Friday, November 14, 2008

GMA gives known terrorist a chance to plug his new book

I just got through watching a video clip entitled: “Campaign boogeyman William Ayers Talks to ‘GMA’ {Good Morning America}”

Click here to see the clip and read a transcript of the interview.

Maybe it should be called: “GMA gives known terrorist a chance to plug his new book.”

They do interview Ayers and ask him to explain himself, his relationship with Obama, and his past involvement “with violence” (they never use the word “terrorism”) but then the GMA interviewer states “we’ll talk about your new book, Fugitive Days, in the next segment…”

During this clip, Ayers denies having a deep relationship with Obama, but continues to reassert his statement that he does not regret his actions (which he downplays to being part of the “militant”), and even goes so far as to play the victim by saying that he is being “demonized”, because he was just a part of a larger context of social rebellion against an unjust war, during which the government was “killing thousands of people every day.” In other words, he was nothing more than soldier on the side of Good, blowing up government buildings to stop a terrible government that was waging an unjustifiable war.

And yet, he also says: "We knew it was wrong. We knew it was illegal. We knew it was immoral…{but the Weather Underground} had to do more {to stop the Vietnam War}.

Exactly what journalistic principles are these, that drive GMA to interview an unrepentant terrorist, only to follow up with a promotion his book?

I find it interesting that Ayers apparently felt that the dialog concerning his relationship to Obama was so “dishonest” that he apparently felt it was morally reprehensible to comment on it. He disagrees with the notion of “guilt by association”, and didn’t want to contribute to this “unjust” discussion. However, the week after the election, he suddenly needed to “set the record straight”. Now that his “family friend” won the election, the discussion is no longer so morally reprehensible, and it’s time to express his outrage and being “demonized”.

Ayers continues to see his activities in the light of a righteous militant fighting against his own government, waging a violent “activist” campaign to bring down the government. This concept inspires me to explore the definition of “traitor”, to see if this fits. It seems to fit his actions perfectly:
Traitor: Someone who betrays his country by committing treason.
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of disloyalty to one’s sovereign or nation
A citizen’s actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the {parent nation}…{or to} conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aided or involved in such an endeavour.”

Maybe I'm just daft, but by those definitions, is it even deniable that Ayers was a traitor, as well as a terrorist? And if they couldn't prosecute him for terrorism, why didn't they try him as a traitor, and hang him by the neck until dead?

GMA describes Ayers as a “respected professor”. Respected? By whom?

How is it possible that, on the one hand, self-described “progressives” can say that Ayer’s bombings—which occurred in 1970 and 1971—are “ancient history” and “water under the bridge”, while simultaneously celebrating the prosecution (in 2001) of the suspects of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham? Why isn’t that “water under the bridge”? After all, it occurred seven years before Ayer’s bombings. Don’t get me wrong: I think those murderers should be prosecuted. But by the same notion of justice, Ayers should be also, and the fact that a technical mistake by prosecutors let him escape jail does not absolve him of guilt in these atrocious crimes.

The college professors coming to Ayer’s defense are taking a morally reprehensible position to selectively protect leftist terrorists, while condemning racist terrorists. They are essentially saying that, since the US government was condoning and actively participating in a war that killed thousands of people per day, any acts to stop that immoral violence are forgivable offenses.

In July of 2005, Eric Rudolph was convicted of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing as well as a bombing of a Birmingham abortion clinic. Rudolph committed his acts of violence because he believed that abortion—which we know has killed around 45 million babies in the United States alone—was such a horrendous crime against humanity that it must be fought with “deadly force”. “Children are disposed of at will,” he was quoted as saying. “The state is no longer the protector of the innocents.”

For the sake of argument, let us choose to agree with Ayer’s regarding the immorality of the Vietnam War. What’s more, let us decide to take his side and agree that he was justified in his bombings because he was trying to stop a greater evil.

Applying that standard, and considering that Abortion has killed many more children than the number of casualties of the Vietnam War, we must draw the conclusion that Eric Rudolph was also justified in his attacks, and we would expect university professors to line up in his defense.

If we continue this line of “reasoning” {very loosely speaking}, and we conclude that a bomber is forgiven his crime as long as the terrorist is attacking the government that is perpetrating a grave injustice, would terrorist acts against the Obama administration be justifiable?

It is clearly an unjustifiable position to take. No intelligent person can possibly rationalize Ayer’s acts, while simultaneously condemning those of Rudolph. And no self respecting professor should come to Ayer’s defense on the ground that Ayer’s—who is by his own admission “guilty as hell, free as a bird!”—is somehow less of a criminal than Rudolph, who is guilty as hell, and paying for his crime.

I guess we should expect to wake up tomorrow and find GMA interviewing Osama Bin Laden, followed by a plug for the new al Qaeda instructional guide:

Jihad for Dummies: The Progressives’ Guide to Killing Americans
(With a forward by ABC’s Peter Jennings)

No comments: