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.

Barack Obama, president-elect

Congratulations, Barack Obama.

President-elect.

Truly remarkable. Truly.

And congratulations to Senator John McCain for your unquestioned patriotism and courage and your service to your country.

The power of the narrative and the McCain campaign

• The narrative and the central idea of a McCain presidency has not emerged during the campaign.

The presidential campaign of John McCain comes under the scrutiny of the New York Times Sunday Magazine this week in a long and revealing article by Robert Draper. The author uses the motif of the "shifting narrative" to explain some of the reasons why McCain's campaign has never been able to take and hold the edge against that of Barak Obama.

The central thesis of the article: A political campaign needs a "narrative" that allows it develop an image of the candidate.

. . . The selling of a presidential “narrative” the reigning buzz word of this election cycle has taken on outsize significance in an age in which a rush of visuals and catch words can cripple public images overnight. Mitt Romney, it is said, lost because he could not get his story straight. Hillary Clinton found her I’m-a-fighter leitmotif too late to save her candidacy. By contrast, the narrative of Barack Obama has seemed to converge harmonically with the shifting demographics and surging discontent of the electorate. It may well be, as his detractors suggest, that Obama is among the least-experienced presidential nominees in our nation’s history. But to voters starved for change, the 47-year-old biracial first-term Democratic senator clearly qualifies. That, in any event, is his story, and he has stuck to it.

John McCain’s biography has been the stuff of legend for nearly a decade. And yet Schmidt (McCain’s chief campaign strategist) and his fellow strategists have had difficulty explaining how America will be better off for electing (as opposed to simply admiring) a stubborn patriot. In seeking to do so, the McCain campaign has changed its narrative over and over. Sometimes with McCain’s initial resistance but always with his eventual approval, Schmidt has proffered a candidate who is variously a fighter, a conciliator, an experienced leader and a shake-’em-up rebel. “The trick is that all of these are McCain,” Matt McDonald, a senior adviser, told me. But in constantly alternating among story lines in order to respond to changing events and to gain traction with voters, the “true character” of a once-crisply-defined political figure has become increasingly murky.

Draper, author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush, identifies five narratives that the campaign has tried out:

• The Heroic Fighter vs. the Quitters
  
  
• Country-First Deal Maker vs. Nonpartisan Pretender
  
  
• Leader vs. Celebrity
  
  
• Team of Mavericks vs. Old-Style Washington
  
  
• John McCain vs. John McCain

The idea of the story is a powerful one for understanding a person or event. How that person got to where he or she is or what will happen when that person assumes power is important for a political campaign to establish. The campaign of George W. Bush was able to effectively obscure his historical narrative (how he got to where he is) with the idea of what would happen when he he was elected (he would be better than Gore or Kerry).

McCain has an interesting, if not compelling, historical narrative. His years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam cannot be matched by any presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy.

Yet, as this article points out, he distained using it because at some point during his public life, he grew tired of it. He had repeated the story again and again, and he just didn't want to revisit it again.

His political operatives realized this and persuaded him to begin using it again during the general election campaign. The problem was that he didn't do it effectively -- probably because he didn't really want to do it. It became an appendage onto every speech and even every paragraph -- but not really an integral part of what he was saying.

That left him with the narrative of what would happen when he was elected.

And there is a problem there, too, but one that the New York Times article doesn't really address. That problem is the lack of a central idea about a McCain presidency. It goes back to the old question:

"Why do you want to be president?"

McCain has not provided a simple, clear answer to that question.

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.