JustOneMinute

Columnist John Kass of the Chicago Tribune welcomes Stanley Kurtz to Chicago and laughs at the idea that Kurtz will get ahold of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge archives linking Obama and Ayers before the election.

Hard to believe that with our aggressive national media covering a Presidential campaign that Obama and Daley could mange this cover-up in plain sight.  Yeah, real hard.

VERY INTERESTING:  Mata Harley at Flopping Aces is trying to reason backwards, figuring someone at the Annenberg Foundation ought to be in charge.

Well - I bet they don't want their reputation sullied, so they may be able to influence events (but one quick hint of their predilections would be to see which board members are donors to Obama.)

However - IANAL but my guess is that legally the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a separate legal entity with a separate board and another successor group.  The archives would have been in the possession of who - the Secretary?  Obama was a former chairman and current board member by the time the Challenge folded; he could surely find out who the donor is, but very probably is not the donor.  Ken Rolling, Executive Director, would be a good candidate.

This 2003 return tells us the Chicago Annenberg Challenge dissolved as of Jan 30, 2002 and transferred $68,500.55 to the Chicago Public Education Fund.

Ken Rolling signed the tax return as Executive Director. 

The article of dissolution was signed by Victoria Chou as Secretary and Edward Bottum as President.  The officers and directors are listed on pages 20-21.  Ms. Chou is a Dean in the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.  For whatever reason, Mr. Bottum does not appear.

OK, for my money, Ken Rolling and Ms. Chou are the two people most likely to have ended up in possession of the archives, which were not specifically mentioned in the resolution of dissolution.  Although to laymen possession is nine/tenths of the law, I doubt that mere possession would make either Rolling or Chou the "owner" in a legal sense.

Both Ken Rolling and Victoria Chou are currently on the Leadership Council of the Chicago Public Education Fund, the successor to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  From the 2001 report I see Barack Obama, Ken Rolling, and Edward Bottum on the leadership council (along with Thomas and John Ayers).

Rolling, Bottum and Chou know the donor or one of them is the donor.  IMHO.  And I am not a lawyer but I don't see how they can claim with a straight face to "own" these archives in a way that would allow them to be kept from the public.

I imagine they will be getting some phone calls from our eager press corps.

MORE:  Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research thinks the archives are owned by the successor entity, the Chicago Public Education Fund.

STILL MORE:  Amusing faux-solidarity from the LA Times blog coverage:

Right, journalists have been pushing this story hard.  Later we will read "The Little Red Hen".

But to be fair, the LA Times goes above and beyond by showing the classic photo of Bill Ayers tromping on an American flag.

FOR THE TO-DO LIST:  Here is a listing of the grant recipients from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  Anyone spot anything?

Information wants to be free and "Stryde" of Stryde Hax wants to help liberate it.  Specifically, he (she?) wants to see if he can outwit the Chinese government officials and censors who are propagating the myth that gold medal gymnast He Kexin is eligible for these Olympics.  And he wins the gold, finding cached spreadsheets at Chinese government sites documenting her age as 14.

Hat tip to King Kaufman at Salon; our earlier coverage is here.

AND ON THE HIGH ROAD:  How insanely great is Usain Bolt?  I've seen some fair sprinters in my lifetime, obviously including Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson (YouTube), but Bolt was unreal.

If Bolt, now 22, wants to simply go to London in 2012 and complete a double-double in the 100/200, well, good for him and very impressive.

But if he wants to boggle the world of track and field forever he will take up his coach's suggestion to run the 400 and become the first person to complete that absurd triple.  I would say it can't be done, but I would've said a 6' 5'' sprinter can't win the 100.

Rich Lowry reprints this press release from the McCain campaign:

That will make it harder for the media to ignore this.  Pete Yost of the AP reported on this (sort of) yesterday; today the Chicago Tribune local politics blog reported that Mayor Daley  would rather not be involved:

Here is the NY Times coverage - nada.  Per News.Google, the WaPo is also giving this story a miss.  However, Jake Tapper of ABC News repeats the Brian Rogers statement noted above and adds this:

The link to the Chi Trib reports is a reprise of the Yost/AP report.

