Fox turns a joke into a conspiracy

There are no standards at Fox. Fact: Barak Obama and Bill Ayers paths crossed during Obama's time as a community organizer back in Chicago. Ayers was a member of the Weathermen Underground and was responsible for planting a couple of bombs in the early 1970's. No one was killed in the bombings and Ayers spent a couple of years as a fugitive. He wasn't charged after illegal acts by the FBI forced government prosecutors to drop all charges. He subsequently entered the academic world and was chosen as Chicago's citizen of the year in 1997 for his work on an organization where he was a board member with Obama. There is no evidence that there was any contact outside the Chicago Annenberg Challenge which raised about $50 million for public school reform in Chicago.

Previously in 1996 Ayers had hosted a small gathering in his house when Obama announced his candidacy for State Senator. Walter Annenberg, the founder of TV Guide who founded and funded the Annenberg Challenge was ironically part of Pres. Reagan's famous 'kitchen cabinet' of advisers.

This didn't stop the GOP from going into full attack mode during the 2008 election. Sarah Palin must have used the phrase 'palling around with terrorists' a hundred time and all sorts of conspiracies exaggerating their relationship became standard fare. One of the wackiest conspiracies was that Ayers had ghost written Obama's book "Dreams of my Father."

Jack Cashill, a prolific conspiracy nut has written about this. A republican Congressman even hired an Oxford professor to prove the theory but that turned out to be a dud. In 2009 Ayers joked that Michelle Obama asked him to ghost write 'Dreams of my Father' and that set off a new frenzy about the theory. A few days ago Ayers, while on camera was asked about the claim. He jokingly answered yes and told the questioner if he (the questioner) could prove it he would split his share of the royalties with him.

Obviously the right are severely deficient, Fox in particular, having previously fallen for satirical stories as the truth.

This has set off a new round of frenzy, with Fox obviously not giving up.