A friend and I have been having a spirited discussion about whether or not Palin’s comments about William Ayers represent a “political ploy.” The dictionary defines a “ploy” as “a maneuver or stratagem, as in conversation, to gain the advantage.” My friend—and everyone else—seems to define it as “a sleazy, dishonest maneuver or strategem to gain an unfair and undeserved advantage.” Palin’s remarks were certainly a ploy; the question is by which definition.
If Obama’s association with Ayers is irrelevant—if he cannot in any sense be guilty by association—why has Obama tried to misrepresent that association? Even CNN concedes that Obama has deliberately played down his work with Ayers. It’s almost as if he knows that there’s something untoward about working, in any capacity, with man who tried to murder a judge and his family.
I am here reminded of the many poets and writers who have received accolades for refusing to appear at White House literary functions on the grounds that “Bush is a terrorist.” Obama had a number of chances to do the same with respect to an actual terrorist, and didn’t. Try to imagine inviting your friends to a party where the other host is an unrepentant attempted murderer. Try to imagine, for that matter, being in the same room with an unrepentant attempted murderer, the revulsion and contempt it would be natural to feel.
Why are they bringing this up now? my friend asked. I have a theory. They haven’t hammered on it because it’s a very risky thing to hammer on. Consider how many people are more offended that it’s being mentioned than that it happened in the first place. Or how many people object to describing Ayers as a “terrorist.” (In fact, my friend provided a cogent but, to my mind, unconvincing argument for why it’s the wrong word; he had no problem, however, with “attempted murderer,” and added that Ayers was worse than that, since he was also attempting to influence the justice system through violence.)
Consider how many people participated in the protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Do you suppose they like being reminded that some of their comrades were violent sociopaths? Consider how many people, never having directly experienced violence, can only think of it in the abstract. What are the odds that those people will fill in the missing parts of the story, like the terrified young boy “thinking that someone was lifting and dropping [his] bed as the explosions jolted [him] awake”?
They haven’t hammered on it because of the very real danger—the danger being born out now—that people will think it’s unfair, a smear, and a character assassination. Well, William Ayers was an assassin, albeit an unsuccessful one. Palin should have said, “Obama engineered a radical ‘social justice’-based school reform program with the help of an attempted assassin.” It accomplishes the feat of being closer to the truth while being even more damning than her actual words.
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