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Weather Underground member Bernadine Dohrn went to Cuba in 1969 with "romantic anticipation." When she returned, "There is no doubt that her views were buttressed by what she saw and heard down there."Those observations came from Dr. Quentin D. Young, quoted in a 1976 FBI report on the Weather Underground, a left-wing domestic terrorist group. Young would go on to become the family physician for Dohrn and her husband William Ayers, who, in a piece published in The New York Times on September 11, 2001, said of his years in the Weather Underground: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."Young said that he rarely saw Ayers because "he didn't get sick very much."Young, however, was part of the small party that gathered at the Chicago home of Ayers and Dohrn in 1995 when Illinois State Sen. Alice Palmer said she would be running in a special election for Congress and passed the torch to community organizer and lawyer Barack Obama to take her place in the state legislature."It was in Bill Ayers' comfortable home. It was a small group, half a dozen. There was no fundraising," Young said in an interview with Cybercast News Service. "Hyde Park is a very political community. It's probably the most liberal community in Chicago so people are active in politics. Events like this, where you are invited to meet candidates or support them, it's not uncommon to have a dozen such invitations over a period of months."Obama, who claimed the Democratic Party presidential nomination this week, discussed his association with Ayers during an April 16 debate with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) on ABC News after moderator George Stephanopoulos asked him about it and quoted Ayers's statement from the September 11, 2001 issue of The New York Times."This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from," said Obama. "He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George."Sen. Clinton questioned the adequacy of this response. "[B]ut I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position," Clinton said. "And, if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York and, I would hope, to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more."And what they did was set bombs. And in some instances, people died," Clinton continued. "So it is -- I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about."Obama has faced scrutiny in recent months for other associations he formed during his rise through Illinois politics. Last week, he quit his long-time membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ. Before that he publicly disassociated himself from the church's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had made anti-American and racially inflammatory statements. The Obama campaign did not respond to questions on this story after repeated attempts during the past two weeks. Young questioned the significance of the gathering at the Ayers-Dohrn home, where he said Obama spent more time talking about his background and education than any public policy issue. "I don't view it as his introduction to politics," Young said. "I would be surprised if Alice Palmer didn't have other meetings with him."Palmer could not be reached for comment for this story. Obama and Palmer had a falling out. After losing the Democratic congressional primary to Jesse Jackson Jr., Palmer decided to try to regain her state Senate seat. At that point, Obama took legal action to keep her off the ballot.Young has been a long-time advocate for a single-payer healthcare system, and said he has attended the annual "Debs Dinner" in Chicago, named for the Socialist Party's presidential candidate in the 1900s, Eugene V. Debs, and sponsored by the group Democratic Socialists of America. Young was a medical volunteer for the demonstrators in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and treated protesters who were beaten by police. Subpoenaed to testify before Congress later that year, he declined to tell an investigative committee if he was a member of the Communist Party USA, but in subsequent news reports said that he was not a member.Ayers, who could not be reached for comment after repeated attempts, worked together with Obama on the board of the Woods Foundation of Chicago, a grant-making organization that works with various nonprofits in the Chicago metropolitan area. Ayers joined as chairman in 1999. Obama left the board in 2002.After the bombings in the 1970s, Ayers was a fugitive from justice for nine years, but the federal charges against him were dropped when it was determined the case was based on illegal wiretaps, New York Times has reported. He is currently a professor of education at the University of Chicago.Young defends Ayers, saying he is highly regarded in Chicago, and believes that the quote about the bombs was misinterpreted."It's not the approach to political change I would have," Young said. "When he said 'we didn't do enough,' I think he meant we didn't do enough to stop the war. He has worked hard to be a good scholar and a good citizen.
By Fred Lucas
As in the days of Noah...
