Captain Ed waxes a trifle sarcastic as he reads the Times‘ damage control reporting.

Despite the fact that Obama worked for Ayers at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge for several years and with Ayers on the Woods Fund for a few more, the Paper of Record insists that the two men have no real ties at all.

The first clue as to their spin? The headline — “Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths”. Crossed paths? Are they just two ships that passed in the night?

How can Scott Shane write with a straight face that “[t]heir paths have crossed sporadically since then”? Obama worked as CEO of the project that Ayers helped found, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, for several years. Ayers served on the board at the same time. In an overlapping period, both men served for a few years on the Woods Fund, which notably granted $75,000 to Yasser Arafat’s associate, Rashid Khalidi, during that time.

Their paths didn’t cross “sporadically”. They worked on two projects together, political projects, for almost a decade in Chicago. That’s hardly “sporadic”; that’s a well-established working relationship, and certainly much more substantial than Obama’s description of Ayers as just another familiar face in the neighborhood.

Read the whole thing.