Portent of things to come?

Since Bill Ayers has reentered the presidential campaign with a vengeance (after a lower profile appearance last May), with Gov. Palin suggesting that Obama is 'palling around' with a domestic terrorist, might we expect the Obama campaign to start talking about McCain's own ties to those who have acted to subvert our country and its constitution? Steve Chapman riased the possibility in his Chicago Tribune column last May, and the response of the Obama campaign to the new McCain-Palin tactics suggests that we may see them bringing G. Gordon Liddy back to the naiton's attention.

clipped from www.chicagotribune.com Obama has been justly criticized for his ties to former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, who in 1995 hosted a campaign event for Obama and in 2001 gave him a $200 contribution. The two have also served together on the board of a foundation. When their connection became known, McCain minced no words: "I think not only a repudiation but an apology for ever having anything to do with an unrepentant terrorist is due the American people."What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers -- in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.

As Chapman notes, Liddy has been defiantly unrepentant about his role in a variety of criminal activities on behalf of the Nixon White House, and has called for armed resistance to federal agents. For those old enough to remember, Liddy was widely perceived as a scary nut case as revelations if his activities in behalf if Nixon came out. That he has 'rehabilitated' himself as a talk radio host and been an invited guest on television news programs says more about the sad nature of media than it does about his respectability. Might be interesting to see McCain pressed to defend his recent praise of Liddy -- if Obama has offered public praise of Ayers' principles, it's surprising that we haven't heard of them yet.