Finally, a few words in favor of  Bill Ayers....

The long-awaited smear campaign against Barack Obama kicked into high gear at the weekend, with vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin caricaturing Obama as "palling about" with terror loving radicals.

The radical she was talking about was former Weatherman Bill Ayers. Once a member of the anti-war Weather Underground, Ayers is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

There are several possible ways for this to play out. First -- seek out the facts -- that's what the New York Times did in an endless front page feature about (as it turns out) nothing. How much  coffee did Barack Obama really drink at that coffee-klatch fundraising party that Ayers and his wife threw for one of Obama's campaigns years back? According to the Times not much. 

Another way to go is for the candidate to denounce and repudiate, denounce and repudiate -- Barack Obama's distanced himself from Ayers before -- saying he was only 8 at the time of the Weather Underground. He denounced his long time minister Jeremiah Wright. We'll no doubt see more of that.

But there is another way to go. How about a throw back? You want to talk about domestic terror? Anti-patriotic behavior? You want to talk about threatening our way of life and  frightening innocent people half to death?  

I'm taking a poll: Who's done the most damage to our people and our country? You can vote:

Treasury Secretary -- look-the-other-way-while-Bailing -- Hank Paulson; Phil Gramm, deregulator king; or Bill Ayers. For bipartisanship's sake I'm willing to add Robert Rubin to the potential terror list....

Vote now, at GRITtv.org.  And please, don't give us a month of denunciations and repudiation. I'm not sure I can take the hypocrisy. I'm not for bombings by anyone, but at least Bill Ayers wanted to stop wars not start them, he didn't impoverish a people to make himself rich, and at least he took responsibility for what he did. Vote now below, in the comments at GRITtv.org.