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Ayers Controversy First Smoldered, Now Flares Bright

Months after conservative commentators began hammering Sen. Barack Obama over his connections to William C. Ayers, the Vietnam War-era radical who is now a well-known education professor, Sen. John McCain is clearly making the controversy a part of his campaign strategy.

The rhetoric ratcheted up Oct. 4, when the Republican vice presidential nominee, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, issued her sharpest attacks yet against Sen. Obama, declaring in a campaign speech that he was “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Although Sen. McCain did not raise the issue in the Oct. 7 presidential debate, he later addressed it in nationally televised interviews, citing Sen. Obama’s ties to Mr. Ayers as a way of questioning...