I’ve met Bill Ayers. He doesn’t give off the impression of a person who tried to kill people. He’s polite and follows academic decorum. He generally uses rational argument, and acts as an intellectual. Were you to meet with him on the street, you would not think of him as a terrorist. Honestly, I think Obama was just too oblivious to actually care about Ayers beyond a professional relationship. I doubt he ever bothered to ask, much like many of the UIC students who go through their academic career without knowing of the unrepentant terrorist on campus.

It’s ironic that he became such a hater of capitalism and America. His father, T. G. Ayers, was head of Commonwealth Edison, the major electric power company for Northern Illinois. It is now listed as ComEd, and its nuclear plants now run under the name Exelon. My father actually won the T. G. Ayers award while at Edison.