Dupes

by Paul Kengor

  33. Quoted in Romerstein and Kincaid, “Communism in Hawaii and the Obama Connection.”

  34. I know this from personal experience, as Romerstein constantly so cautioned me in writing this book.

  35. Bill Steigerwald, a reliable veteran reporter, was there. His article, which underscored Milbank's reaction, ran in a number of sources on June 2 and 3, 2008, including the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (where he was an editor) and FrontPageMagazine.com.

  36. Dana Milbank, “Obama as You've Never Known Him!” Washington Post, May 23, 2008.

  37. Steigerwald was a witness to this particular exchange.

  38. For example, I have done this extensively in spiritual biographies of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton, and in a biography of William P. Clark.

  39. Cliff Kincaid, “AP Lies About Obama's Red Mentor,” Accuracy in Media, August 4, 2008.

  40. Sudhin Thanawala, “Writer Offered a Young Barack Obama Advice on Life,” Associated Press, August 2, 2008. The other AP piece, by the same reporter, was titled “In Multiracial Hawaii, Obama Faced Discrimination,” Associated Press, May 19, 2008.

  41. Press Release, “The Honolulu Community-Media Council Condemns Shoddy Journalism and Smear Tactics by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the Accuracy in Media Website,” Honolulu Community Media Council, July 22, 2008.

  42. David Maraniss, “Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself, It Is Hawaii That Made His Rise Possible,” Washington Post, August 22, 2008.

  43. Quoted in Cliff Kincaid, “Obama's Red Mentor Was a Pervert,” Accuracy in Media, August 24, 2008. This article is cited because it was the only source that bothered to seek a response from David Maraniss. As the title suggests, there is quite a bit of information on Frank Marshall Davis's sordid sexual life. This, too, has been ignored by the mainstream news media, but has been covered by a few respectable sources, such as London's Daily Telegraph. I have chosen not to address this issue, given that my focus is the matter of Communism and dupery.

  44. Jon Meacham, “On His Own,” Newsweek, August 23, 2008.

  45. David Remnick, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama (New York: Knopf, 2010), 97.

  46. In fact, it was Quentin Young who confirmed the meeting to Politico. Sources for this include Ben Smith's articles in Politico, most notably: Ben Smith, “Obama Once Visited ’60s Radicals,” Politico.com, February 22, 2008 See also Shane, “Obama and ’60s Bomber.”

  47. There are a number of references to this in the newsletters of Democratic Socialists of America. There is also a photo of Debs at the podium receiving the award at the 1992 dinner.

  48. Young often says that national health care “isn't the best solution; it's the only solution.” See Karen Ide and Clinton Stockwell, “An Interview with Quentin D. Young, M.D.,” Physicians for a National Health Program, May 2004; and Julie Appleby and Richard Wolf, “Few Solutions on the Horizon as Health Costs Rise,” USA Today, September 1, 2005.

  49. The exact date of the meeting, to my knowledge, has not been reported. My estimate is that it was June–July 1995. See Smith, “Obama Once Visited ’60s Radicals”; and Shane, “Obama and ’60s Bomber.”

  50. Shane, “Obama and ’60s Bomber.”

  51. The word “coffee” was a direct quote from Rabbi Wolf, whereas the longer quote, “one of several such neighborhood events as Mr. Obama prepared to run,” were the words of the Times reporter paraphrasing the rabbi.

  52. Ayers has briefly addressed the subject in other contexts. He admits “we had him [Obama] in our home,” but adds that Obama “was probably in 20 homes that day.” See Rex W. Huppke, “Bill Ayers: ‘Secret Link’ with Obama Just a Myth,’” Chicago Tribune, November 14, 2008.

  53. Shane, “Obama and ’60s Bomber.”

  54. Scott Fornek, “Foot Soldiers for the ’96 Elections,” Chicago Sun-Times, October 29, 1995.

  55. See Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott, The Manchurian President (Washington, DC: WND Books, 2010); and “The Obama-Ayers meeting: What You Haven't Been Told,” WorldNetDaily.com, May 2, 2010

  56. It typically takes at least two years to earn a master's degree, meaning that Ayers probably began his master's program in 1982. See Faculty Profile, William Ayers, University of Illinois at Chicago, available at http://education.uic.edu/directory/faculty_info.cfm?netid=bayers.

