Obama Faith Adviser, and Ayers’ Friend: American Freedom and Justice are “Myths”

Aaron Klein, WND.com

President Obama’s faith adviser, Eboo Patel, blasted what he called the “myths” of America – describing them as beliefs that the country is “a land of freedom and equality and justice.”

Patel explained how he used the “faith-based movement” to channel his rage at America “in a direction far more compassionate and far more merciful.”

Patel, a Muslim activist from Chicago, further implied that had he grown up in the 1960s, he may have joined the Weather Underground terrorist group led by William Ayers.

Like Obama, Patel is deeply tied to Ayers, WND has learned.

In February 2010, Obama named Patel to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Patel is the founder and executive director of Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, which says it promotes pluralism by teaming people of different faiths on service projects.

In a 2007 interview with NPR to promote a book he wrote that year, Patel was asked about his “affinity” toward the radicalism of Ayers, as described in the book.

Patel replied that his own life story “is much closer to Bill Ayers,” explaining he “grew up in the same hometown” that Ayers did.

Continued Patel: “I was kind of taught the same myths about America, a land of freedom and equality and justice, et cetera, et cetera.”

“And then, when I got to college, I saw people eating out of garbage cans for dinner, and I saw Vietnam vets drinking mouthwash for the alcohol, and I thought to myself, this is not the myth that I grew up with. And, in a way, I was so, I think, immature at that time politically, that all I could do was rage.”

Patel explained how he used religion to channel his rage toward America:

“And it was a faith-based movement that came into my life that kind of directed that rage in a direction far more compassionate and far more merciful.”

Obama’s faith adviser went on to say how he may have joined Ayers’ terrorist group if he was around as an activist in the 1960s.

“One of the things that I write about in this book is, you know, had it been one of the people involved in the Weather Underground, who were sitting at my kitchen table when I was 18 years old and raging, my life could have been very different,” he said.

“That I really thank God that it was a set of people who came into my life with a very clear vision of justice. But a sense of justice emanating from Divine Mercy.”

Patel has a much deeper relationship with Ayers than he admitted in the NPR interview.

In 2005, he co-authored a book with Ayers’ adopted son, Chesa Boudin.

The book, Letters from Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out, was co-written by several young radicals, including Ismail Khalidi, the son of Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi.