Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers speaks out on the criticism Barack Obama fielded during the presidential campaign for his ties to the 1960s radical.

Bill Ayers, the Sixties radical whose ties to Barack Obama dogged the president-elect during the presidential campaign, accused his critics on Friday of trying to “exploit the politics of fear” by encouraging others to dig into their relationship.

FILE: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn walk with their son in New York in 1982. (AP Photo)

The co-founder of the Weather Underground, which carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol, also defended his violent past, repeating a line he has said before: “I don’t think we did enough.”

Ayers used the interview, his first since the election, to downplay his relationship with Obama. Ayers said there is “no dark, hidden secret.”

“It’s not at all true that [Obama] sought me out to listen to my radical ideas, or that I sought him out,” Ayers told ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”

“The truth is we came together in Chicago in the civic community around issues of school improvement, around issues of fighting for the rights of poor neighborhoods to have jobs and housing and so on, and that’s the full extent of our relationship.”

Ayers and Obama served on a Chicago school reform group and a foundation board, and Ayers hosted a meet-and-greet for Obama more than a decade ago. During the campaign, Republicans suggested their relationship ran deeper than that. John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, said in the run-up to Election Day that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.”

Ayers, who kept a low profile during the campaign — unlike Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. — dismissed such charges on Friday.

“This idea that we need to know more, like there’s some dark, hidden secret, some secret link — it’s just a myth. And it’s a myth thrown up by people who want to kind of exploit the politics of fear,” he said.

Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said he doesn’t believe that “guilt-by-association should be any part of our politics.”

But Ayers says in a new afterword to his memoir that he and Obama were neighbors and “family friends.”

Ayers’ reflections appear in a new paperback release of his 2001 memoir, “Fugitive Days.” The Associated Press obtained a copy of the new afterword Thursday.

“In 2008 there was a lot of chatter on the blogosphere about my relationship with Barack Obama: we had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fundraiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” Ayers writes.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt declined comment on Ayers’ new writings. Obama has denounced Ayers’ violent past and has said Ayers was never involved in his presidential campaign.

Ayers lives a few blocks from Obama on Chicago’s South Side with his wife, former fellow radical Bernardine Dohrn. Now a law professor at Northwestern University, Dohrn was a fugitive for years with her husband until they surrendered in 1980. Charges against Ayers were dropped because of government misconduct, which included FBI break-ins, wiretaps and opening of mail.

Ayers writes that Obama’s enemies saw their connections as a chance to “deepen a dishonest narrative about him.”

“That he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist, a sympathizer with extremism,” Ayers writes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more at: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/14/ayers-accuses-critics-using-politics-fear/

FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren went to Alaska to get Gov. Sarah Palin’s reflections on the presidential election.

After a whirlwind campaign alongside Sen. John McCain, Sarah Palin is defending herself against criticism stemming from the tens of thousands of dollars spent on her wardrobe as well as several reported foreign affairs missteps.

Nov. 9: FOX News

“When I arrived at the convention, there were clothes waiting for me, and clothes being ordered for me and the family, for eight of us,” the Alaska governor told FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren, in an interview that aired Monday night. “And ever since then, those clothes, knowing that they didn’t belong to me … we boxed them all up, sent them back to the rightful owners, the Republican National Committee, and that’s the story on the clothes.” 

Attorneys for the Republican National Committee are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was bought for Palin and exactly what has been returned, The Associated Press reports.

Palin dismissed the controversy over the reported $150,000 bill as “irrelevant,” along with claims from Republican aides that she could not identify the members of NAFTA or that she thought Africa was a country — and not a continent.

“It just seems like such an irrelevant issue when you consider what is going on in the world today and how a new administration is being ushered in and people being concerned about the direction of the nation and policies that will be adopted,” Palin said. “Clothes just seem irrelevant.”

Palin continued, “I just think that there was unfair criticism that maybe lingers today, that my family and I asked for anybody to pay for any our clothes.”

Regarding the reported Africa gaffe, Palin said, “And never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or is it a continent? I just don’t know about this issue. So I don’t know how they took our one discussion on Africa and turned that into what they turned it into … Along those same lines, of course, was the criticism that supposedly I didn’t know who the participants in NAFTA were.”

