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Yahoo!HEART OF DARKNESS: It seems that whenever there’s a stinky mess being made, someone from Santa Barbara is stirring the pot. The most recent episode involves Harold Simmons, the 43rd richest man in America, who happens to be a longtime and part-time resident of Montecito. Simmons, who really operates out of his home base in Dallas, has formed a new foundation of dubious legality — the American Issues Project — designed solely and exclusively to tar Barack Obama as a terrorist stooge despite the fact that, as we learned Monday night, Obama’s wife memorized every episode of The Brady Bunch when she was a young girl.
Angry Poodle
Specifically, Simmons has spent nearly $3 million through this new nonprofit on a TV commercial suggesting that Obama and former Weather Underground bomber William Ayers are tighter than ticks. Even as Hillary Clinton was extolling “the sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits” on Tuesday night, Simmons’s nasty little pieces were being broadcast in such strategic states as Ohio, Florida, and Virginia. Simmons has a long history of bankrolling the most conservative Republicans he can find and has become a generous supporter of Republican John McCain. In the business press, Simmons is regarded as being as ruthless as he is brilliant, a master corporate raider who put the “hostile” back in takeover. His life’s ambition is to prove that nice guys indeed finish last, and he’s succeeding wonderfully. Simmons bankrolled the now infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign impugning former democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s well-documented claims of heroism while serving in the Vietnam War. That the Swift Boat claims were patently false made little difference. Simmons understands that truth is no defense to anything, and Kerry’s campaign found itself rocked on its heels. Now Simmons is trying to make lightning strike twice.
Simmons’s ad opens with a shot of the nation’s capitol, which the narrator explains was bombed 30 years ago by the Weather Underground. At the time of the bombing, William Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was active with the Weather Underground, a cultish splinter group of the antiwar movement made up of disillusioned and delusional children of privilege who confused violent infantile tantrums for legitimate political statement. Simmons’s ad claims that Obama and Ayers are friends, that Obama’s political career began in the Ayers’s home, and that the two served together on the “same left-wing board.”
For the record, Ayers and Obama live in the same Chicago neighborhood; Ayers gave Obama the staggering sum of $200 for one of his campaigns; and, yes, Ayers hosted a modest political meet-and-greet at his home early on in Obama’s career. But to call them close associates is a stretch.
Obama was eight years old when Ayers was brought up on federal charges, later dropped, for his activities with the Weather Underground. When Obama met Ayers, Ayers was another musty old lefty trying to figure out how best to improve the public schools. For these efforts, he was appointed to the board of the Annenberg Challenge, an offshoot of the Annenberg Foundation, by Chicago Mayor Richard Michael Daley, enthusiastically backed by the Chicago Sun-Times. Other boardmembers include bankers, business tycoons, and energetic civic hotshots like Obama. Last time I looked up Daley, the Sun, or the Annenberg Foundation on Wikipedia, they were all listed under “Bastions of the Establishment”; Daley and the Sun have vigorously defended Ayers, despite his past, because of his commitment to education reform. Obama interacted with Ayers while on Annenberg’s board back in 1995 and 1996; minutes of those board meetings, just released this week, indicate that Obama was impatient with the go-slow pace of some of the organizations being funded. According to the minutes, Obama asked, “At the end of five years, will we have broken the mold? Not much seems to be bubbling up that is inspiring or substantive.” To me, that doesn’t sound much like revolutionary skullduggery among clandestine bomb-throwers. Instead, it sounds exactly like the sort of constructive impatience designed to get results.
