It Only Matters If You're Not...

I've been sidelined with a wicked nasty cold that laid me flat out for a week.  I don't remember Monday through Wednesday.  Apparently I went to the grocery store though, because there are several bags of cranberry juice on my kitchen floor.  Wow.

I saw the headline of this article by Scott Shane in the NYT -- Obama Has Met Ayers, but the Two Are Not Close -- and went "uh-oh."  Does the desperate smear start here?

It's mostly an accounting of all the ways that William Ayers,  who helped found the sixties militant group the Weatherman, is not in Obama's life.  You really couldn't tell from the headline, but whatever.

This paragraph caught my eye, though.  Quoting Steve Chapman, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune, 

“I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings,” Mr. Chapman said in an interview, speaking not of the law but of political and moral implications.

“If you’re in public life, you ought to say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with this guy,”’ Mr. Chapman said. “If John McCain had a long association with a guy who’d bombed abortion clinics, I don’t think people would say, ‘That’s ancient history.”’

Yes, Mr. Chapman, that's exactly what people would say.  They would regale Sen. McCain's dedication to the culture of life, bemoan the fact that people make mistakes, assert that Sen. McCain was a POW when clinics were bombed, and call you a traitor for bringing it up.