If they'd have committed treason in the 60s and 70s, instead of being executed they'd be six figure lefty unrepentant professors with fawning syncophants.

Since most scholars agree that Ethel Rosenberg, at least, was actually innocent and her execution was the result of hysteria, your comparison is rather apt.

Wrong. Have you read the papers in the past two weeks. One of the conspirators at the end of his life confirmed her guilt. Ethel's innocence is a masturbatory fantasy of the academic left promoted by drivel like Angels in America. When I hear the phrase "most scholars" I think of people who think like Ayers, who are not objective at all.

Ethel Rosenberg was innocent and that makes the comparison apt? So tell me, is it Ayers or his wife who is actually innocent? Last I heard, Ayers was still bragging about "guilty as hell, free as a bird", and Dohrn was whitewashing her role as merely "armed propaganda".

The person of whom you speak is Morton Sobell. He said Ethel was guilty, and I quote, "of being Julius' wife."He also said she hadn't participated in any espionage. The National Archives just released the Rosenberg's grandy jury trial transcripts that show that Ethel was likely innocent.

The comparison is to wrongly executing someone. All charges were dropped against Ayers and Dohrn, so executing someone never to be found guilty of anything is a bit extreme.

As for Ayers, the quote is from David Horowitz. Ayers is not "still bragging about it." In fact, Ayers, in response to the New York Times smear piece on September 11, wrote:

I said I had a thousand regrets, but no regrets for opposing the war with every ounce of my strength. I told her that in light of the indiscriminate murder of millions of Vietnamese, we showed remarkable restraint, and that while we tried to sound a piercing alarm in those years, in fact we didn’t do enough to stop the war.