Some people have wildly different definitions of "petty nonsense". I would call many of the Obama related threads in this subforum "petty nonsense". I would think that asking people to back up said "petty nonsense" is an acceptable practice.
By the way, your solo link says that Ayers hosted a fund raiser for Obama "several years later", not "Ayers hosted the fund raiser that launched Obama's political career", as has been alleged. Even this statement is not backed up with any specifics, and smells of repeating claims repeated in the blog-o-sphere.
There's this marvelous new thing on the internets called hyperlinks. When you click on them, they will take you to a new page, in this case, Time Magazine's
page containing the article in question.
If you had clicked on the link, you would see that it was "years after" this:
Ayers and Dohrn spent 11 years setting off bombs and putting out statements threatening violent revolution. They promised to kill innocent Americans and praised the lunatic murderer Charles Manson. In 1981 two policemen and a security guard were killed in the botched holdup of a Brinks truck. Fake IDs used to rent getaway cars in an earlier robbery had been traced to a store where Dohrn worked. A grand jury wanted her testimony. She refused. Said she didn't believe in grand juries. Spent seven months in jail, and then the matter was dropped. Other charges against Ayers and Dohrn were dropped because the evidence was tainted by the Nixon Administration's illegal wiretaps. Ayers put it well: "Guilty as hell, and free as a bird. It's a great country."
But it appears what is being sought is a source that indicates:
1. Ayers and Dohrn threw a fundraiser for Obama.
2. It was at their house.
3. That it effectively launched Barack Obama's career.
I don't know if there's a single source for all of them. But
Time Magazine gives us #1:
Years later, Ayers threw a fund-raising party for Obama.
It was at Ayers' house, according to
George Stephanopolous of ABC News:
I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."
An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly.
Was it a launching event? Dr Quentin Young
describes it to The Politico:
“I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,” said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. “[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor.”
The LA Times, quoting
the Obama Campaign:
Obama and Ayers moved in some of the same political and social circles in the leafy liberal enclave of Hyde Park, where they lived several blocks apart. In the mid-1990s, when Obama was running for the Illinois Senate, Ayers introduced Obama during a political event at his home, according to Obama's aides.
Granted, there are still points that have not been nailed down. Why does Slate say it was not a fundraiser, while Time says it was? ABC says it was an "organizational meeting". And the LA Times segment could be interpreted as meaning that Ayers did a brief introductory talk about Obama, not that this was the formal launch.
But is BPSCG's statement essentially backed up by the media, even if not 100% proven beyond any shadow of a doubt? Yes, and it's silly to claim otherwise. It may still be wrong; we'll see if Time changes the fundraiser description of the event.
