Lou Dobbs
CNN transcripts
April 17, 2008

DOBBS: Senator Obama, today, is defending his relationship with a former member of a terrorist group known as the "Weather Underground," a man named Bill Ayers, a leader in that group that bombed government buildings back in the '60s and '70s. My guest tonight says Ayers, who hosted Senator Obama at his home in the 1990s, was strictly a terrorist who had bombed the Pentagon in 1972. Andrew McCarthy is also a former federal prosecutor who, in fact, led the investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is also the author of the important new book, "Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad."

Andy, good to have you with us.

ANDREW MCCARTHY, AUTHOR, "WILLFUL BLINDNESS": Lou, great to be here.

DOBBS: Senator Obama, you are declaring rather straight forwardly, is denying some relatively close relationships that he is suggesting are not -- are distant.

MCCARTHY: Yeah, well he's denying the relationship, but I think more importantly what he's trying to obfuscate is that there's a trajectory to all of this and there's a theme that runs through it and whether its some of the statements made by his wife or Reverend Wright or Bernadine Dohrn and Ayers, the fact is he's comfortable...

Bernadine Dohrn being Ayers' wife.

The other Weather Underground terrorist who was Ayers' wife. But, he's comfortable with people who hate this country. And I think when he talks about and makes the theme of his campaign "Change," and since he hasn't really explained to us much about the change, we're entitled to infer, from the people he's comfortable with, who are social revolutionaries, the kind of change he wants to make in America.

DOBBS: You're including, obviously, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

MCCARTHY: Of course, right. DOBBS: And -- and Ayers (ph). Others?

MCCARTHY: Well, there's Rashid Khalidi, who was a recipient of some of the largess that Obama controlled when he was on the Woods Board. He is somebody who was --

DOBBS: He was on the board with Ayers (ph)?

MCCARTHY: Yes, when Obama was on the Woods Board with Ayers, they gave grants to Rashid Khalidi, and his work. Now, he has denied being a member of the PLO. But there's no question he's an apologist for Palestinian terrorism, including suicide attacks against Israeli soldiers.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/1...