Associations and Double Standards

Unlike the ralliers and screechers on talk radio, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, makes a serious case that Barack Obama's associations with "unrepentant terrorist" Bill Ayers (as well as convicted felon and the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright) is a serious issue. The idea is that we choose our friend and the choice speaks to character.

But what the attacks on Obama's association with Ayers (who I believe is repentant as to his methods, but not his goals) omit is the context of their association. Had Obama known and supported Ayers at the time he was planting bombs, of course, that would say something about Obama. But that's not what happened. The two were associated in the educational work of the Annenberg Foundation, work that was not only legal, but laudable. Many others in the Chicago establishment were involved in that work as well. Are they all now tarred by what Ayers had done a generation earlier?

Of course not: the very idea implies that we are all responsible for vetting the life records of everyone we work with and that, even if we know our colleagues' past, there is no such thing as rehabilitation or second chances. To say that is un-American.

There is also a huge double standard at work.

John McCain associated with convicted felon Charles Keating. Not only that, he did so when Keating was committing his crimes, and even carried water for him. But no one says that this old association disqualifies McCain.

McCain is also associated with his wife, whose father Jim Hensley was a convicted felon. Hensley's crime happened many years before McCain met Cindy, but by the Ayer's analogy, McCain should still bear some guilt.

Also: If Michelle Obama's father had gone to jail, that would be a huge issue.

Sarah teen-aged Palin's daughter got pregnant. If Obama's daughter had done the same, people would wonder a lot more about Obama. (Though I suppose in Palin's case, there are so many bigger problems to marvel at.)

Finally, McCain led the charge to make peace with Vietnam, a nation that killed thousands of Americans (and nearly McCain). But we take McCain's work to be to his credit. By the Ayers analogy, McCain would be an associate of unrepentant murderous communists, and not just one, but thousands.