I’m tying all of this together. Although William Ayers could have contributed to fellow travelers Maxine Waters, Ron Dellums, Barbara Lee and others, none of them ever met his test until Barack Obama on April 2, 2001. And for a guy he barely knew!

So, what was it about Obama? Well, the armchair shrink in me says it goes something like this: he hates these cans! Or, rather, he hates coal!

Ayers’ father was the CEO of coal-burning Commonwealth Edison, a utility headquartered in the (previously) coal state of Illinois. It is fair to say that Ayers’ youth was spent in, ah, rebellion against the horrors of his privileged upbringing.

Barack Obama is the first major political figure to be intellectually honest enough about hating coal. It is to be “bankrupt[ed]” and attacked so as to make the price of electricity produced from it “skyrocket”. Forget how he and Coal-Bucket Joe spun things afterward with gauzy talk of “clean coal” (about which his enviro buddies insist there is no such thing); his word choice makes clear he’s one of them.

Except, ComEd is now Exelon — with whom, back in the spring, Hillary Clinton accused Obama of sweating up the policy sheets. That was because Exelon is now the U.S.’s largest provider of nuclear energy. Oh, and one of a very, very few supporters of Obama’s plan to auction 100 percent of the cap-and-trade ration coupons (you see, nukes wouldn’t have to buy them like everyone else).

It just makes sense. At least as much sense as a whole lot of what we’ve heard in recent weeks and, it seems, just might be hearing for at least four more years.