146 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized BiographyWe stress again that there are not many degrees of separation between Ward Churchill and
Obama. When Ward wanted to join SDS, he went straight to Obama’s friend, neighbor, and co-
thinker, Bernardine Dohrn. It was also Ward Churchill who, just back from his tour of duty in
Vietnam in what looks like a branch of Army Intelligence (Long-Range Reconnaissance, the
equivalent of a multi-state killing spree. taught bomb-making to the aspiring terrorist
Weatherpeople in that posh Greenwish Village townhouse. When the townhouse blew up, one of
the dead was Diana Oughton, who was the girlfriend of Obama’s sponsor, benefactor, and friend,
Bill Ayers.(One-degree of separation: Obama’s ultra-leftist backers, Rezkowatch, Monday, April
28, 2008)^44
HUMAN WRECKAGE
The years have done nothing to diminish the radical subjectivism of the Weatherman clique.
“Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers had a son, Zayd, in 1977. After the birth of Malik, in 1980, they decided
to surface.” These names may reflect the influence of a general turn in spook circles towards
Islamic, rather than communist cover, which became evident at the end of the 1970s. “Ms. Dohrn
pleaded guilty to the original Days of Rage charge, received three years probation and was fined
$1,500. The Federal charges against Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn had already been dropped.” This
happy ending was doubtless thanks to the efforts of the CIA Office of Security, which interfaces
with most domestic police agencies and courts. When Kathy Boudin was arrested and given a life
sentence for the New York Brinks robbery and the accompanying murders of policemen, Dohrn and
Ayers volunteered to care for Boudin and Dave Gilbert’s son Chesa, then 14 months old, and
became his legal guardians. Dohrn was called to testify about the robbery. When she refused to give
a handwriting sample, she was jailed for seven months. Chesa was without a mother during that
time. Ayers told the New York Times that Chesa was “a very damaged kid.” Given the criminal
irresponsibility of both his biological parents and his adoptive parents, this is no surprise. “He had
real serious emotional problems,” Ayers added. But after extensive therapy, “became a brilliant and
wonderful human being.” (Dinita Smith, “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of
Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen,” New York Times, September 11, 2001)
Smith recounts: ‘As Mr. Ayers mellows into middle age, he finds himself thinking about truth
and reconciliation, he said. He would like to see a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about
Vietnam, he said, like South Africa’s. He can imagine Mr. Kerrey and Ms. Boudin taking part.”
Perhaps this is something we will see under a future Obama administration. And if there were
another Vietnam, he is asked, would he participate again in the Weathermen bombings? By way of
an answer, Mr. Ayers quoted from “The Cure at Troy,” Seamus Heaney’s retelling of Sophocles’
Philoctetes: “Human beings suffer,/ They torture one another./ They get hurt and get hard.”
He continued to recite:
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.’