  57. David Horowitz interviewed Ayers at the Manhattan nursery school in 1982, where Ayers was working as a teacher. See Horowitz and Collier, “Doing It.” See also Horowitz, Radical Son, 333–34.

  58. The Wall Street Journal has called this Columbia period “Obama's lost years.” See the editorial, “Obama's Lost Years,” Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2008.

  59. Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media has reported this in his online reports and articles. This period might also overlap with Bill Ayers's time at Columbia and possibly some period when Obama was living in New York. Again, much of this is unclear—and unnecessarily so.

  60. See Shane, “Obama and ’60s Bomber.”

  61. Ibid.

  62. The New York Times’s Scott Shane (“Obama and ’60s Bomber”) reports the period as 2000 to 2002, with “about a dozen” meetings between the two in that three-year period. This is incorrect. The website of the fund reports that the two began serving together in 1999.

  63. Jennifer Vanasco, “Close-up on Juvenile Justice: Author, Former Offender Among Speakers,” University of Chicago Chronicle, November 6, 1997, posted at http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/971106/justice.shtml.

  64. Rorty was bracingly candid in his message to parents: “We are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.” See Robert B. Brandom, ed., Rorty and His Critics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 21–22.

  65. A photo of Obama next to the endorsement was posted by a number of conservative websites during the 2008 presidential campaign, though the mainstream media almost completely ignored the matter. One of the most frequently visited such postings was at HotAir.com. See http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/20/the-blurb-that-never-was/. See also Shane, “Obama and ’60s Bomber.”

  66. Brian Friel, Richard E. Cohen, and Kirk Victor, “Obama: Most Liberal Senator in 2007,” National Journal, January 31, 2008.

  67. See Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz, “Obama Pressed in Pa. Debate,” Washington Post, April 17, 2008.

  68. Robin Abcarian, “Stephanopoulos Defends His Questions to Obama,” LATimes.com, April 17, 2008.

  69. Quoted in Huppke, “Bill Ayers.’”

  70. Maki was interviewed and is quoted by Cliff Kincaid. See Cliff Kincaid, “Communist Party Backs Obama,” Accuracy in Media, July 3, 2008, posted at AIM.org.

  71. Kincaid, “Communist Party Backs Obama.”

  72. The photo of the Che Guevara flag at an Obama office in Houston was widely circulated on the Internet. It was captured by a Fox affiliate in Houston and immediately picked by conservative print and web sources like Investor's Business Daily and WorldNetDaily.

  73. Editorial, “Eye on the Prize,” People's Weekly World, July 15, 2008.

  74. For a mainstream source prior to the election, see Paola Messana, “U.S. Communists Say Their Time Has Come,” Agence France Presse, October 14, 2008.

  75. Kincaid, “Communist Party Backs Obama.” Another conservative who has written openly on these connections is Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. Most conservatives, however, are afraid to touch this.

  Chapter 23: 2008: A “Progressive” Victory

  1. Throughout most of the writing of this book, the website that lists the signatories for Progressives for Obama has been http://www.progressivesforobama.net/.

  2. Daniel J. Flynn, “Obama's Boys of Summer,” City Journal, June 2008.

  3. These four reportedly signed online petitions calling for an “independent grassroots effort” to strengthen Senator Obama's presidential campaign. In addition to the sign
ers who hailed from Progressives for Obama, like Mark Rudd, these petition signers included Howard Machtinger, Jeff Jones, and Steve Tappis. See Aaron Klein, “4 Weathermen Terrorists Declare Support for Obama,” WorldNetDaily.com, October 2, 2008.

  4. “Jane Fonda Endorses Barack Obama: There Goes His Crossover Vote,” Los Angeles Times blog, posted as http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/jane-fonda-endo.html.