Stanley Kurtz, who kick-started this scuffle, is worried that the library may simply hand the Chicago Annenberg Challenge archives back to the mysterious donor (Bill Ayers?).  He also tells us that the AP may be simply going through the motions (surprise!) - they never contacted him for a comment.

And Steve Diamond, the main man on this story, has also gone though some of these missing documents and posts his thoughts.  Some highlights:

Steve Diamond has been leading the way on the Obama/Ayers/Annenberg Challenge story which has finally been discovered by the AP.  Now he looks at the cover-up of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge archives sought by Stanley Kurtz.

Pete Yost of the AP covers the cover-up of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge archives described yesterday by Stanley Kurtz at NRO:

Since the mainstream media has never yet reported on this Ayers/Obama link the typical reader is probably scratching his or her head.  Mr. Yost provides some background:

That is almost like reporting.  Yost makes no mention of the fact that Obama was asked about Ayers at the Philadelphia debate in April and described him as ""a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago...", rather than as "a guy I worked with on education reform for six years without accomplishing anything" (The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was ultimately judged a failure by the Annenberg Foundation.)

Yost makes no mention of the fact that the Obama website produced a "Fact Check" on the Obama/Ayers relationship which made no mention of this failed collaboration on education reform.

Yost makes  no mention of the fact that previously the Obama campaign was telling reporters that (a) Obama and Ayers met through kids who went to the same school, or (b) Obama and Ayers first met in the second half of 1995 when Ayers hosted a campaign kick-off for Obama.  Since Obama became chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in January 1995, that was false.

In fact, its almost as if the Obama campaign has tried to conceal this Obama/Ayers relationship.  And now some mysterious unnamed donor is continuing the cover-up by sitting on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge archives.

And Yost almost reports on it.

So what does it mean?  Well, none of us can judge the relationship at this point since a lot of possibly important information is being concealed.  But the fact of an ongoing cover-up might spark some journalist's curiosity.

And why the cover-up?  My guess is that the Obama campaign recognizes that education reform is a hot topic with voters everywhere.  Obama, the man with limited executive experience, might not want to highlight his executive belly-flop here, undertaken in partnership with a hard left unrepentant domestic terrorist.  But that is just a guess.

NO MAOIST LEFT BEHIND:  One of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge grants was to former student radical Mike Klonsky.  More awkwardness.

EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL:  Credit where due - at least Mt. Yost noted the story.  Take a guess as to whether we will see coverage in the paper or blog at the WaPo, the NY Times, and the LA Times.  I say zero for six.  But enterprising researchers can find lots of links to background articles in this old post.

GUESS AGAIN:  OK, you're a highly paid Obama media consultant - what strategy do you recommend?

(a) Continued stonewall.

(b) Selective release to a few friendly reporters (pardon my redundancy) twenty minutes prior to the VP announcement; then next week and for the next two months, chant "Old news.  We have answered those questions.  Distraction.  Hope.  Change."

(c) Confess everything, including the Ayers disposal of Jimmy Hoffa.

Andrew Sullivan is shocked (shocked!) that anyone could think that his questioning of McCain's cross in the dirt story could be characterized as "Swiftboating":

Uh huh.  McCain tells a story of his war time experience meant to illuminate his character.  Sully questions that story but he is not "disputing in any way what McCain did in Vietnam".  Hmm, I guess he is merely disputing what a Vietnamese guard did, and what McCain remembers.  Quel difference!  Or as Sister Toldjah rejoins "Yeah.  And my writing this post? It’s not part of my blog."

Byron York is a calming beacon of light:

I threw in my two cents about the bitter "stick versus sandal" schism in comments to this post:

I have a very hard time believing that Sully wouldn't be offering these rationales himself if he were sincerely interested in sorting this out.  [Long time McCain aide and co-author Mark Salter goes with "artistic license".  OK, then, show us the license...]

As to why McCain didn't tell the story himself in 1973 - a commenter suggested that maybe ratting out a Christian sympathizer among the prison guards struck McCain as a bad idea. 

But if you think that is a long shot, how about my suggestion, which found support from a Sully-sympathizer:

Well.  Let the Switfboating continue!

