THE MOOSTAPO KNOWLEDGE BASE

Barack Obama says something perfectly reasonable about Bill Ayers:

In an interview with the sympathetic conservative talk radio host [Michael Smerconish] this afternoon, Obama offered the clearest explanation yet of how an extremely careful politician allowed himself anywhere near a former '60s radical who would become a Republican target in this year's presidential campaign.

..."Ultimately, I ended up learning about the fact that he had engaged in this reprehensible act 40 years ago, but I was eight years old at the time and I assumed that he had been rehabilitated," Obama said....

Ah, but see, Obama should have known about Ayers all along, because you know who did? Sarah Palin! Back in the 1990s, the extremely well-informed Palin knew the whole story of Ayers!

Or so she suggested to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News yesterday, in her own inimitable syntax:

VAN SUSTEREN: I think he said he was unaware when he first met him. Is that -- do you give him a pass on that?

PALIN: No. It's hard to believe that someone wouldn't have known Bill Ayers, who -- I've known of Bill Ayers way up there in the north, what the association with.

Apparently, in the 1990s, Sarah Palin was deeply interested in the radical 1960s left -- who knew?

OK, pop quiz, Governor Palin. One question, and it's an easy one.

If you're an expert on Bill Ayers, name his wife.

No peeking at Steve Schmidt's index cards.

*****

Meanwhile, in the McCain-Palin bleachers, we have the woman CBS's Scott Conroy found at a GOP rally, who said, at 1:21 of the following clip,

Why did he change his name from Barry to Barack? ... His real name is Barry. Why did he change it after he went to Pakistan?



Excuse me, what's the logic here again? That his legal name is Barry Hussein Obama, and he changed it to Barack Hussein Obama because Barry Hussein Obama wasn't Muslim-sounding enough? He thought his evil Muslimchurian-candidate scheme of global domination wouldn't work unless he had a name that was even more off-putting to middle America?

Wow. Of course, in reality he reverted to his formal name in college, which is when a lot of people mess around with their names, myself included (I used Stephen a lot more before college than I do now). Oh, and has he ever been to Pakistan? Er, Indonesia, maybe?