  5. This data is taken from MSNBC exit polling posted the day after the November 4, 2008, election.

  6. Tom Hayden, “Obama and the Open and Unexpected Future,” CommonDreams.org, June 8, 2008.

  7. Barack Obama used the terms “economic justice” and “redistributive change” in a 2001 interview with the Chicago Public Radio station, WBEZ, 91.5 FM. According to a short article posted by WBEZ, the interview was done in January 2001. See http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=29792.

  8. Thomas Good, “MDS Conference Elects Manning Marable Chair of MDS, Inc.,” Next Left Notes, February 20, 2007.

  9. Rudd said this at an April 22, 2009, press conference on his book release. See Cliff Kincaid, “Terrorists on Tour,” Accuracy in Media, April 23, 2009.

  10. Rudd posted this on November 27, 2008. See www.markrudd.com/organizing-and-activism-now/lets-get-smart-about-obama-nov-2008.html.

  11. The Gallup poll was released June 15, 2009, and conducted from January through May 2009, when “Obama mania” was believed to be at its peak, advanced not only by an ebullient politician but also by a massive liberal-Democrat majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Gallup surveyed 160,000 people, which is far and away a large enough sample size for an accurate representation of the country as a whole. Gallup found 40 percent calling themselves conservative and 21 percent opting for liberal, an almost identical two-to-one (roughly) margin to its findings over the past two decades, including during the 2004 presidential race (40 percent to 19 percent) and the 2000 presidential race (38 percent to 19 percent). Also, Gallup once again reaffirmed that conservatives are far and away the single largest voting bloc in America. It found far more conservatives among women (37 percent to 23 percent) as well as men (44 percent to 20 percent). See Lydia Saad, “’Conservatives’ Are Single-Largest Ideological Group,” Gallup, June 15, 2009.

  12. Brian Friel, Richard E. Cohen, and Kirk Victor, “Obama: Most Liberal Senator in 2007,” National Journal, January 31, 2008.

  13. Rudd posted this on November 27, 2008. See www.markrudd.com/organizing-and-activism-now/lets-get-smart-about-obama-nov-2008.html.

  14. “Duncan Praised as ‘Bona Fide Reformer’ of Chicago Education System,” FoxNews.com, December 16, 2008.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid.

  17. See William Ayers, Jean Ann Hunt, and Therese Quinn, eds., Teaching for Social Justice (New York: Teachers College Press, 1998); and William Ayers, Michael Klonsky, and Gabrielle Lyon, eds., A Simple Justice (New York: Teachers College Press, 2000). More recently, see William Ayers, Therese Quinn, and David Stovall, eds., Handbook for Social Justice in Education (New York: Routledge, 2008).

  18. See Sol Stern, “The Ed Schools’ Latest—and Worst—Humbug,” City Journal, Summer 2006; and Sandy Rios, “Billy Graham Meets Bill Ayers,” Townhall, February 26, 2010.

  19. “Duncan Praised as ’Bona Fide Reformer’ of Chicago Education System.” Klonsky has also written blog posts on Duncan at http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/. See the Klonsky and Ayers piece in the February 1, 2006, issue of Phi Delta Kappan.

  20. Andrew C. McCarthy, “Another Communist in Obama's Orb,” National Review, October 22, 2008.

  21. Flynn, “Obama's Boys of Summer.”

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Carl Davidson, “The Right Wing's assault on Van Jones and the Progressive Left,” The Rag Blog, September 6, 2009, posted at theragblog.blogspot.com.

  25. In October 1970 Jones, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn signed a letter taking credit for an explosion that destroyed a statue of a policeman in Chicago's Haymarket Square. They wrote: “A year ago we blew away the Haymarket pig statue at the start of a youth riot in Chicago. Last night we destroyed the pig again.” See “Weathermen Take Credit for Bombing,” UPI, October 7, 1970.

  26. See Juliet Wittman, “Memoirs: Radical Parents, Red Shoes and a Poet Up Close and Personal,” Washington Post, November 21, 2004; and Carl Swanson, “Radical Take: Two Former Weathermen Cut through the New Documentary The Fog of War,” New York, December 15, 2003, posted at nymag.com.

