Soros’s coup was ten years in the making. Since 1994, he had worked with a network of leftwing foundations to fund a $140-million-dollar lobbying drive in favor of “campaign finance reform.” The campaign succeeded in passing the McCain-Feingold Act, which, by outlawing “soft-money” donations, in effect de-funded the Democratic Party. As a result of the Act, the Democratic Party could no longer collect the multi-million-dollar donations from labor unions which were its lifeblood.

Soros stepped in with the Shadow Party to collect the donations instead.

Having driven the Democratic Party to the brink of bankruptcy, Soros then offered to save it. In effect, he privatized the Party, by setting up a network of privately-owned, non-profit groups which would raise the big campaign contributions the Party was now forbidden to raise itself.

In a new book, which describes Soros’s achievement, we call this network the Shadow Party, because it acts as a mirror image or shadow of the real Democratic Party. During the 2004 election cycle, the Shadow Party raised more than $300 million for the Democrat cause but spent the money itself. This allowed it to shape the politics of the Democratic campaign and control the party’s future.

2 Why have the nations been in tumult
And the national groups themselves kept muttering an empty thing?

 2 The kings of earth take their stand
And high officials themselves have massed together as one*
Against Jehovah and against his anointed one,
 3 [Saying:] “Let us tear their bands apart
And cast their cords away from us!”

 4 The very One sitting in the heavens will laugh;
Jehovah himself will hold them in derision.

 5 At that time he will speak to them in his anger
And in his hot displeasure he will disturb them,
 6 [Saying:] “I, even I, have installed my king
Upon Zion, my holy mountain.”

 7 Let me refer to the decree of Jehovah;
He has said to me: “You are my son;
I, today, I have become your father.

 8 Ask of me, that I may give nations as your inheritance
And the ends of the earth as your own possession.

 9 You will break them with an iron scepter,
As though a potter’s vessel you will dash them to pieces.”

On January 16, 2007, Obama announced the creation of a presidential exploratory committee, and within hours Soros sent the senator a contribution of $2,100, the maximum amount allowable under campaign finance laws. Later that week the New York Daily News reported that Soros would back Obama over Senator Hillary Clinton...

Yesterday, Mr. Obama's presidential campaign issued a dissent from the Hungarian-born billionaire's assessment. "Mr. Soros is entitled to his opinions," a campaign spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said. "But on this issue he and Senator Obama disagree. The U.S. and our allies are right to insist that Hamas — a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel's destruction — meet very basic conditions before being treated as a legitimate actor. AIPAC is one of many voices that share this view."

His list of contributions shows one for $200 from a certain William Ayers. Can this possibly be the same William Ayers, now a Chicago professor, who used to plant bombs in the Seventies and has said: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough"? His partner, Bernardine Dohrn, once "declared war" on the US government.

To be perfectly clear, the $200 campaign contribution cited by Hitchens is yet to be located. Ayers' name does not appear on any of Obama's political action committee reports—Obama for Illinois, Obama for Congress 2000, Obama 2010, or Obama for America—filed with the Federal Election Commission .

CONCLUSION:
At this point, although the cited sources establish that Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama share a social and academic relationship, there is no documentation for the alleged $200 political campaign contribution to Obama.

Get to know Barack Obama
When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the livingroom of those two legends-in-their-own-minds, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. They were launching him--introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread. His "bright eyes and easy smile" struck me as contrived and calculated--maybe because I was supporting another candidate. Since then, I've never heard him say anything new or earthshaking, or support anything that would require the courage of his convictions. I only voted for him in this last race--because his opponent was a pinhead. And I've been mostly alone in my views. But maybe that's changing.

I never thought I would ever defend the dolts in our press corps for their crush on McCain, but I think that they have a point. Even if they don't understand it.

As you said, McCain is wingnutty as hell and not overly-principled. But he is still anathema to many wingnuts. This is not because the wingnuts are even more extremist than McCain, as you suggest. It is hard to be more extremist than McCain. There is another explanation.

The VWRC is a conspiracy, composed of several factions, most of whom hate each others' guts. The economic predators sneer at the Taliban, as their lawful prey. The Taliban correctly view the predators as godless ghouls. The ultranationalists correctly view the predators as having no loyalty to the US. The neocons think that the whole pack is ni kultyurni. The ultranationalists and predators correctly view the neocons as mutant Trotskyites, useful only for propaganda. (Nobody trusts the neocons or libertarians; they are too tainted by Enlightenment ideas.)

But the VRWC still coheres as a conspiracy, because they are all willing to cede what the other faction most wants, in return for getting what they most want. The predators get economic predation: on the middle class and on other countries. The ultranationalists and neocons get their belligerency and wars, as long as it doesn't hurt the predators' balance sheets. The Taliban get their courts, as long as the predators' daughters can fly to Sweden when necessary. And so on. (The predators are more equal than the other factions.) The racists and nativists and other unpleasant sorts are not really part of this conspiracy, but the conspiracy is happy to feed them raw meat in exchange for their votes.

With the demise of communism, the present state of affairs, however imperfect, can be described as a global open society. It is not threatened from the outside, from some totalitarian ideology seeking world supremacy. The threat comes from the inside, from local tyrants seeking to establish internal dominance through external conflicts. It may also come from democratic but sovereign states pursuing their self-interest to the detriment of the common interest. The international open society may be its own worst enemy.