Obama's Relationship with Bill Ayers is Irrelevant

Obama's association with Bill Ayers is yet another non-issue that the Republicans are trying to inflate. This is not a scandal; in fact, it shouldn't even be a debate.

Basically, the McCain campaign has been unable to find any real skeletons in Obama's closet, so it has tried to manufacture them. When the Clinton campaign experienced similar problems during the primary season, it tried to turn Obama's clean history into a negative by implying that a scandal was inevitable. The possibility that he, a politician, actually had a clean record was just unthinkable. And yet still nothing substantial has come to the fore.

Barack Obama seems to lack the kinds of juicy scandals that typically headline effective smear campaigns. Here's the current list of demerits on Obama's past: illicit drug use when he was a teenager, a real estate deal involving a campaign contributor, a crazy preacher, and we can add friendship with a professor. That's not a whole lot to work with. The Republicans were truly grasping at straws here. A thorough look at each "problem" in Obama's past shows why McCain resorted to exaggeration.

The first problem on the docket is Obama's illicit drug use as a teenager. If you believe that drug laws are necessary, then this is indeed a legitimate problem. Unfortunately, Barack Obama ruined the scandal potential for this item when he openly admitted to his unlawful behavior in his first book. He confessed without even being interrogated about it. The story is pretty weak already and chances are the McCain probably doesn't want to discuss youthful mistakes. As a student at Annapolis, McCain had a reputation as a partier, and he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. Moreover, even if McCain did want to spotlight this issue, he can't reference drug use without bringing up racial tensions. In short, it's off-limits.