[Pflienews] Underground links likely to resurface for Barrie Hussein

Fri Apr 25 09:27:21 MDT 2008

 -----------------------------------------------------

John Kass 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-johnkass,1,5488029.columnist>John 
Kass 

      *o        *Bill Ayers revisited
      <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-080417-bill-ayers-photogallery,1,7810681.photogallery>Bill
      Ayers revisited
      <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-080417-bill-ayers-photogallery,1,7810681.photogallery>
      Photos
      <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-080417-bill-ayers-photogallery,1,7810681.photogallery>

      *o        *Who is Bill Ayers?
      <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-080417swamp-ayers-link,1,7206944.storylink>

      *o        *Bill Ayers' turbulent past contrasts with quiet
      academic life
      <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-ayersapr18,1,6434259.story>

      *o        *Daley: Don't tar Obama for Ayers
      <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-080417ayers-link,1,6978089.storylink>

      *o        *Obama asked about William Ayers
      <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-william-ayers-obama-link,1,1675658.storylink>

  *Underground links likely to resurface for [Barrie Hussein] Obama
  <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-23-apr23,1,4967065.column>*

John Kass

April 23, 2008

//B//roadway Baby was not mentioned during the Democratic infighting in 
Pennsylvania.

But Broadway Baby---once a chic children's boutique in Manhattan's Upper 
West Side 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/us/new-york/new-york-city/manhattan/upper-west-side-PLGEO100100804013500.topic>---is 
the future, if Barack Obama 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/> is the presidential 
candidate in the fall.

This story involves two Chicagoans, former Weather Underground terrorist 
leaders Bernardine Dohrn and her husband, William Ayers, both Obama 
supporters who blessed his initial foray into politics. Last week, the 
unrepentant Ayers became a flash point in Obama's debate with Hillary 
Clinton 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics/government/hillary-clinton-PEPLT007433.topic>.

"And what they [Weather Underground] did was set bombs and in some 
instances people died," said Clinton, sweetly playing the white 
terrorist card. "I know Sen. Obama is a good man and I respect him 
greatly, but I think this is an issue that certainly the Republicans 
will be raising."'

And why shouldn't they?

As president, Hillary's husband commuted the prison sentences of two 
other Weather Underground members and of Puerto Rican terrorists, so her 
scolding was quite unconvincing.

Obama insists such gotcha politics is beneath our dignity. But no 
association is above question for a candidate, whether Rev. Jeremiah 
Wright 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/religion-belief/christianity/jeremiah-wright-PERLL000309.topic>, 
Illinois political fixer Tony Rezko 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/economy-business-finance/tony-rezko-PEBSL000001.topic>, 
or Ayers and Dohrn.

Clinton and Republican John McCain 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics/elections/us-elections/john-mccain-PEPLT004278.topic> 
have suffered scrutiny. The only one treated as an infant in swaddling 
clothes by the national media---until quite recently---is Sen. Change.

So let's wait until Labor Day, when Broadway Baby may become a 
catchphrase. Here's why: According to a 1982 New York Times 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/economy-business-finance/new-york-times-ORCRP010822.topic> 
report, Broadway Baby was implicated in an investigation of a series of 
violent armed robberies in New York---netting more than $2 million over 
a two-year span---committed by former Black Panthers and Weather 
Underground members in the early '80s.

Their aim? Global revolution, naturally. They needed cash, but the rich 
white parents weren't in a giving mood. So their privileged offspring 
grabbed guns, pointed them at the faces of the working man and, 
sometimes, they pulled the trigger.

At Broadway Baby, customers often paid by check and used driver's 
licenses for identification. On Dec. 28, 1979, information from two 
customer files was used to apply for two driver's licenses at the New 
York State Department of Motor Vehicles. The fraudulent licenses were 
used to rent getaway cars for the gang.

Investigators tracked the identities on two licenses for the getaway 
cars. The names belonged to women who had shopped at Broadway Baby in 
December 1979. But they weren't robbers.

And who was the manager of Broadway Baby during that period of the 
customer ID theft?

Dohrn, the future wife of Ayers, identified by investigators as taking 
customer information from one, and possibly both, of the women shoppers. 
Dohrn was never charged in that case.

Dohrn and Ayers had been running for some 11 years, fleeing federal 
charges that they instigated riots in Chicago in 1969.

They finally came in out of the cold in 1980, but the New York gang 
continued its spree, ending in the bloody 1981 robbery in Rockland 
County that left a Brinks security guard and two police officers dead.

The federal charges from the riots were finally dropped because the FBI 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/crime-law-justice/crimes/federal-bureau-of-investigation-ORGOV000008.topic> 
used illegal wiretaps. But the local charge of aggravated assault stuck 
to Dohrn. She pleaded guilty to two counts, receiving a $1,500 fine and 
no jail time

In 1982, Dohrn was brought before a federal grand jury investigating 
radical conspiracies linked to the New York robberies. She refused to 
cooperate or to provide a signature sought by FBI handwriting analysts. 
Dohrn was held in contempt of the grand jury and imprisoned for seven 
months.

A few years later, Ayers got his job as a professor at the University of 
Illinois at Chicago 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/education/universities/university-of-illinois-at-chicago-OREDU0000154.topic>. 
And Dohrn was employed at the Children and Family Justice Center 
affiliated with Northwestern University 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/education/universities/northwestern-university-OREDU0000132.topic>'s 
School of Law.

I've always been fascinated as to how the radical underground stop 
running and get jobs in academia. Is there a Terrorist Patronage Office 
for Rich White People? And how did a convicted Dohrn get hired to teach 
at a law school?

"I am afraid I don't know an answer to that," NU spokesman Alan Cubbage 
said. "The person who was the dean at the time is no longer with the law 
school. And the person who was the president at the time is no longer 
the president. So I just don't know."

Cubbage did not mention that Ayers' late father---Commonwealth Edison 
boss Thomas Ayers---was an NU trustee and former board chairman. UIC 
spokesman Mark Rosati couldn't help either, but suggested I file a 
Freedom of Information Act request to find out how terrorists get hired 
by taxpayers.

"It's nothing personal," Rosati said.

How amusing. They don't want to explain how terrorists were hired, so 
they know nothing.

It might work now, but it won't work in the fall, when Broadway Baby 
opens for a run, in a campaign commercial near you.

jskass at tribune.com <mailto:jskass at tribune.com>

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