Amid speculation nationwide about Palin’s political future, the governor told FOX News that she’s unsure of what 2012 will bring, but added that she doesn’t intend on running away from future criticism.

“Your life is an open book and you open yourself up to criticism and you’d better be ready to take that criticism,” Palin said. “In other words, don’t run for office if you can’t handle it.”
Palin, who could seek re-election in 2010 or potentially run for president in four years, said she will rely on faith.

“Putting my life in my creator’s hands — this is what I always do,” she said. “I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door … And if there is an open door in ‘12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”

Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, told the Associated Press that Palin spent part of the weekend going through her clothing to determine what belongs to the Republican Party.

“She was just frantically … trying to sort stuff out,” Heath told AP. “That’s the problem, you know, the kids lose underwear, and everything has to be accounted for. Nothing goes right back to normal.”

Palin’s father said his daughter told him the only clothing or accessories she personally had purchased in the past four months was a pair of shoes.

The McCain-Palin campaign said last week that about a third of the clothing was returned immediately because it was the wrong size, or for other reasons. However, other purchases apparently were made after that, a campaign official told AP.

In Wasilla, her hometown backers welcomed their former mayor, putting aside their disappointment over her unsuccessful bid.

Jessica Steele, proprietor of the Beehive Beauty Shop and keeper of the governor’s up-do since 2002, cannot wait to see what Palin does next move.

“That’s something I want to talk to her about: What’s our vision for her hair?” Steele told AP. “I can’t wait to see her and say, ‘OK, I’ve got you alone for three hours. Just relax, and how are you, really?”‘

While Palin remains popular, the reality of defeat is evident.

Bags of fan mail, as many as 400 letters a day, partially fill a room at her parent’s house. But Palin’s parents no longer meet Secret Service agents when they pick up their children at Cottonwood Creek Elementary, where Palin’s youngest daughter, Piper, is a student. The reporters and camera crews are gone from the Palin home on Lake Lucille, once patrolled by Coast Guard boats. Now a thick sheet of ice covers the lake.

Four state troopers still guard the governor 24 hours a day, Heath told AP — something Palin never had before.

And in a bit of familiarity, Heath said he brought a pot of moose chili to Palin’s house this past weekend.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More at http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/10/sarah-palin-defends-criticism-post-election-interview/

Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman denies the wave of anonymous post-election criticism coming from some members of John McCain’s campaign team.

Palin's spokeswoman comes out swinging, denies anonymous criticisms from ex-McCain aides

Sarah Palin’s allies are pushing back against a stream of accusations leaking out of John McCain’s campaign that the Alaska governor was incompetent during the run-up to the election. One Palin aide called the charges “sickening.”

Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton on Friday denied reports that have surfaced since Election Day that there was tension between the vice presidential candidate and McCain’s staff.

They range from claims that Palin went on extensive spending sprees to accounts that campaign officials had serious doubts about her preparedness to to be vice president.

Sources told FOX News, for instance, that Palin did not realize that Africa was a continent and not a country, and that she could not name the nations that had signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Palin herself brushed off the finger-pointing Wednesday, saying she wouldn’t engage “any of the negativity” or “pettiness” from anonymous sources.

Stapleton released a written statement Friday calling the charges “unfortunate and, quite honestly, sickening.”

“The accusations we are hearing and reading are not true and since we deny all these anonymous allegations, there is nothing specific to which we will respond,” she wrote. “We have the highest regards for Senator John McCain. Governor Palin was honored to be chosen as McCain’s running mate.”

Newsweek also reported that Palin may have spent “tens of thousands” of dollars more on wardrobe expenses than the $150,000 that was reported in the days before Election Day. The money allegedly went toward clothes for her and her family from high-end stores, even though she was originally told to buy just three suits and hire a stylist for the Republican National Convention.

One aide called the spree “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” according to the magazine. Palin also reportedly asked to speak at McCain’s concession speech Tuesday, and was denied.

McCain adviser Nicole Wallace defended Palin on NBC’s “Today Show” Friday morning, saying the Alaska governor “did nothing wrong.”

“She is, perhaps, the most un-diva politician I’ve ever seen,” she said. “The only thing I’ve ever seen her ask for is a diet soda.”

Palin said right after the election that she’s sorry if she cost McCain even “one vote.”

