The unrepentant Bill Ayers

Everyone should listen to his Fresh Air interview. It's just vintage Terry Gross, no hollering or invented rage, but she doesn't let up and repeatedly pushes him. The fascinating thing for me is his unwillingness to admit mistakes unless everyone else involved in the period admits their mistakes to. You know I don't disagree with him about the nature of Vietnam. I'll take this opportunity to again plug the Weathermen doc which does a great job of showing you how this guys decided to start planting bombs.

But I don't like his concept of atonement. It seems to hold that when you admit a mistake, you somehow hand something over to your enemy, you have somehow surrendered. It's a very Bush-like concept. Me, I've always felt like, if you think you did something wrong you should say so. You don't do that to make other people feel better, you do it to keep yourself clean, to keep your own honor in tact. It's not your responsibility to manage someone else's moral affairs. I kept getting this "I'll apologize if you'll apologize" vibe. That said, if he doesn't think he was wrong he shouldn't back down.