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Swift Boat Watch: Judicial Confirmation Network

See all Swift Boat Watch entries here.

Who They Are: Judicial Confirmation Network

Purpose: The group supports conservative nominees to the Supreme Court. In this election, they oppose Barack Obama.

President: Gary Marx, former coalitions director for Bush-Cheney 2004 and Mitt Romney.

Funding: The group is a registered 501(c)4, funded through individual donations.

Cost of the Ad: $550,000 in a $1 million campaign.

Where It Ran: Michigan, Ohio, and nationally on the Fox News Channel through Friday, Oct. 10.

Claims: Tony Rezko, a slumlord who was convicted on 16 counts of corruption, donated money to Obama. Obama also associated with William Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground who planted a bomb in the Pentagon in 1972 and later said he "didn't do enough." The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for years, blamed the U.S. for the Sept. 11 attacks. If Obama "chose" these people as associates and backers, the ad suggests, how can we trust him to choose Supreme Court justices?

Accuracy: The majority of the facts in the ad are correct. Rezko started to donate to Obama's state senate campaign in 1995, although Obama recently gave Rezko donations to charity. Obama and Ayers worked together on the board of the same Chicago anti-poverty foundation for three years. Ayers, when he was a member of the Weather Underground, planted a bomb and later said it wasn't enough. Wright did say in a sermon that African Americans should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America." But the ad is wrong to equate this statement with blaming the U.S. for 9/11. It was another controversial Wright statement—"America's chickens are coming home to roost"—that suggests the U.S. is partly to blame.

Background: The group was created in 2004 to help President George W. Bush's nominations get confirmed in the Supreme Court. The group campaigned heavily for Samuel Alito's confirmation.

Swift Boat Rating:

Although the facts in the ad are essentially correct, suggesting that these associations have anything to do with Supreme Court nominations is a stretch.

Ayers' Dirty Laundry

In last night’s spectacular orgy of anti-issues, many viewers were introduced to a new name: Bill Ayers. Barack Obama’s associations with the former Weather Underground member have been known for some time. Ben Smith reported in February that Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, now high-profile Chicago activists and professors, held a fundraiser for met with Obama at their home.* But the story failed to catch. Why is it coming back to life now?

Well, for one thing, no one raised the story in a debate. But more importantly, the Clinton camp never seized on it. And for good reason: As Obama pointed out last night in his rebuttal, President Clinton pardoned two Weather Underground members, Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg, while in office. (Even Chuck Schumer denounced the pardons.) Today in a conference call, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said it’s not fair to “conflate” Obama’s fundraiser and Clinton’s pardon: “I’m not aware of either of them hosting a political event for Sen. Clinton in their homes,” he said.

So voters (or—let’s be honest—pundits) are left to decide which is worse: attending a fundraiser held by visiting the home of two people who were once synonymous with violent radicalism in America and who were both involved in numerous bombings of government facilities but who have since become staple members of the liberal Chicago activist community; or commuting the sentences of two people who were convicted of crimes—in this case, the 1981 armed robbery of an armored car that left two police officers and a security guard dead. You can see why the Clinton camp wouldn’t want to push this story too hard.

The real threat to Obama, though, is not what Clinton will do with the story but what Republicans might cook up. It could do some damage, if only because it fits into a larger Obama narrative. Just as his “bitter” comment pegged Obama as “elitist,” his Terrorist Fundraiser—permission to use, John McCain—fits the narrative that Obama is more liberal than he claims. Combine the Ayers meeting with the questionnaire from 1996 in which Obama articulated liberal stances on gun control and abortion and the death penalty, plus his “most liberal voting record” status in the National Journal, and you’ve got a strong case that Obama would appoint Bill Ayers represent the White House in a meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

So maybe Obama’s lucky ABC raised the question. Clinton can push the story only so hard before it turns on her. And now it won’t come as a surprise to many voters when McCain’s team raises the issue in the fall. Better that the first Ayers jab be soft and early than late and fierce.

* Oops. Obama met Ayers at a small gathering at Ayers' house, but it wasn't a fundraiser. Ayers did, however, donate $200 to Obama's Illinois re-election campaign.