My Tea with a 'Terrorist', or Yet Another Reason Why Sarah Palin is Clueless

So the second presidential debate is over. If anyone still thinks that John McCain is a compelling presidential candidate after this, well, they must have just arrived from Mars.

But this is a blog about Sarah Palin, so let me leave you tonight with a great piece from a man who . . . are you ready for this . . . . had tea with the notorious William Ayers. Yes, that's right. He had tea with a terrorist.

Are you listening, Sarah Palin??

From Seattlepi.com

Connelly: My tea with a 'terrorist'

By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST

AFTER HEARING the unleashed Sarah Palin accuse Sen. Barack Obama of "pallin' around with terrorists" -- and John McCain's brother call northern Virginia "communist country" -- this scribe is moved to a confession.

Onetime Weathermen leader William Ayers, the target in Palin's day of rage, was once a guest in my kitchen. Not only that, but I brewed him a pot of tea and heated up a bagel.

Ayers consorted with our family's standard poodle, S'Murphy Brown, after she extended a paw to the top of his knee.

Circumstances don't matter in wing nuts' land of guilt-by-association, but I had no choice.

The Hi Spot Cafe, notorious liberal hangout in Madrona -- Seattle's equivalent to Chicago's Hyde Park -- had just closed. We needed to do an interview about Ayers' memoir "Fugitive Days," a timely topic since the terrorist atrocity of 9/11 had taken place just 16 days earlier.

The 2008 presidential campaign has taken an ugly turn. In tones reminiscent of Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, John McCain's campaign seeks to tie Obama to Ayers. (The two men are Hyde Park neighbors.) Media have been targeted: An African-American journalist at a Palin rally was reportedly told by someone in the crowd, "Sit down, boy."

It represents an incredible turnaround for a candidate who denounced guilt-by-association just last March.

Asked about Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, McCain said: "I think that when people support you, it doesn't mean that you support everything they say. I know that, for example, I've had endorsements of some people that I didn't share their views but they endorsed mine. And so I think we've got to be very careful about that."

McCain has since put his soul in blind trust.

Breathlessly, Tuesday, the McCain-Palin campaign put out a "damming" release confirming that Obama "continued to serve on a charitable board" with Ayers even while knowing he participated in such Vietnam-era actions as the "Days of Rage."

What they were doing was deciding how to spend an educational grant from Walter Annenberg, a Republican and Richard Nixon intimate who served as ambassador to Great Britain.

Of Ayers, I am reminded of an old quip by longtime University of Notre Dame President the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. He reversed the adage about giving people enough rope and they'll hang themselves.

"If you give student dissenters enough time, they'll redeem themselves," said Fr. Ted.

FULL ARTICLE