Bill Ayers vs. Larry Grathwol - This Ought to be fun!

In an interview with the Detroit Free Press on Friday, Bill Ayers - the notorious Weather Underground terrorist - discussed at length the nature of terrorism and spoke about his relationship with Barack Obama. He also denied that the Weather Underground had been involved in a plot to blow up Detroit police facilities in February of 1970.

In a new afterword to his 2001 book ["Fugitive Days"], Bill Ayers describes his relationship with Barack Obama as follows: “We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign."

But in an interview with the Detroit Press on Friday, Ayers had a slightly different recollection of his relationship with Obama:

"I would say he was a guy in the neighborhood, as he said about me. That is, we knew each other. I knew lots of people in Hyde Park (in Chicago). It’s a small community. I knew him probably as well as thousands of other people and like millions of other people today I wish I knew him much much better."

When asked whether he considered Mr. Obama to be a friend, Ayers replied:

"No. But…the fact is. Oh, I would. I call a lot of people friends. But I don’t think he knew me better than he knew thousands of other people..."

If you'll recall, at the Saddleback forum back in August, Rick Warren asked Barack Obama the following questions:

"Does evil exist? And if it does, do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?"

Responding to Mr. Warren's query about the existence of evil, Obama deliberately glossed over the gruesome 9/11 attacks - which is the kind of evil Mr. Warren had clearly been alluding to - and parried as follows:

"Evil does exist. I mean, I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see, uh, evil, some -- sadly, on -- on the streets of, uh, our cities. Now, the -- the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, because, uh, you know, a lot of evil has been perpetrated, uhhh, based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil. Just because we think our intentions are good, doesn't always mean that we're going to be doing good."

Apparently, Bill Ayers has learned a thing or two from Barack Obama over the years. Thus, when asked if "there are some things that are right and wrong", Ayers, taking his cue from Obama, disingenuously glossed over his own heinous past, and replied as follows:

"Sure, killing people is wrong. We agree that the Vietnam War was wrong and that killing 2,000 innocent people a month for 10 years was wrong."

Later on, when asked about his own acts of terror, Ayers claimed that the Weather Underground had never intended to kill anybody, but rather had merely attempted to destroy government property. [This fallacious claim, of course, has already been refuted on this blog and elsewhere in the blogosphere]

Ayers then went on to proclaim that Sen. John McCain had committed worse atrocities than him:

"He [McCain] killed people actually from the air, innocent people [while serving in the airforce in Vietnam]... Would you be challenging him on that?"

The interview concludes with this final tidbit:

Freep.com: I have to ask you about the specific allegation from, (Larry) Grathwol, the FBI informant, that there was a specific plot to blow up the Detroit Police HQ.

Ayers: None that I know. Then, I don’t know everything.

Freep.com: You’re familiar with his allegations?

Ayers: No. You’re telling me this.

Freep.com: You’ve never heard of this guy?

Ayers: I’ve heard of Grathwol. I remember him. But no, I’ve never read his book. I don’t know what he said. You’re the first person telling me. [A blatant lie]

Freep.com: He said that in February 1970 the Weatherman built two bombs targeting the Detroit Police Officers Association building and the 13th precinct.

Ayers: Not true.

Freep.com: (Reading from Grathwol) “The instructions I received from Billy Ayers was that the bombs to be used in Detroit must have shrapnel and fire potential.”

Ayers: Not true. Not true.

Freep.com: And you’ve never heard those allegations before?

Ayers: No. Not those. I’ve heard a lot. But I try not to watch Fox News too much because I think it’s poisonous. - Read the full interview here.

Mr. Grathwol will be speaking at a demonstration at St. Mary's College in Moraga Ca., on Jan. 28, to protest Bill Ayers' scheduled appearance at the university's Soda Center that same day. Grathwol will undoubtedly get a chance to confront Mr. Ayers face to face.

According to Pipeline News, Grathwol said he is "itching" to get at Ayers. And now that Mr. Ayers has denied any knowledge of the Detroit bombing plot, Mr. Grathwol's itch, undoubtedly, must have taken a drastic turn for the worse.

This demonstration ought to be a doozy. It's just a shame I won't be there to see it. Then again, considering Mr. Ayers' penchant for setting off bombs, I'm probably better off right here at home.......