Guilty by association? No.

I've been watching the new, the pundits, etc. and everyone is talking about Governor Palin talking about Obama's association with William Ayers. Two things disturb me about this whole game of playing association.
The first being that Mr. Ayers has become a good citizen since his radical days in the late '60's early 70's. Chicago thought well enough of him that they named him citizen of the year. The University he teaches at has him listed as a Distinguished Professor. The point being that people can make bad choices out of their passions and then live another day to make up for their errors. People should be given second chances to redeem their bad behavior and I think in this case William Ayers has made good. So, while he did some really awful things in the past, his life of education and working for his community has certainly made a positive impact today. If Mr. Obama is guilty of working with Mr. Ayers on education and helping the youth of Chicago so be it. It has nothing to do with the mistakes Mr. Ayers made as a youth.

Secondly, if we are going to make people guilty by association then McCain has a long list of associates that don't reflect well on him. Keating for starters, but it goes farther, and I'm not the only one who is talking about it.

Why Ayers case is risky for McCain-Palin- by Rollin Martin

"Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat from Chicago who serves as one of the national co-chairs for Obama, told me on The Tom Joyner Morning Show that if we are to use the association tag as evidence of a candidate being unfit for president, what about McCain serving and working alongside people with virulent bigoted pasts like Sens. Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd?

Do we have evidence that these individuals committed specific acts against African-Americans during Jim Crow? No. But we do know that their hateful words, and willingness to uphold laws that were absolutely anti-American, did not represent the best of this nation.

Thurmond ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948 with a platform of maintaining segregation. Based on Helms' policies, he didn't see blacks as full Americans.

Bombing the Pentagon is horrible and indefensible. But declaring yourself a patriot while you speak such hateful and venomous words against your own countrymen, who just happen to be black, and then trying to oppress them, is just as indefensible.

So, did McCain work with them? Did he not speak with them? Should McCain have declared that he would not work alongside these men because of their past? Should the self-described maverick who believes in integrity and character have taken the honorable stance of resigning from the Senate to protest these hateful characters serving in the U.S. Senate?"

So, while Palin is out on the stump trying to use fear to win people over (Rovian tactics at play again) perhaps she should reflect on the associations of her running mate. And by the way, this doesn't even begin to touch on her guilty by marriage association to the Alaskan Independence Party.