But some are tired of what they say looks like scapegoating.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told FOX News that McCain himself needs to come out and put a stop to the Palin criticism.

“She’s the one that energized the base, she’s the one that got the crowds out. … She’s the one that comes out of this without any scars and now they’re trying to give her some,” Santorum said. “John McCain should come out and say, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and set the record straight.”

John McCain congratulates Barack Obama on his “historic” election as president of “the greatest nation on Earth.”
Wednesday, November 5, 2008

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Republican John McCain congratulated Democrat Barack Obama for winning the U.S. presidency on Tuesday, saying “the American people have spoken” and promising to help his former rival address the country’s many challenges.

Class Act - John McCain

McCain addressed his supporters in an emotional speech at a Phoenix hotel after telephoning Obama to concede the election. Obama later said McCain’s call had been “extraordinarily gracious.”

“We have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly,” McCain said.

“Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it.”

The 72-year-old Arizona senator urged all Americans — including his supporters — to rally behind Obama, saying he planned to help the new president-elect tackle the myriad issues the country faced.

“It’s natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again,” McCain told his supporters, shushing them occasionally with “please, please” when they booed his mentions of Obama.

Many McCain supporters said expected Obama to raise their taxes and expose the country to terrorist attack.

“As far as I’m concerned, Obama’s going to take away all my rights and my freedom,” said college student Kristen Keogh.

McCain spoke to a crowd of a few thousand on the hotel’s lawn, on a stage framed by spotlights and palm trees.

Several people in the affluent crowd said voters had been seduced by Obama’s promise of change, rather than considering a candidate who had a long record of independence.

“People got wrapped up in charisma, they got wrapped up in an ideal as opposed to reality,” said podiatrist Tanya Pfitzer.

“HE HAS PREVAILED”

McCain and Obama clashed over the Iraq war, taxes, trade, and energy policy during a heated, five-month general election campaign, but the Arizona senator pledged his support as the next president navigates a major financial crisis and two wars abroad.

“Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed,” McCain said, adding many of those differences remained. “These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.”

McCain was joined by his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who did not speak.

McCain praised her as a vital new voice: “We can all look forward with great interest to her future service to Alaska, the Republican Party and our country.”

After a campaign that grew negative at times, most recently with Republican attacks on Obama’s ties to a 1960s radical, McCain emphasized common ground between the two men.

“Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans, and please believe me when I say no association has meant more to me than that.”

McCain expressed sympathy over the death of Obama’s grandmother just before Election Day, saying he was sorry she had not lived to see her grandson’s victory.

He also acknowledged the historic nature of Obama’s win.

“This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight,” he said.

McCain thanked his campaign staff and family for their support in his nearly two-year White House quest.

“Campaigns are often harder on a candidate’s family than on the candidate, and that’s been true in this campaign,” he said. “All I can offer in compensation is my love and gratitude and the promise of more peaceful years ahead.”

Photo Copyright Getty Images

BARACK OBAMA: Hello, Chicago.

(APPLAUSE)

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

(APPLAUSE)

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

(APPLAUSE)

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he’s fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they’ve achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton…

(APPLAUSE)

… and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years…

(APPLAUSE)

… the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation’s next first lady…

(APPLAUSE)

… Michelle Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

Sasha and Malia…

(APPLAUSE)

… I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us…

(LAUGHTER)

… to the new White House.

(APPLAUSE)

And while she’s no longer with us, I know my grandmother’s watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you’ve given me. I am grateful to them.

(APPLAUSE)

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe…

(APPLAUSE)

… the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best — the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

To my chief strategist David Axelrod…

(APPLAUSE)

… who’s been a partner with me every step of the way. To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics…

(APPLAUSE)

… you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done. But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy…

(APPLAUSE)

… who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

(APPLAUSE)

And I know you didn’t do this just to win an election. And I know you didn’t do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.

There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage or pay their doctors’ bills or save enough for their child’s college education.

There’s new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.

(APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!

OBAMA: There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can’t solve every problem.

But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

(APPLAUSE)

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

(APPLAUSE)

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

(APPLAUSE)

To those — to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

(APPLAUSE)

That’s the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight’s about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

(APPLAUSE)

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves — if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see?

What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.