TRYING TO GRASP THE SUBTLETIES OF "SULLYBOATING":  Let's see if I get Sullivan's argument - McCain's memory of a cross in the dirt is not a story about his courage or in his military record, and he may or may not have invented it in 2000 for political purposes; therefore, critics are not engaging in "Swiftboating" when they pick at it.

Well, then, what about folks, including the Swiftboaters, who questioned Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" story?  That incident was not in Kerry's record (since it never happened!); he had not received a mdeal for it; and he seemd to have invented it for political purposes (e.g., in a Senate speech in 1986 Kerry's point was that he had special moral authority to denounce a secret Iran-Contra war since he had been a participant/victim of Nixon's secret war in Cambodia in 1968.  Please ignore the fact that Nixon was inaugurated in January 1969.)

By Sullivan's new standard the Swiftboaters were not Swiftboating Kerry on this topic, since they were only questioning a politically motivated story and not "real" conduct in Vietnam.  A fine distinction - can we call this "Sullyboating"?

Pretty complicated!  In my world, if a politician wants to run on his record, critics should be free to examine it, and take the consequences.  In Sully's world, the rules are less clear, but let me guess at a summary - it is OK to attack Republicans.

The Captain is having too much fun with the Dems latest gaffe.

Andrew Sullivan, despite his long history of deploring the "Swiftboating" of John Kerry, remains determined to call into question John McCain's story about a Vietnamese prison guard drawing a cross in the dirt at Christmas.  Here is his initial post and three follow-ups.  Whoa.  Where is this freight train headed, asks Megan McArdle.

I know what you're thinking - unless we can interview every prison guard in Vietnam we can never prove this story to be false, and anyway, who cares?  But let's give Excitable Andy a chance to frame the issue:

Hmm.  When John Kerry was running on his military resume yet refusing to release his records or his diary, these questions were deplorable.  Times change.

As to the notion that McCain is inventing his religiosity, I addressed that in my first post.  but ai am happy to try again for folks interested in an answer (I expect Sully's question is strictly rhetorical).  The fact is that John McCain, in describing his captivity to US News and World report in 1973, described the importance of God and faith in his prison experience in several passages, excerpted below:

Later McCain described the church riot:

Shrewd of McCain to have planted those passages in 1973 in anticipation of the rise of the religious right.  And his talk to Reagan's prayer group in 1974 showed similar foresight:

Now, McCain's critics (IIRC, it was at DKos) have read that passage and cite it as evidence that the cross-in-dirt story is fabricated!  Their point is that the cross story would have been at least as powerful a tale as the story McCain told.  My response is this - if McCain was inventing stories of his religiosity in 1974, that is hardly consistent with Sully's theory about McCain inventing a religious tale to solve his political problem with the religious right in 1999.

Whatever.  Sully was not interested in the facts when Kerry was the subject, and I doubt he is interested in the facts now.  Although we will never have proof of the "cross in dirt" story, there is certainly evidence that McCain found comfort in his faith during his time in captivity, as revealed in those passages from 1973/74.  Hence, Sully's concern that McCain may have "fabricated a religious epiphany for political purposes" can be set to rest (but I bet it won't be!).

While we are here, let's tackle Sully question about "The Nightingale's Song" - three of McCain's Christmases in Vietnam are described with no mention of the cross-in-dirt story.  Inexplicable?  Well, "Nightingale" gives a sentence to the church riot on p. 194 but I can find no mention (using Amazon's search) of McCain linked to praying or prayer, nor do I find the "Father Almighty" story McCain told in 1974.  Does that mean that McCain de-fabricated them as of 1995, or is it possible that the author had little interest in that aspect of McCain's prison experience?

With that said, I know we will be able to rouse Andrew's new-found curiosity about loose ends and war stories.  Why was it that Zaladonis, a ship-mate of Kerry's in Vietnam, was interviewed repeatedly by Douglas Brinkley and by the Boston Glove reporters in 2003 yet never mentioned that he was with Kerry when Kerry won his first Purple Heart?  Zaladonis only provided the detail that he was with Kerry for Kerry's first combat, first medal, and the scariest night of Zaladonis' life when Kerry came under criticism in 2004.  Odd?  Kerry never released the records (such as his Purple Heart application) or his War Notes that might have shed light here.  Troubling?  Isn't that question at least as valid as the questions Sully is proposing today?

