Stanley Kurtz at National Review has been trying to learn about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to improve Chicago’s schools. Barack Obama was chairman of the board. Unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers founded it. Obama has always denied any relationship with Ayers outside of being a neighbor.
What’s happened (click this link for more information):
Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama?s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama?s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers?s own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. With a writ to aid Chicago?s public schools, the Annenberg challenge played a deeply political role in Chicago?s education wars, and as Annenberg board chairman, Obama clearly aligned himself with Ayers?s radical views on education issues. With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore ?exchanging ideas on a regular basis?). So when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership. Of course, all of this clearly contradicts Obama?s dismissal of the significance of his relationship with Ayers.
This much we know from the public record, but a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is likely to flesh out the story. That document cache contains the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The records in question are extensive, consisting of 132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material. Not only would these files illuminate the working relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers, they would also provide significant insight into a web of ties linking Obama to various radical organizations, including Obama-approved foundation gifts to political allies. Obama?s leadership style and abilities are also sure to be illuminated by the documents in question.
Cover-Up?
Unfortunately, I don?t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. …
When our friend Jerry Agar discussed this on his radio program, a UIC official called in. Kurtz, finding out what we in Raleigh have known for years (i.e., that Jerry knows his stuff), said Agar “did a fantastic job of drawing this fellow out.” What Agar “drew out” from the university functionary was that, possibly, “the entire Chicago Annenberg Challenge records would be returned to the donor, who [the spokesman] refused to name.” (Kurtz posts a transcript here.)
