Barack Obama had a quick--and effective--comeback for Hillary Clinton during Thursday night's Democratic debate when she criticized Obama's relationship with former Weather Underground leader William Ayers (see my post from yesterday for more background). He pointed out that the Senator's husband, former President Bill Clinton, granted clemency to two members of the Weather Underground in 2000. NRO's Jay Nordlinger took a look at those commutations back in 2001:/span>
Hours before his successor was sworn in, Clinton/st1 :city> granted clemency to a pair of longtime terrorists from the Weather Underground, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans. These women are less well known than the glam figures Bernadine Dohrn and Kathy Boudin, but they are deadly enough.../span>
Rosenberg and Evans were the kind the authors dub "radical airheads." These were white women, brought up in privilege, who placed themselves in the service of more unflinching killers, usually black. They were support players in the Underground: drivers of getaway cars, haulers of weapons, securers of safehouses. They let others pull the trigger, but were always faithful abettors. In the 1970s and '80s, Rosenberg and Evans participated in a string of armed robberies and other crimes, leaving corpses, mayhem, and fear in their wake.
The two belonged primarily to the Weather group, but all such outfits worked together, in an alliance of terror: the May 19th Communist Organization, the Black Liberation Army, the Red Guerrilla Resistance, the Republic of New Afrika, and so on. Collectively, they were known, in positively bourgeois fashion, as "The Family."/span>
The Family's most notorious crime occurred on October 20, 1981, in Nanuet N.Y./st1 :place> This was the operation code-named "Big Dance." (Details of the crime are given in John Castellucci's 1986 book, Big Dance. Castellucci, a reporter with the Providence Journal, remains a leading authority on the case and its many actors.) The gang held up a Brink's truck, killing a guard named Peter Paige. In flight, they killed two police officers, Waverly Brown and Edward O'Grady. Brown had been the first black man admitted to the local force—a real pioneer. This fact should be remembered in light of the contention of Rosenberg et al. that they were dedicated to black people and black progress everywhere.
Rosenberg/st1 :city>'s role in the crime was that of getaway driver and general accomplice. Four of her partners were immediately caught. At least eight others escaped, including Rosenberg herself.
Their ranks somewhat thinned, The Family continued with their robberies, bombings, and other assaults. In 1983 came their attack on the U.S./st1 :country-region> Capitol. Their bombs killed no one, but caused considerable damage and spooked the nation. A statement sent to a radio station read: "We purposely aimed our attack at the institutions of imperialist rule rather than at individual members of the ruling class. We did not choose to kill any of them this time. But their lives are not sacred." Rosenberg, Linda Sue Evans, and five of their cohorts were indicted for the Capitol bombing. Their numerous other targets included the NavalWarCollege/st1 :place>, an Israeli-owned company, and a patrolmen's benevolent association./span>
Nordlinger goes on to describe how reaction to President Clinton's last minute pardons of Evans and Rosenberg was swift, fierce and came from both sides of the political aisle:/span>
When the news hit, the cries of the victims' families were almost unbearable to hear. Their incomprehension at what the president had done was heartbreaking. They were not unforgiving people, they said; rather, Rosenberg/st1 :city>—to stick with the chief figure—had not shown any remorse for what had happened to them. She had never said she was sorry, never owned up to any responsibility. One victim's widow said, "I never believed in my heart Clinton/st1 :city> would do this. After Oklahoma City/st1 :city>, how could you pardon anybody who was caught in this country with weapons of mass destruction?"
New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who, as a U.S. attorney, had prosecuted the Brink's case, said, "I'm shocked." The city's police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, who had also dealt with Rosenberg/st1 :city>, said, "It sickens me." Even Hillary Clinton's fellow senator from New York Democrat Charles Schumer, denounced Clinton/st1 :city>'s action./span>
Obviously, it was Senator's Clinton/st1 :city>'s husband--not her--who granted the pardons. But it still may be enough to discourage her from hammering Obama on his own connections to Ayers, lest he fire back about Pardongate. If Senator Obama does secure the Democratic nomination, however, the Ayers issue promises to be squarely back on the table in the general election.
