The New Yorker has just published an interview of William Ayers. It humanizes him and clears up some misconceptions. It makes me wonder why Ayers didn’t speak up earlier, while he was being portrayed in a grotesque way that was pulling down the Obama campaign. Here’s an excerpt:

Ayers said that he had never meant to imply, in an interview with the Times, published coincidentally on 9/11, that he somehow wished he and the Weathermen had committed further acts of violence in the old days. Instead, he said, “I wish I had done more, but it doesn’t mean I wish we’d bombed more shit.” Ayers said that he had never been responsible for violence against other people and was acting to end a war in Vietnam in which “thousands of people were being killed every week.” . . .

“I wish I had been wiser,” Ayers said. “I wish I had been more effective, I wish I’d been more unifying, I wish I’d been more principled.”