In a letter to the editor published in the NY Times today, William C. Ibershof, who was

the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972)

says that he is

amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.

and adds that

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.

he closes with another blast from the past:

I do take issue with the statement in your news article that the Weathermen indictment was dismissed because of “prosecutorial misconduct.” It was dismissed because of illegal activities, including wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions, initiated by John N. Mitchell, attorney general at that time, and W. Mark Felt, an F.B.I. assistant director.

I guess coming from him this is stronger than my unpublished letter:

The whole thing is nonsense.
Obama has no connection to Ayers.
Obama did nothing.
Obama and Ayers were both on the board of some do-goodnik organization, each appointed by other third party folks.
Ayers held a fundraiser for Obama.
Obama never sought his support.

McCain however was in effect holding fundraisers for Keating, and is connected to the Annenberg foundation that funded the same organization that Ayers and Obama worked for.

Unlike Obama, McCain actively sought the support of terrorist and criminal G. Gordon Liddy or served on the board of the neo-Nazi US Council of World Freedom.

Unlike Obama, Palin actively sought support of treasonous and violent (revised per comment: founder killed in a plastic-explosives sale gone bad, while collaborating with Iran) Alaska Independence Party.

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For those who did not see them, here is the NY Times front page article that looked into the "connection" and was actually pretty good on calling it b.s. (other than the fact that article was even done; at least third time NY Times has done an Ayers piece, compared to none on McCain's and Palin's terrorist ties).  And here is the pathetic "balanced" with false equivalency NY Times editorial that followed.

cross-posted at Daily Kos where it's on the Rec llist.