More Outrage from the Right

Ann Coulter compares Obama to Hitler. Beyond the gross opportunism and wild inaccuracy of her remarks, she trivializes a horrendous chapter in history.

The New York Times reports that on Fox News,

the rest of the news media is portrayed as papering over questions about Mr. Obama’s past associations with people who have purportedly anti-American tendencies that he has not answered. (“I feel like we are talking to the Germans after Hitler comes to power, saying, ‘Oh, well, I didn’t know,’ ” Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator, told Mr. Hannity on Thursday.)

She's referring, presumably, to Bill Ayers (not to Todd Palin, who belonged to the Alaska Independence Party, which advocates Alaska's secession from the US, until 2002). As the Chicago Sun-Times reported, Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground; the FBI called it a "domestic terrorist group," and it bombed US government buildings.

Even Fox News acknowledges that charges against Ayers were dismissed. Ayers is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Thirty years later, Obama and Ayers both served on the same Chicago-area foundation involved in community development. Obama served for nine years, leaving in 2002; Ayers joined the board in 1999 and is still a member.

Obama has been quite clear about his assocation with Ayers. Coulter's claims are outrageous. That such obnoxiousness is not denounced by the more moderate members of her party is beyond dismaying.