'60s activist avoids comment on Obama campaign

Source: James Janega-Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — As his name was tossed back and forth yesterday in the fury of the presidential campaign, 1960s radical William Ayers spent the day as he often does, working quietly as a professor and trying to ignore the political tempest.

Officials at the University of Illinois-Chicago say Ayers is on a "previously scheduled" sabbatical, but he was on campus yesterday, sitting on a lunch-hour doctoral dissertation panel.

The man who was a Weather Underground member and decades later had dealings with Barack Obama is being increasingly cited by John McCain's supporters, who accuse Obama of "palling around with terrorists." Obama's campaign counters that McCain is using "smears" involving Ayers to distract voters from the economic crisis.

When the Chicago Tribune caught up with Ayers yesterday, he declined to join the unpleasant conversation.

"What could I possibly add?" he asked. "Life happens."

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