  27. Quoted in: Phil Kerpen, “NY's Tax-Funded Ex-Terrorist,” New York Post, September 9, 2009.

  28. Ibid.

  29. See Keith Schneider, “Recovery Bill Is Breakthrough on Clean Energy, Good Jobs,” Apollo Alliance, February 17, 2009, posted at apolloalliance.org. According to the Apollo Alliance, Reid said: “This legislation is the first step in building a clean energy economy that creates jobs and moves us closer to solving our enormous energy and environmental challenges.… The Apollo Alliance has been an important factor in helping us develop and execute a strategy that makes great progress on these goals and in motivating the public to support them.”

  30. See my article “Communicating Obama's Fiscal Disaster,” March 23, 2009, posted at the website of the Center for Vision and Values. There is debate over the precise amount of the final Bush deficit, given the fiscal disaster in the fall of 2008 and, more specifically, given which government spending (in response to the disaster) should be included in the final “Bush deficit.” Either way, the Obama “stimulus” immediately added $800 billion to an already record deficit left by Bush.

  31. Credit for this find goes to the hard work and diligent digging of Mary Grabar, which is published in Mary Grabar, “Did Bill Ayers Get His Teaching Job ‘the Chicago Way’?” America's Survival Inc., August 2009, 7. This report is posted at www.usasurvival.org. Dr. Grabar has done a review of the syllabi used in Ayers's courses.

  32. Editorial, “Ayers Has Not Left Radicalism Behind,” Investor's Business Daily, October 9, 2008.

  33. Chavez was elected president in 1998 and reelected in 2000 and 2006. Ayers, in his November 2006 speech at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela, said it was his fourth visit to the country. The speech is posted at Ayers's website at http://billayers.wordpress.com/2006/11.

  34. See Ayers's 2006 World Education Forum speech, posted at http://billayers.wordpress.com/2006/11. See also the editorial, “Ayers Has Not Left Radicalism Behind.”

  35. See, for example, Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (New York: Grove Press, 2010), 633.

  36. “Chavez Says Smell of Sulfur Replaced by Smell of ‘Hope,’” FoxNews.com, September 24, 2009.

  37. This was the description of Boudin listed in the tagline to a March 3, 2009, article posted by Boudin at the website of The Nation magazine.

  38. Braudy, Family Circle, 384.

  39. The bio is posted at www.columbia.edu/cu/ssw/faculty/adjunct/boudin.html.

  40. This is data from MSNBC exit polling, posted November 5, 2008. It is consistent with other exit polls.

  41. Rudd, Underground, 175–76.

  42. “Doctors Call on Obama, Congress to ‘Do The Right Thing’ on Health Reform,” PoliticalAffairs.Net, November 9, 2008; and “Steps Toward Health Care Reform,” PoliticalAffairs.Net, November 13, 2008.

  43. The speech was excerpted by Aaron Klein, “Communist Party Official Shares White House's Ambitious Agenda,” World Net Daily, May 24, 2009.

  44. Stanislav Mishin, “American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper,” Pravda, April 27, 2009.

  45. Manning Marable, “The Four Legged Stool That Won the US Presidential Election,” Socialist Review, December 2008.

  46. The actual quote reads: “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.”


  Postcript: Bogart at the Workers School?

  1. “Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publication (and Appendices), revised and published December 1, 1961, to supersede Guide published on January 2, 1957 (including Index),” 175–76.

  2. This is the testimony of Manning Johnson. See “Investigation of Communist Activities in the New York City Area—Part 5,” Hearing before the Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, 83rd Congress, First Session, July 6, 1953, Washington, DC, 2277.

  3. “New York Leads Country in Socialist Competition,” Daily Worker, November 3, 1934, 6.

  4. This is a different district number (#2) from the district number for the Bogart at the Workers School (#5). Importantly, however, the Daily Worker and Workers School used different district structuring, as is immediately evident when comparing the two sets of districts.