no actual culpability for X. I mean, you'd have to continue the list out to like 12 or 13 to reach the level of "association" Obama has with the Weathermen. The GOP is essentially playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon and acting like its a meaningful game.
@SteveIL
Hang around? HANG around? You dolt, the talking point is "palling around, or pallin' around." Pallin' around, get it? Get back to troll school, now!
What strikes me is how even if we confine ourselves very strictly to the question "associating with unrepentent terrorists", the Republicans are entirely hypocritical. Is every American - or indeed Israeli - who associated themselves, however loosely, with Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, or some of their less well-known colleagues from the days of the Irgun and Stern Gangs held to have disqualified themselves from public office by doing so? Or are the murderous and criminal ineptitudes of the Weathermen supposed to be Evil (I think 4 people in total died, three of whom were Weathermen themselves), whereas killing hundreds of people bombing Arab markets is not? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks_during_the_1930s.)
Well, I think Murtagh has some valid complaint here. Barak Obama likes to say "look, I was 8 years old... blah, blah, blah). Well, when Murtagh was 9 years old, he was much more closely associated with Ayers. He was busily getting blown up by him. So. I suppose 40 years is the statute of limitations of placing multiple bombs in a house with sleeping children. A classic democrat mistake. Believing they are taking the high road by not dignifying issues, but coming across as arrogant and above the reproach of others. I will tell you what I don't want. It is another 4 years of a president who is above question.
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