October 15, 2008 9:14 AM PDT

CBS live Webcast: Presidential debate, round three

Posted by Jonathan Skillings

Just as the economy has dominated headlines in recent weeks, it is likely to be the overriding issue Wednesday night in the third and final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama.

The presidential candidates will take to the podium at 6 p.m. PDT, this time at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. Moderating the debate--which is to focus in on domestic policy as well as economic matters--will be Bob Schieffer, the chief Washington correspondent for CBS News and host of the show Face the Nation.

Both McCain and Obama this week released new proposals on ways to reinvigorate a punch-drunk economy. After a pummeling last week, the markets have shown a glimmering of a rebound; meanwhile, the latest stimulus effort by the U.S. government involves taking a stake in a number of banking institutions.

You can watch the debate live and online at the CBS News Debate Webcast site. It will be followed by a Web-only analysis and commentary session with Katie Couric, the CBS News political team, and guests. You can also submit your own questions, now or during the event, at the Debate Webcast site.

The Truth about Barack Obama and William Ayers

Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques. Here’s the truth: the smear associating Barack to Ayers is “phony,” “tenuous,” – even “exaggerated at best if not outright false.”

William Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with whom Barack served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990’s. According to the Associated Press, they are not close: “No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago …”

Smear groups and the McCain campaign are trying to connect Obama to acts Ayers committed 40 years ago – when Barack was just eight years old. Here’s what the New York Times reported on the connection:

But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

Barack has publicly denounced Ayers’ radical actions from the 1960’s:

Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.

Fight back with the truth: make sure anyone who has seen this smear also sees this page.

FactCheck.org: McCain cranks out some false and misleading attacks on Obama’s
connection to a 1960’s radical.

What we object to are the McCain-Palin campaign’s attempts to sway voters – in ads and on the stump – with false and misleading statements about the relationship, which was never very close. Obama never “lied” about this, just as he never bragged about it. The foundation they both worked with was hardly “radical.” And Ayers is more than a former “terrorist,” he’s also a well-known figure in the field of education.

Read this Article

The New York Times: Obama And Ayers “Do Not Appear To Have Been Close.”

A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

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The Associated Press: Obama And Ayers Relationship Is “Exaggerated At Best If Not Outright False:”

Her reference to Obama’s relationship with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career. Obama, who was a child when the Weathermen were planting bombs, has denounced Ayers’ radical views and actions.

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CNN: Palin’s Claim That Obama Is Palling Around With Terrorists Is “False.”

CNN Fact check wrote about Palin’s claim that Obama is palling around with terrorists, “Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now “palling around,” or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.”

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The New York Times:

“The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false,” said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman. Mr. LaBolt said the men first met in 1995 through the education project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and have encountered each other occasionally in public life or in the neighborhood. He said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Hyde Park.

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The Washington Post:

Both Obama and Ayers were members of the board of an anti-poverty group, the Woods Fund of Chicago, between 1999 and 2002. In addition, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in April 2001.

…The only hard facts that have come out so far are the $200 contribution by Ayers to the Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership of the eight-person Woods Fund Board.

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The Detroit Free-Press:

A television commercial running in Michigan and several other battleground states by the American Issues Project insinuates that U. S. Sen. Barack Obama sympathizes with terrorists because of his acquaintance with William Ayers, a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This ad is a close cousin of Jerome Corsi’s Obama Nation book, a tome full of fabrications, half-truths, and delusions, penned by the Swift Boat architect himself about the Democratic presidential candidate.

… Ayers was never convicted of a crime. He went on to earn a doctorate, write 14 books and earn the distinction of “Senior University Scholar” and “Distinguished Professor.” People grow and evolve. It is no surprise that University of Chicago Law Professor Obama would cross paths with Ayers in civic organizations as well as in their neighborhood of Hyde Park.

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The Chicago Sun-Times:

Obama has said he ‘‘deplored’’ what Ayers did in the 1960s and that ‘‘by the time I met him, he is a professor of education at the University of Illinois. We served on a board together that had Republicans, bankers, lawyers, focused on education.