Dear Clinton Campaign Let's Do Talk About William Ayers

As another diary pointed out, the Clinton campaign is going "nuclear" or at least negative on Barack Obama for taking money from a former member of the Weather Underground

The donation, all of $200 was from William Ayers.  An admitted former member of the Weather Underground

But who is William Ayers now?

William Ayers now teaches juvenile offenders in the Chicago Juvenile court system.  From a review of his book A Kind and Just Parent:

William Ayers brings a reporter's eye and an activist's heart to this well-written and profoundly disturbing book, A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court. Ayers, who teaches offenders in Chicago's juvenile court system, is a brilliant storyteller, the damning fly on the wall. His book portrays the lives of his students--both within the juvenile temporary detention center and on the "outside." Ayers puts their stories into historical context; argues passionately about the roles of media, poverty, and neglect; refutes the idea of teenager as "superpredator"; and challenges parents--all of us--to ask the question, "Is this good enough for my child?" when determining the standard to use when we think of justice for kids.

From Ayers Biography at his website

William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and founder of both the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society, teaches courses in interpretive and qualitative research, urban school change, and teaching and the modern predicament.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Bank Street College of Education, and Teachers College, Columbia University, Ayers has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the political and cultural contexts of schooling, and the meaning-making and ethical purposes of students and families and teachers.  His articles have appeared in many journals including the Harvard Educational Review, the Journal of Teacher Education, ...  He lives in Hyde Park, Chicago with his partner, Bernardine Dohrn, and his father.  

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but what exactly is WRONG with taking money from one of the preeminent scholars in the field of education?

Okay, he has a checkered past.  But don't we all have a past, Hillary?  I mean you WERE a College Republican.

Don't we all have a past, Mark Penn?  I mean, you WERE (or are) a union buster and worked to help Union Carbide after their negligence lead to the deaths of thousands of people in Bopal, India.
Don't we all have a past, Mark Penn?

People sailing a sinking ship made of glass probably ought not throw stones at someone like Bill Ayers.  If they do, it makes the conciliatory gestures seem, well, like they're Xeroxed.