Or if Sully is worried that McCain is lying about his religious conviction (There are no atheists in foxholes but plenty in POW camps?), maybe we can get him as interested in the little matter of Obama's tie to Bill Ayers.  That is a topic where we know that the Obama camp has been lying to reporters; here is The Politico from last April:

The Politico dates that meeting to the second half of 1995; Obama became chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in January 1995.  The Challenge was dedicated to education reform and co-founded by Bill Ayers, who worked closely with the chairman for several years thereafter.  Right now Stanley Kurtz is trying to get the Chicago Annenberg Challenge archives but despite initial permission his access has now been taken away.  Why the cover-up? 

And why am I confident that questions that cut to the heart of Kerry's character, or Obama's, are still viewed by Sully as nothing more than deplorable right-wing distractions despite his own ludicrous assault on McCain's assertions of faith?

More than you want to know about John Edwards.

Barack Obama and unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers worked together on public school reform in Chicago for several years through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, co-founded by Bill Ayers and originally chaired by Barack Obama.  This aspect of the Ayers/Obama relationship got surprisingly short shrift when Obama was asked about Ayers at the Philadelphia debate and has also been concealed by the Obama website's "Fact Check" and in their recent denunciation of Jerome Corsi's book.

And now the whiff of cover-up grows stronger.  Stanley Kurtz, writing at NRO, details his attempt to gain access to hundreds of Chicago Annenberg Challenge records housed at the Richard J. Daley Library of the  University of Illinois at Chicago.  Although initially assured that the documents were available to the public, Mr. Kurtz has since been given shifting stories the gist of which seems to be that the documents are off limits.  And who is making this determination?  The library won't say, although it is entirely possible that Bill Ayers is the guiding force behind this delay.

So let's see - Obama has been misrepresenting his relationship with Ayers to the press (this misdirection of Ben Smith of The Politico from last February is a comedy classic) and now someone is blocking access to the records detailing the workings of the group founded by Ayers and chaired by Obama.  In another world the press would smell a cover-up.  In this one?  My guess has been that the mainstream press will remain in the tank for Obama rather than risk annoying their remaining readers by appearing to be pawns of the right-wing attack machine.

As an example of the press covering for Obama consider this NY Times reporting on the Obama/Ayers tangle from last May:

Now what basis could the Times have for noting that "The two men were involved in efforts to reform the city’s education system"?  It can't be the meet-and-greet fundraiser where they were "introduced" (As if - per The Politico, the fundraiser was in the second half of 1995; Obama was already chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was kicked off in January 1995).  It can't be a panel on the juvenile justice system.  It wouldn't be their overlap on the Woods Fund of Chicago, a general charity.

I think the Times knows more than they are comfortable telling.  As to the nature of their discomfort, well, as noted I think they want to leave their readers in a comfort zone.

WILL THE POLITICO TAKE THIS UP?  From The Politico last April:

Clearly false.  So what are they going to do about it?

LET THE RECORD NOTE:  There was a push for public school reform in Chicago in 1987, before Obama went off to Harvard in the fall of 1988.  The group led by Obama, Developing Communities Project, was part of the ABCs Coalition led by Thomas Ayers (Bill's dad) and coordinated by Bill Ayers himself.  The odds are pretty good that this is when Bill Ayers and Barack Obama first met.  I wonder whether the Times knew that, too.

CREDIT WHERE DUE:  Mr. Kurtz is kind enough to note my digging and ranting on this topic but correctly gives the Gold to Steve Diamond of Global Labor.

THE FOG AT FOX:  Obama was asked about Bill Ayers a few days after the Philadelphia debate in an interview on Fox.  He sorta kinda told something like the truth while continuing the cover-up:

As I noted at the time, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a private entity which could not reasonably be construed as working for Mayor Daley (lots of detail in Part D of this Diamond post).  The successor group did advise Daley, but Bill Ayers was not on that board (his father and brother were.)  So this presentation sugarcoats the reality, which is that Ayers co-founded a private charitable group ands (very probably) tapped Obama to run it.  More covering up for the press to ignore.

