Behind the scenes, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been pushing a tenuous connection between Barack Obama and a Vietnam-era radical.

What Does 9/11 Have to Do with 60’s Radicals? Ask Hillary Clinton
By Robert Parry

While nearly all politicians shade the truth now and then, some utterly disdain the truth, a category that includes George W. Bush and increasingly Hillary Clinton, as she made clear again in Wednesday night’s debate on the strange topic of Vietnam-era Weather Underground leader William Ayers.

Since last year, the Clinton campaign has been pushing the supposed Ayers connection to Barack Obama as an attack “theme” to take down his candidacy. But Clinton went even further in the debate suggesting that Ayers had reveled in the 9/11 attacks — a false claim clearly meant to inflame Americans against Obama.

Ayers, now a graying college English professor living in Chicago, did support Obama’s state senate campaign and served with Obama on a board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a philanthropy that gives out grants aimed at alleviating poverty.

I first heard this Ayers connection from a Clinton operative in December when it already was circulating in media circles. However, mainstream journalists generally dismissed it as a cheap-shot case of guilt by a tenuous association. It got little traction.

But Clinton surrogates didn’t give up, taking the Ayers attack line to right-wing talk radio and the Internet where it was kept alive. The Clinton’s campaign’s doggedness was rewarded as the issue surfaced prominently in Wednesday night ’s debate in Philadelphia.

ABC News moderator George Stephanopoulos, whose national career was launched when he served as a top spokesman for President Bill Clinton, framed the Ayers question much as the Clinton campaign and the right-wing media have, suggesting some dangerous association between Obama and a mad bomber.

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