Obama’s campaign is counterattacking, claiming the Swift Boat-like ads have no right to be aired because Simmons’s American Issues Project flagrantly violates federal campaign law that limits individual donations to no more than $5,000, as opposed to the $2.8 million Simmons has donated thus far. Simmons’s lawyers have countered with a battery of technical arguments that I suspect will be proven empty, but which will effectively keep the ads on the air long enough to do their damage. At the end of the day, no doubt, Simmons will be forced to pay a fine — like the $20,000 he was forced to pay for election donation violations in 1993 — but for Simmons, such fines are but a small cost of doing business. We know that from Simmons’s relentless and conspicuous consumption of water during our last drought. Even as my neighbors were painting their lawn green and car washes were going out of business, Simmons was using enough H2O on his lawns — about 23 acres worth — that he could have kept a flotilla of Swift Boats afloat. Entreaties by the Montecito Water District were shrugged off, as was the $25,000 fine it imposed. Only when the district applied the equivalent of the French Boot on Simmons’s water meter did the corporate raider deign to take notice. Today, the Montecito Water District is struggling desperately to bring its customers’ profligate water habits in line with the district’s supply. People like Simmons are not making this easy. Even as a part-time resident, Simmons ranks as the district’s single biggest residential customer, using 30 times more water than the average Montecitan, who are well known for dawdling in the shower. Admittedly, Simmons’s property is much larger than most, but even so, district officials contend his consumption is still disproportionally high. It’s hard enough to be rich and famous these days without the likes of Harold Simmons giving the entire demographic a black eye.
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Wow, nice attempt at a toning down job on the undeniable association with a radical unrepentent terrorist. You defend Obama where he won't even defend himself. A little sensitive when the Great one is exposed once again for who he really is? Your sources please? Next I suppose we are going to hear "that isn't the Bill Ayers I knew" like he didn't know anything about his pastor either. I mean, knowingly hanging out with terrorists involved in a plot against the US government really is no biggie for a presidential candidate, right? At best, it shows poor judgement. And the Swift Boat claims were patently false because.... you say so? Thats funny - a lot of people think they are patently true, thats why they were so effective, they were backed by traceable FACTS..just like the Ayers thing. You don't deny the facts, because even you know they are undeniable, you just attempt to downplay them. So who is the judge here?
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 1:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Umm...I think I was about 8 years old when Charles Manson was a murderer. I just can't bring myself to make friends with him today for some reason...
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 2:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The Mayor of Chicago is named *DalEy*, not the e before the Y. [Thanks, we fixed it --webAdmin]
This swift-boaters like Simmons are pathetic losers.
Personally, I avoid any contact with anyone who has ever set foot in any one of the Confederate States of America. Nothing but terrorists, they attacked a US military installation, Fort Sumter, and killed more US soldiers than any other terrorist group in history.
sevendolphins (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 7:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The Grand Dragon is alive and well in "Cito", send the crop dusters filled with "Round Up."
lordleadbetter (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 9:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)
sevendolphins - never one to shy away from a stereotype.
RCMeltzer (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 5:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Why not six dolphins, or eight dolphins? Why seven dolphins?
billclausen (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 9:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Wait I just re-read the first paragraph - I can't believe what it says. This is a joke, right?
"...designed solely and exclusively to tar Barack Obama as a terrorist stooge despite the fact that, as we learned Monday night, Obama’s wife memorized every episode of The Brady Bunch when she was a young girl."
So by this logic, anyone who's wife memorized every episode of the Brady Bunch when she was a young girl and Barrack didn't even know her yet, could not possibly be a terrorist stooge? Wow there's proof for you. Case closed! Please don't let Nick ever serve on jury duty...
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 10:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Your honor, we find the defendant not guilty by reason of the fact that his wife memorized every episode of the Brady Bunch as a young girl!
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 10:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If A Shaw were king,
What kind of world would we live in?
Anybody...Bueller?
sa1 (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2008 at 10:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
With a speech as grand and sweeping as the one Obama gave tonight, is there any doubt left? We have a once in a generation (several generations, really) leader who is ready to be elected. Who MUST be elected. If the Republican sludge machine brings this incredible leader down and causes him to lose the General Election, this shark is swimming for new waters.
New Zealand perhaps? Portugal? Western Australia?
sharky (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 1:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Yeah I heard a lot of grand sweeping words that didn't make much sense, but I didn't hear him say anything... all I heard was blah blah ..hope...blah blah... change...hope.. change... hope...then a few grand sweeping meaningless words lifted from conventions of previous times, and then a bad impersonation of Martin Luther King. Don't get your hopes up Sharky, it just the same old - promise promises....presents for everyone, whatever you want to hear... just elect me dude.