TAX RETURNS:  Courtesy of Appalled we have tax returns for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge for 1998 (link) and 1999 (link).  The real gold would be in finding a controversial disbursement (Maoists For Genocide, anyone?) but nothing leapt off the page at me.  However,  Steve Diamond noted a grant to former Weatherman Michael Klonsky.

The American Thinker picks up the story of Obama's long and concealed association with unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers and their mutual efforts on education reform.  This piece on Ayers' current radical views is helpful.

Excitable Andy has decided to Swift Boat John McCain ["Swift Boat" as meant by the left; see UPDATE]:

Uh huh.  Because the sign of the cross is a pretty well-kept secret, so how could prison guards invoke it twice in one century?  FWIW, the story appears in McCain's 1999 "Faith Of My Fathers", although I have no idea whether McCain told it earlier.  Lexis mavens?

The Kossacks are on this search for the truth, so we know it will be kept classy.  And speaking of classy, let's crack open the Time Vault and go all the way back to June 30 for a different perspective from a then Non-Excitable Andy:

Well, that was almost two months ago.  Evidently the bell has rung and now its time to bring the crap.

And since we are bringing crap, let me help.  Andy links to McCain's first person account of his captivity as told to US News and World Report in May 1973.  McCain came home on March 15, 1973, so he had already had two months to recover from the physical and mental trauma of his captivity, gather his thoughts, and present every important detail.

Let's see - McCain mentions the prisoner tap with this introduction:

Well, that is a bald faced lie - everyone knows it is "Shave and a haircut - two bits."  What, was there a high incidence of inflation in Vietnam?  Or had McCain even been in Vietnam?  [Hmm, pushback in the comments here and from 2004].

And I have picked up another clear fabrication.  In the context of the interrogation debate McCain has frequently told the story of his own presentation of false information under torture; his tale is that he gave up the names of the Green Bay Packer offensive line rather than his fellow aviators.  Or maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers.  But no such story appears in his 1973 account, back when he was still groggy from captivity.  That pretty much proves the Packer/Steeler story is false, too. Right?

And people take McCain's Presidential qualifications seriously.

The context of Excitable's original question (and certainly the Kos conjecture) seems to be the suspicion that McCain has invented this story as a bone to throw to the religious right.  Well, McCain is a crafty planner, because here is what he wrote in 1973:

I bet he meant it, but maybe he is lying and never really prayed while in captivity.  Or he prayed but never found any comfort in it.  Any takers?  Excitable?

If I may dare to play armchair psychologist - one point of the "cross in dirt" story is McCain's recognition of and reconciliation to the humanity of his often brutal captors.  My guess is that in May of 1973 he had not fully worked through his issues with the North Vietnamese.

UPDATE:  Good point by Sue in the comments and highlighted by Glenn - "Swift Boating" means different things to the right and left.  As a proud Swiftboater myself (in the political, 2004 sense) I should be more vigilant about maintaining that distinction.

PROPS:  Jane scores:

Smells like hilarity.

INSPIRED, NO DOUBT, BY SOLZHENITSEN:  Bill Clinton hits the beach at Omaha:

Hmm, maybe McCain was ripping off Clinton...

Dan Riehl has more.  Turns out the sign of the cross is somewhat well known.

STICKING TOGETHER:  Orson Swindle, a fellow POW who has been with the McCain campaign, vouches for McCain to Byron York, but I don't know - this old Swindle story makes me suspicious:

Cmon, weren't any of these naval aviators baseball players or fans?  That's a mighty big coincidence that McCain and Swindle both picked football teams to baffle their captors.

ANOTHER CROSS STORY:  The Confederate Yankee recounts the cross story told by Sen. Denton.

Pejman doesn't think the VP pick matters.

The TigerHawk spreads the news that Al Gore is probably wrong about the link between global warming and the disappearance of the glaciers on Kilimanjaro.

In related news, last night Al Gore shot a frozen leopard in his pajamas.  How it got in his pajamas we'll never know.

MORE:  I really ought to tell my leopard story.  Not only it it kind of exciting in a "had to be there" kind of way, but it has the added virtue of being true.  If/when time permits...