I Was Only 9 When The Weathermen Tried to Murder Me

By now, you've heard Barack's lame disclaimer about his ties to Weatherman/terrorist Ayers, that he "was only eight" at the time. John M. Murtagh was a lad of nine when a cell of William Ayers' Weathermen tried to kill him, his father, a New York Supreme Court justice, and his entire family.

In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called "Panther 21," members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of Feb. 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car.

I still recall, as though it were a dream, thinking that someone was lifting and dropping my bed as the explosions jolted me awake, and I remember my mother pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn't leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside. The same night, bombs were thrown at a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn. Sunlight, the next morning, revealed three sentences of blood-red graffiti on our sidewalk: Free the Panther 21; The Viet Cong have won; Kill the pigs.

Yeah! If I was starting out in politics, these are the type of people I'd want introducing me to the process!

...In many ways, the enormity of the attempt to kill my entire family didn't fully hit me until years later, when, a father myself, I was tucking my own 9-year-old John Murtagh into bed.

Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family's life, there was never any doubt who was behind it.Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse.

...Nobody should hold the junior senator from Illinois responsible for his friends' and supporters' violent terrorist acts. But it is fair to hold him responsible for a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates and friends, and for showing a callous disregard for the lives they damaged and the hatred they have demonstrated for this country.

...At the conclusion of his 2001 Times interview, Ayers said of his upbringing and subsequent radicalization: "I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire."

Funny thing, Bill: One night, so did I.

N Y Daily News

"...a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates and friends"

Pretty well sums it up, doesn't it?

Cross Posted at Say Anything