Does Barack Obama have a terrorist friend?

Answer 1

Answer:During the US Presidential campaign of 2008, it was claimed by his political opponents that Barack Obama was friends with terrorists. "Guilt by association" is a common smear tactic. Many people have not researched this and continue to believe the rhetoric. Obama has never "palled around with Bill Ayers", he has never said he was a close friend of Ayers.

What Barack Obama has said and what investigative reporters have corroborated is that the terrorist acts of Ayers were done when Obama was eight years old. Decades later when Obama was a professor at the University of Chicago another professor there at the time was Bill Ayers. They were not friends then, either.

Obama was asked to serve on the board of an education reform organization in the 1990s. Ayers was on that same board along with many respected educators and even Republicans associated with Ronald Reagan. That was the extent of the "association".

The Associated Press has also investigated this and has said they are not close: "No evidence shows they were 'pals' or even close when they worked on community boards years ago ..."

The New York Times reported that "...the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.'"

Barack Obama himself has publicly denounced Ayers and his radical actions.