Marathon Pundit notes an extraordinary irony in today’s ballot: Barack Obama and Bill Ayers had the opportunity to vote today on whether to extend the term of Cook County Circuit Court Judge Richard Elrod — a tragic victim of the Weather Underground:
Elrod is a parapalegic. His neck was broken, this is Elrod’s account, as a result of a scuffle during the 1969 “Days of Rage” with Brian Flanagan, a member of the Weather Underground. You know, Ayers and Dohrn’s terror group. Flanagan denies this, and to this day Flanagan says Elrod tried to tackle him, and a jury found him innocent of all charges involving the incident. Still…There was a Weather Underground Days of Rage, and had there not been such a hate-fest, Elrod’s neck would not have been broken. And Weather Undergound members would not have been able to sing this hurtful tune, sung to the melody of Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”: Lay, Elrod, lay, Lay in the street for a while Stay in your bed for a while You thought you could stop the Weatherman But up-front people put you on your can, Stay in your iron lung, Play, Elrod, play Play with your toes for a while Thirty-nine years later Ayers, Dorhn, Obama and myself were faced with a lot of choices regarding keeping judges on the bench in Cook County. As I mentioned earlier, one of those names was Richard J. Elrod. After Ayers voted–at the same polling site as Barack Obama–a reporter asked the UIC professor, “Who did you vote for?” My question for Ayers is, “Did you vote to retain Elrod.”
Elrod suffered his injury nearly 40 years ago, when he was a lawyer for the City of Chicago. He still hasn’t forgiven Flanagan and the Weather Underground for what he argues that they did to him. To some degree, the outcome of today’s election will be a signal of whether the American people believe it matters.
