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William Ayers backed Obama. (david handschuh/ap file) |
How Obama and the radical became news
Story highlights the path from blog to mainstream
It began as a blog entry in 2005 from a woman to the left of Barack Obama. It turned into a conservative cause célèbre. Then it entered the mainstream consciousness in a prime-time debate on ABC.
And that's when political emotions erupted on the campaign trail.
The sudden national focus on the connection between the Democratic presidential hopeful and a Vietnam-era radical named William Ayers - a onetime fugitive from justice who told The
But the Obama-Ayers story itself is a case study in the ways that news jumps between blogs and traditional media, the lingering power of network news, and the persistence of Internet conspiracy theories. In fact, it was hard yesterday to tell which got more scrutiny: the link between Obama and Ayers, or the link between ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Sean Hannity of Fox News.
Stephanopoulos was the one to ask Obama about Ayers during Wednesday night's debate, amid a string of challenging questions addressed to both candidates. He asked Obama about his links to Ayers, a former member of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground. "Can you explain that relationship to voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Stephanopoulos asked.
Obama replied that Ayers was a neighbor and acquaintance. "The notion that . . . me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense," he said.
But Hillary Clinton, Obama's rival in the tight Democratic race, jumped on the issue - and brought up the fact that Ayers's comments about not regretting his 1970s bombings happened to appear in The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001. Obama shot back that Clinton's husband had pardoned or commuted the sentences of two other members of the Weather Underground.
It was, for many Americans, an introduction to a subject that could linger in the public consciousness for months. Wednesday's debate was the most-watched of this presidential cycle, drawing 10.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings. It even beat "American Idol" in Philadelphia, San Antonio, Albuquerque, and Orlando, Fla.
Jeffrey Schneider, a spokesman for ABC News, said the Ayers question arose because it has been in the political ether and addressed by several other news organizations in recent months - and because the network's own queries to the campaign had yet to yield a comment from Obama.
In political circles in Chicago, where Obama rose in politics and Ayers is now a college professor, an Ayers-Obama connection has been known for years. In January 2005, in a progressive liberal blog called "Musings & Migraines," a Chicago-based blogger named Maria Warren - whose writing suggested she was to the left of Obama - recalled watching the candidate give a "standard, innocuous little talk" in 1995, in the living room of Ayers and his wife, former Weather Underground member Bernardine Dohrn, when Obama was running for the state Senate.
"They were launching him," she wrote, "introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread."
When Obama became a presidential contender, it was conservatives who picked up on the story. On Feb. 2, conservative British writer Peter Hitchens mentioned Ayers in a piece titled "The Black Kennedy: but does anyone know the real Barack Obama?" in the London Daily Mail. A week later, a mention of Ayers appeared in an anti-Obama blog known as Rezko Watch.
Soon, the story turned up in the mainstream American press: in the Bloomberg news service, a
At that point, conservative bloggers began to question whether the major media organizations would challenge Obama on the relationship.
"Will the media expose Obama?" writer and editor Rick Moran wrote on his blog, rightwingnuthouse.com. "Will they criticize Senator [John] McCain if he tries to paint Obama as a radical? Will they dig deep into Obama's associations and associates to discover the truth?"
Among the mainstream reporters looking into the Ayers story, it turned out, was Jake Tapper, ABC's senior political correspondent. Tapper outlined Ayers's background in a April 10 blog entry titled "Stormy Weather." He also asked Obama about Ayers on the campaign trail, but didn't get an answer, ABC spokesman Schneider said.
Hence, Schneider said, the Ayers question was posed in the debate.
But soon after the debate ended, blogs friendly to Obama were abuzz with theories about the Ayers question. Many of them pointed out that the day before the debate, Stephanopoulos had been a guest of Hannity on the conservative commentator's radio show. Hannity had raised the Ayers story himself and said, "Is that a question you might ask?"
"Well, I'm taking notes right now," Stephanopoulos said. And a conspiracy theory was born. "Hannity Spoonfed Left-Field Debate Question to Stephanopoulos," trumpeted a blogger on the Huffington Post.
Schneider denied any Hannity connection.
Clint Hendler, assistant editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, said the slow rise of the Ayers story - and its seemingly sudden appearance Wednesday night - largely reflects Obama's surge to front-runner status, which brings more scrutiny.
Still, that the Ayers story reached network TV at all left some critics incensed. Washington Post television critic Tom Shales called the debate question "tired tripe" and wrote that Stephanopoulos "looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy."
But Moran, the conservative blogger, said he thinks the mainstream media are making up for past light treatment of Obama, "whereas before they may have been enthralled with the guy. These are legitimate questions. They speak to this guy's judgment."
Globe correspondent Stephanie Vallejo contributed to this story. Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com
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