Well, it looks like the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records are going to be opened up after all. No doubt the University of Illinois and Barack Obama’s campaign have sufficiently scrubbed the records to remove the most glaring of details about Barry’s friendship with Bill Ayers.

But we know there has to be some panic there. As we have theorized all along, Barry cannot take a punch.

Consider this: despite all the denials and assists from the media in downplaying the relationship, Barack Obama has resorted to a new ad making the case that he has no real relationship with Bill Ayers. This is full blown panic. He’s trying to build up a media sponsored and reported narrative before the world starts digging anew.

Unless those Annenberg records have been sufficiently scrubbed, it is terribly poor timing for Obama. It is an act of desperation. Obama knows people are now paying attention and he knows people are questioning both his ties to the far left and his judgment (Obama calls it “questioning my patriotism”).

The connections between Ayers and Obama, despite Obama’s commercial, are too intertwined to be merely bumps into each other on the sidewalk walking back from New Party meetings.

Bill Ayers helped found and fund Annenberg Challenge and Barack Obama ran the program. In addition, they live just a few blocks from each other in Hyde Park. In 1995, if you will recall, Bill Ayers invited Barack Obama into his living room to raise money for Barack’s Illinois Senate race. Remember, in 1995, Obama was aggressively seeking the communist New Party endorsement.

Ayers even gave Obama money in 2001 for his re-election. The same year, Ayers told the New York Times he didn’t “regret setting bombs.… I feel we didn’t do enough.” Obama did not give the money back.

Here is the key detail. Bill Ayers, a man who thinks he should have done more than try to blow up the Capitol, the Pentagon, and kill a few cops, saw something in Barry Obama that he liked. He liked Barry enough to hold a fundraiser for him and give him money.

What does an unrepentant terrorist see in a politician and like? Whatever it is, I suspect most Americans would not like it if they’d seen it. Maybe that is why Obama is in full panic mode, working hard to change the story and deny the facts.

An advisor to Senator McCain’s campaign tells me, “Senator Obama’s enduring friendship with bomber William Ayers brings serious questions about his judgment to the surface.”

I suspect, now that Obama has gone to great pains to deny the connection, thereby making it a story worth media coverage, we’re gong to be exploring the depths of Obama’s poor judgment.