The last laugh
He may have been there among the throngs of Obama fans in Grant Park in Chicago last night celebrating the Democrat's huge victory. Bill Ayers, aka "Obama's terrorist pal," told the Washington Post he planned to stroll on down, uninvited or not. If he did, perhaps accompanied by his wife, fellow radical Bernardine Dohrn, I'm sure he was chuckling all the way.
Ayers, of course, became the centerpiece of John McCain's last-ditch effort to stop the Obama juggernaut. The YouTube video I just linked, viewed the morning after Obama's landslide victory, shows perhaps better than anything how out of touch McCain and the national Republican Party were with the America of the early 21st century. As one who came of age in the late 1960s, I remember Ayers, Dohrn, and the Weather Underground quite well, but I suspect that 20-somethings today are as unfamiliar with them as I was at their age with Emma Goldman, Jack Reed, and the radical leftists of the early 20th century.
Some commentators have made much of Obama being the first post-Boomer candidate for President. He was, but this election was far more about the passions of the 1960s than the elections of 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004, in which Boomers Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry were the Democratic candidates. The 2008 election finally delivered on the promise of the 1960s, the overturning of the old order begun by legions of young people.
They fought against Southern racism, demanding civil rights for blacks. They fought against the Vietnam War, viewing it, like Iraq today, as a needless and costly war of choice. And they fought to make merit, rather than skin color or other accidents of birth, a more determining factor in individual achievement. Obama's success is a tribute to their efforts.
Every movement has its fringe members, and Ayers, Dohrn, and their fellow members of Students for a Democratic Society (Weather Underground was a later splinter faction) played that role here. They plotted against the American government in the name of ending the Vietnam War and racism, and did plant bombs that occasionally went off as planned. To many, even today, they were romantic outlaws more than dangerous terrorists.
Ayers and Dohrn spent years in hiding, and when they emerged it was impossible to prosecute them, so badly had the Nixon Administration mishandled their case and violated their Constitutional rights. Whenever someone like John McCain starts railing against the radicals of the 1960s, it is helpful to remember that the excesses of the left were more than matched by the excesses of the right. Dohrn became a law professor and Ayers an educational reformer, continuing the work he had begun as a student at the University of Michigan from 1964-68.
Yes, they live in the same Chicago neighborhood as Obama and vote at the same polling place. Louis Farrakhan votes there too, by the way, as do many Chicago young professionals who live in the Shipoke-like area. Ayers and Dohrn became so conventional that they have a nameplate bearing both their last names on the front of their house, along with the house number. You can see it in the photo that accompanies this story in The New Yorker.
So as they strolled to Grant Park last night, at least in their minds, did they recall the Days of Rage, tear gas, nightsticks, and the townhouse bomb explosion? Or did they talk about how Obama would finally deliver on the better part of their dreams, of a post-racial America in which all children get a good education, have enough to eat, receive top-notch healthcare, and don't have to fight in senseless wars?
I'm betting on the latter. And I'm sure they laughed at the irony of it all.