OMAHA — Sarah Palin defended her claim that Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists,” saying the Democratic presidential nominee’s association with a 1960s radical is an issue that is “fair to talk about.”
Obama has denounced the radical views and actions of Bill Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group during the Vietnam era.
On Sunday, Obama dismissed the criticism from the John McCain campaign, leveled by Palin, as “smears” meant to distract voters from real problems such as the economy.
Palin launched the attack Saturday and repeated it twice Sunday, signaling a new strategy by McCain’s presidential campaign to go after Obama’s character.
“The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about,” Palin said as she boarded her plane in Long Beach, Calif.
Obama and Ayers have served on the same Chicago charity and live near each other. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s, the event cited by Palin.
But while Ayers and Obama are acquainted, the charge that they “pal around” is a stretch. And it’s wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts. Obama was 8 years old at the time.
In California, Palin was asked about an Associated Press analysis that said her charge about Ayers was unsubstantiated.
“The Associated Press is wrong,” Palin said, before arguing that the issue had not been adequately discussed.
In fact, Obama was questioned about Ayers during a prime-time Democratic debate against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton prior to April’s Pennsylvania primary.
And McCain himself raised Ayers as a subject during an interview with ABC News in April.
Palin is animating the party’s conservative wing with harsh attacks against Obama.
She was dispatched to Omaha on Sunday. Today she begins a two-day, event-packed tour of Florida. North Carolina and Pennsylvania are next.
Skilled with a crowd, she is still subject to verbal slips but defends them with humor. On Sunday, she added a new line.
“I was trying to give Tina Fey more material,” she said at the Omaha rally, which raised $2.5 million. “Job security for ‘Saturday Night Live.’ “