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 1:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
sa1 I accept your nomination to be king - would you like to be vice king?
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 3:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Wait I just re-read the first paragraph - I can't believe what it says. This is a joke, right?"
Yes AShaw, it's a joke. One's spouse memorizing lines to a TV show does not qualify one to be president. You're too wrapped up in your tizzy to get the subtle humor.
You're also too busy going red in the face to see the bigger issue. If people with money can buy the election, then what has happened to democracy?
It's passed on! Democracy is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If we hadn't nailed it to the wall it'd be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now history! It's off the twig! It's kicked the the bucket! It's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-DEMOCRACY!!
Rich (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 8:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
AShaw: If the major criterion for selecting a VP is that they be able to step into the Oval Office in a heartbeat (literally), what does the selection of Palin say about McCain's judgment (at age 72)? Let's be honest - what does Palin bring to the party, except the extra chromosome?
tex805 (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 8:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Vice King!!??....King of Vice more likely.
sa1 (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 10:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, Palin is, kind of a, well, babe.
http://wonkette.com/223252/join-the-mile...
http://wonkette.com/255249/hot-bear-on-g...
I like the pictures out on the web where Anna Nicole Smith sitting on J. Howard Marshall (the 89-year old she married)'s lap that have been altered to show Palin on McCain's lap.
sevendolphins (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 2:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Is that a joke too Rich? Obama has no money and neither do his supporters? I don't get your point, I'm way wrapped up in my tizzy. Who is your poor candidate?
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 8:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
sigh
I don't have a candidate.
I wonder what McCain thinks about people circumventing campaign finance laws.
And what's your point? Obama is a terrorist? What, he's going to blow himself up? You didn't like his speech? Blah blah blah? Blah is all in the ear of the beholder. I'm guessing McCain's will be a lot of a lot of grand meaningless rhetoric as well. That's what politicians do.
Rich (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2008 at 11:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm not sure about Obama, but his association with radicals and black racist supremicists tells me at least two things - he has poor judgement at best, and I think also at best he has the interests of the African Americans over the interests of America. He's the affirmative action candidate. If you want to know what I thnk of his speech see my comments below the text of his speech:
http://www.independent.com/blogs/dnc-200...
I just got the ball rolling I could go on and on, but didn't want to be the only one with a response - let's see who else wants to take a crack at him er... it.
I'm sure you dont really care...everybody is so mesmerized and hypnotized by his charisma and enamored with the idea of the first multi-culti president that they don't listen to what he says anyway...
AShaw (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2008 at 4:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Association with white supremacist racists has never disqualified a white man from the Presidency.
The only real fear about the Demos getting in is that they'll use the full toolbox of tricks Bush/Cheney has developed, like extraordinary rendition, torture, wiretapping, firing prosecutors who prosecute republicans, punishing scientists they disagree with, re-writing scientific reports to satisfy the oil companies, etc, on the Repubs.
But, that would be wrong.
sevendolphins (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2008 at 7:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
So how will either of the two major party candidates differ from the status quo?
How do they approach the trade agreements such as NAFTA and Gatt? What about the war? (Even Barack has a continuation plan--saying we should shift the focus to Afghanistan) What about the open border/cheap labor-based economy which is undoing the progress made over the last century in labor reform? What about the drug war?
American people want someone who will make them feel good. Barack is very stylish looking and has a nice speaking voice. McCain is a war hero. But where is the change. In other words, if you think the country is on the right track, then it shouldn't be an issue, yet I here much discontent but the same people who complain have put these two in the front of the field.
For the sake of argument, since Barack is the person seen as being for change--and it's a pretty safe bet he will win, I ask you this: How will he implement that change all by himself? If he has to deal with the same old people in congress and the senate he will be eaten alive like Jimmy Carter was. Assuming he is the "Real Deal", simply electing Democrats won't help him, but electing people sympathetic to his ideas is the only way change can happen.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2008 at 2:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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