A LITTLE MORE ON OBAMA & AYERS

I'm sure the GOP Noise Machine will be "enhancing" the lnks between the two so it's good to get some facts down beforehand.

Obama and the former radicals

Evidence linking him to the ex-leaders of the Weather Underground is thin. But a YouTube video is making noise.
By Bob Drogin and Dan Morain, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
April 18, 2008

CHICAGO -- Obama and Ayers moved in some of the same political and social circles in the leafy liberal enclave of Hyde Park, where they lived several blocks apart. In the mid-1990s, when Obama was running for the Illinois Senate, Ayers introduced Obama during a political event at his home, according to Obama's aides. Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, later contributed $200 to Obama's state campaign.

Obama and Ayers met a dozen times as members of the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a local grant-making foundation, according to the group's president. They appeared together to discuss juvenile justice on a 1997 panel sponsored by the University of Chicago, records show. They appeared again in 2002 at an academic panel co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.

Laura S. Washington, chairwoman of the Woods Fund, called it "ridiculous to suggest there's anything inappropriate" about Ayers and Obama serving on the nine-member board of directors. The Woods Fund issued $3.4 million in grants to local arts, housing and civic groups last year from an endowment of about $70 million, she said.

Obama joined the board in 1993 and stepped down in 2002, three years after Ayers was appointed, she said. The board met four times a year to discuss policy and new grant proposals, she said. "Bill Ayers is very respected and prominent in Chicago as a civic activist," Washington added. "He has a national reputation as an educator. That's why he's on our board."