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OBAMA LIED ABOUT AYERS! TRUTH-JUDGEMENT

October 13, 2008 | arlington, Virginia | Vetting explained

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Interaction between Obama and Ayers

Ayers and Dohrn hosted a gathering at their home in the Hyde Park section of Chicago, the neighborhood in which the Obamas lived,^5^ at which then- state Senator Alice J. Palmer introduced Barack Obama as her choice for the 1996 Democratic primary.^5^ Palmer denied that she organized the political affair for Obama, although she said she attended. Dr. Quentin Young, a longtime physician, who also attended, referred to the gathering as the political coming-out party for Obama. Young said it was a small group-maybe a dozen or so people-who were being introduced to the next senator from Chicago's South Side, and that money was raised for Obama at the event.^9^ Although the exact date of the gathering is not known, it was sometime in the second half of 1995, according to Ben Smith, a reporter for The Politico.^4^ Obama served as president of the board of directors for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a large education-related nonprofit organization that Ayers was instrumental in starting.^5^ The board disbursed grants to schools and raised private matching funds while Ayers worked with the operational arm of the effort. Both attended some board meetings in common starting in 1995, retreats, and at least one news conference together as the education program started. They continued to attend meetings together during the 1995-2001 period when the program was operating.^5^ Obama and Ayers served together for three years on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty foundation established in 1941. Obama had joined the nine-member board in 1993, and had attended a dozen of the quarterly meetings together with Ayers in the three years up to 2002, when Obama left his position on the board,^1^ which Ayers chaired for two years.^10^ Laura S. Washington, chairwoman of the Woods Fund, said the small board had a collegial "friendly but businesslike" atmosphere, and met four times a year for a half-day, mostly to approve grants.^2^ The two also appeared together on academic panel discussions, including a 1997 University of Chicago discussion on juvenile justice. They again appeared in 2002 at an academic panel co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.^1^ One panel discussion in which they both appeared was organized by Obama's wife, Michelle.^11^ In 2008, a spokesman for the Obama campaign said the last time Obama and Ayers had seen each other was when Obama was biking in the neighborhood in 2007 and crossed paths with Ayers. The spokesman said "The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false".^12^ The +New York Times+ reported that Obama did not have a significant relationship with Ayers.^5^ According to several people, Ayers played no role in starting Obama's career which was primarily launched when Deborah Leff, then president of the Joyce Foundation, suggested Obama be appointed as chairman of the board of the six-member board that oversaw the distribution of grants in Chicago.^5^

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