Controversial statements about Tate-LaBianca murders
Dohrn was criticized for comments she made about the murders of actress Sharon Tate and retail store owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by the Charles Manson clan. In a speech during the December 1969 "War Council" meeting organized by the Weathermen, attended by about 400 people in Flint, Michigan, Dohrn said, "First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!" In greeting each other, delegates to the war council often spread their fingers to signify the fork.
In 2008, Dohrn's husband, Bill Ayers, wrote that Dohrn was being ironic when she made the statement about the Manson murders. Ayers wrote that he always thought Dohrn's statement was intended to make a political point, "agitated and inflamed and full of rhetorical overkill, and partly as a joke, stupid perhaps, tasteless, but a joke nonetheless"
Some joke. Bill and Bernadine are the joke. A very bad joke.