Ayers: No regrets for stand against Vietnam war

William Ayers, head of the 1960s radical antiwar group Weather Underground who became a major issue in the presidential election campaign, told a radio interviewer Tuesday that he had "no regrets for taking a stand" against the war in Vietnam.

Ayers appeared on Fresh Air with Terri Gross, a National Public Radio show, and talked with her about his life, his radicalism in the 1960s, and the acquaintance he had with Barack Obama that became such an issue with Republican John McCain.

McCain repeatedly denounced Obama for his association with Ayers, a fellow professor at the University of Chicago. McCain's runningmate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." None of those charges had much effect on the outcome of the election, and polls repeatedly showed that most Americans were not concerned about William Ayers.

Ayers refused to answer any of the charges from McCain during the campaign, but he told Gross that was the Republican candidates said about him was "profoundly dishonest."

At the end of the 40-minute interview, Gross said that many people were waiting for Ayers to say that he was sorry for what he and his fellow Weather Underground cohorts did in the 1960s -- they conducted several property destroying missions including placing a small bomb at the Pentagon -- and that he regretted his actions.

He refused to do so.

"The culture of apology does not appeal to me," he said.

While there were some actions he regretted, he said, his opposition to the war was the right thing to do.

The United States in the sixties had "waged a war against a civilian population."

"My feeling is that we did not do enough to oppose it," he said.

Ayers said he thought it would be a good exercise for everyone of that era to stand up and say, "This is what we did." By that standard, the actions of the Weather Underground in trying to stop the killing would compare well to those who were executing the war.

"Looking backward, I don't see anybody who did the right thing."

Ayers said no civilian or government official was ever hurt by any of their actions, despite reporters that a policeman in San Francisco had been killed by a member of the Weather Underground.

A Federal case against for violent actions against U.S. property was dismissed in the early 1970s.

Ayers also denied that he had any close relationship with Barack Obama. He held a fund-raising event in his home for Obama when he ran for state senate, and he served is some civic organizations with him, but he was just one of "thousands of people" who knew Obama in his Chicago days.

Ayers is the author of several books including a memoir of the sixties called Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist.

Complete sentences vs. fragments

• A little coherence and evidence of intellectual activity from the presidential candidates -- is that too much to ask?

David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post, noted the following about this week's presidential debate in Nashville:

Is it “presidential” to speak in clear sentences that have a beginning, a middle and an end? If so, we heard a very presidential Barack Obama in tonight’s debate -- a man who was fluid and precise in explaining his policies and in critiquing those of his opponent.

John McCain, in contrast, seemed stiff and uncomfortable, explaining himself in sentence fragments and jokes and gests that didn’t quite register. He looked awkward whether he was standing or sitting, and his speech was that of a man who wants to chide his opponent and assert his own fitness for office -- but can’t explain himself or his policies in clear language that forms complete sentences and paragraphs -- or even complete thoughts.

Or am I being elitist, in arguing that case for coherence?

I, for one, don't think it's elitist. Well, maybe it is. So what's wrong with that. Some of us still value coherence and think it's a sign of intellect.

And speaking of intellect, see also David Brooks' column in the New York Times today.

And, while we're talking English, watch Kitty Burns Florey (Slate) try to diagram Sarah Palin's sentences -- and fail.

Palin, her emails, her hacker: No secrets`

The theft of Sarah Palin's "private" emails from her Yahoo account this week flared into a potentially fascinating but short-lived story of the presidential campaign. Apparently, there is little within the emails that gives us new insight into the Republican vice presidential candidate.

What is far more interesting -- and instructive -- are the stories underneath this non-story. There are three:

• Hacking with ease. It took virtually no technical expertise for the hacker to get into Palin's email account. The security question used to prevent unauthorized entry could easily be answered through a Google search or by just looking at a standard biography. Just about anyone with rudimentary knowledge of email systems could have done it. (See "Palin Email "Hack" Was Hardly a Hack at All" at Gizmodo.)
  
  
• Secret government. Why was Sarah Palin using a private email account instead of the one provided for her by the state government of Alaska? She was doing so as a work-around to Alaska's Open Records Act. According to the Seattle Times, "Palin routinely uses a private Yahoo e-mail account to conduct state business. Others in the governor's office sometimes use personal e-mail accounts, too." To those of us who believe the public's business should be conducted in public, the attitude of the governor and her administration is troubling. But, given the permeable nature of "private" email accounts, this scheme comes up somewhat short of brilliant.
  
  
• Tracking the hack. If Palin doesn't have any protection from intrusions, then neither does the hacker. Attention is being focused on a University of Tennessee student who is the son of a Democratic legislator. (UT is where I teach, but no, I don't know him.) Even though he made some efforts to conceal his identity, he was tracked through a number of clues he left about himself and information that appeared in his high school yearbook. (For more details, see the Knoxville News Sentinel's "Kernell mum on allegations son hacked into Palin’s e-mail."

The Big Lesson here: The web is no place to hide. What happens on the web doesn't stay on the web.

When we put information, thoughts, ideas, pictures or whatever on the web, we lose control of it. And sometimes it comes back to haunt us.

Destroy the Palin emails? It ain't gonna happen

I pretty much agree with Steve Outing's take on the Sarah Palin email theft thing. First, it shouldn't have happened. Digging into someone else's email is the wrong thing to do.

But what gets Steve is the McCain campaign's reaction to it. Rick Davis, a McCain spokesperson has asked that anyone who has these emails should destroy them.

Steve says, "Get real."

Perhaps they still use typewriters over at McCain campaign HQ. Davis must be thinking we still live back in the day when the news media could be persuaded to squelch something like this. If the media decided to hold back (because, after all, this was an illegal act committed by someone, and old media probably wouldn’t touch a story that’s so ethically and legally challenged), then the public wouldn’t see the e-mails.

Sorry, Mr. Davis, but we don’t live in that era anymore.

Steve wisely advises the McCain advisers to deal with what the emails say -- and the fact that Palin was using her Yahoo account to conduct public business.

The toothpaste isn't going back into the tube.