Ayers steps back, defines relationship with Obama

Keysha McGrady/ABC via Associated PressWilliam Ayers, whom Chris Cuomo interviewed on ''Good Morning America'' yesterday, said he doesn't know Barack Obama any better than ''thousands of other Chicagoans.'' (Keysha McGrady/ABC via Associated Press)

CHICAGO - Vietnam-era radical Bill Ayers said yesterday that he doesn't know President-elect Barack Obama any better than "thousands of other Chicagoans" and that the two never talked about Ayers's antiwar activities.

In a television interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," the college professor disputed the contention that in the new afterword of a paperback edition of his 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days," he describes himself and Obama as "family friends."

"I'm describing there how the blogosphere characterized the relationship," Ayers said. "I would really say that we knew each other in a professional way, again on the same level as say thousands of other people."

Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, helped found the radical group the Weathermen, which carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol.

His name came up repeatedly in Senator John McCain's campaign, with the Republican wondering about the closeness of the relationship. McCain's running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, talked about how Obama would "pal around with terrorists."

In fact, Ayers said he didn't even know Obama when he hosted a coffee early in Obama's political career at Ayers's home in the Chicago neighborhood where the two live. Ayers added that he agreed to have the meet-the-candidate event after a state senator asked him to.

Ayers said that he and Obama also served together on a Chicago school reform board and a foundation board but that their discussions were limited to issues before those boards.

Ayers also defended his own actions during the Vietnam War.

"Let's remember that what you call a violent past, that was at a time when thousands of people were being murdered by our government every month, and those of us who fought to end the war were actually on the right side," he said.

"I never hurt or killed anyone," he said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Obama to tape address for Internet users, too
CHICAGO - This isn't your grandfather's fireside chat.

President-elect Barack Obama plans to tape a weekly address not just for radio listeners, as presidents have for years, but for YouTube Internet viewers, too.

Well, what else would you expect from a president born at the tail end of the baby boom?

Connecting the White House hearth to the American home, Franklin Roosevelt talked to the people through the radio, with crackling broadcasts delivered near a crackling fire. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan mastered TV. For Obama, who built a big part of his campaign on the Internet, it's YouTube.

About 75 years after Roosevelt used a new medium to reach out during troubled times, the president-elect is doing the same with Web videos.

Obama was recording a four-minute address yesterday at his transition office in Chicago. It will be posted today through a YouTube link on his transition website, www.change.gov. And he will continue to do the videos when he takes office Jan. 20.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nebraska electoral votes split; Democrat gets one
OMAHA - President-elect Barack Obama won one of Nebraska's electoral votes, the first time in history that the state has split its votes and the first time in 44 years that it had given a vote to a Democrat.

After remaining ballots were counted yesterday, Obama had a 3,325-vote lead over Republican John McCain in unofficial results for the Second Congressional District. Nebraska and Maine are the two states that divide their electoral votes by congressional districts.

Obama, who won the White House last week, has 365 electoral votes to McCain's 162.

Missouri, with 11 electoral votes, is still too close to call. Election officials in that state have until Tuesday to finish counting.

The last Democrat to win Nebraska was Lyndon B. Johnson, who carried it in 1964.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Hopes dim for Stevens as ballot count resumes
ANCHORAGE - Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican stalwart of Alaska politics who was convicted of felony charges last month, trails his Democratic rival by more than 800 votes, and many of the outstanding ballots come from parts of the state that have favored the challenger.

Mark Begich, mayor of Anchorage, held an 814-vote lead. Counting resumed yesterday. ASSOCIATED PRESS