By GEOFF EARLE
Last updated: 9:31 pm
October 6, 2008
Posted: 9:26 pm
October 6, 2008
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's top political adviser said today Obama "didn't know the history" of unrepentant bomber William Ayers' activities in the violent Weather Underground movement when the candidate attended a political event at Ayers' home in 1995.
"When he went he certainly didn't know the history," chief Obama strategist David Axelrod told CNN - arguing for the first time since the story surfaced early this year that Obama was unaware of Ayers' past.
"There's no evidence that they're close," Axelrod added.
"There's no evidence that Obama in any way subscribed to any of Ayers' views. And Obama's been very clear about condemning the despicable acts that Bill Ayers committed 40 years ago when Obama was 8 years old."
Ayers co-founded the Weather Underground, which took credit for multiple bombings and targeted the Pentagon and the Capitol, though Ayers was acquitted of charges against him and later joined the faculty of the University of Illinois in Chicago.
John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, hammered Obama over his connections to Ayers last the weekend, when she said Obama "pals around with terrorists."
Speaking at events in Florida, Palin pointed to Axelrod's latest comments, saying, "Today they're saying for the first time that Barack Obama didn't know back then about Ayers' radical background."
"Wait a minute," Palin said. "He didn't know a few months ago that he had launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?"
Obama, in an interview on the Tom Joyner radio show, said: "Mr. Ayers is somebody who lives in Chicago. He's a professor at the University of Chicago, Illinois, teaches education, and he engaged in these despicable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old. I served on a board with him."
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