Obama Camp Criticizes Ayers After Flag Stomping Photo
A seven-year-old photograph of Barack Obama associate and onetime radical bombmaker William Ayers stomping on an American flag is all over the Internet, earning criticism from Obama’s presidential campaign.
The senator’s campaign spokesman said Obama is “appalled by the disrespect” to Old Glory, but decried efforts to associate Obama to the action just because the men know each other.
“Senator Obama is appalled by this disrespect of a flag we love and that so many have fought and died for. There is no excuse for anyone to treat that which we hold so dear with so little regard. But the politics of association required to link Obama to this picture in any way is ridiculous and a silly distraction from the important challenges facing the American people,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
The picture is from a Chicago magazine article in 2001. That is the same time Obama and Ayers served together on the board of a philanthropic organization called the Woods Fund. It is also around the same time that Ayers donated to Obama’s state Senate campaign.
The Chicago Tribune reports Obama held a campaign event at Ayers’ home in 1995 as he began his political career. Obama has described Ayers, who was a member of the radical group the Weather Underground, as a guy who lives in his neighborhood — and the campaign has said they are on “friendly terms.”
Click here to view the photograph of Ayers on the U.S. flag.
FOX News’ Martin Hill contributed to this report.
it just amaze’s me the kind of people that Barack surrounds himself with, and how he doesn’t seem to get scathed by any of these reports. what happen to this country that we think its ok to be surrounded by people who hate america so much that we would vote that person into the white house? i am truly baffled by this. this country is lost in the wood’s. we cant see our way out but we hear a voice and it says change, hope, and we follow it, but it takes us away from everything that we thought we believed in. and down a different road that we thought we wanted to travel. but we find out to late thats not the road we thought it was. now we have to wait another 4yrs to find the right road, but by then it might be to late. because this person whom we heard talking to us and telling us about change and hope has also been lying to us to hide the fact that he really does believe these people who hate america. god help us for we do not know the truth. but we will.
I am surprised this guy is still around. what a travesity for those of us that are proud of our
country. We all get what we deserve and he will eventually. A conservative Hillary supporter.