Van Jones was Obama’s green czar and I found myself impressed by his innovative approach of seeing green jobs as a way to provide employment to those in urban areas. As I recollect, Van Jones had only been appointed to this position for a couple of months before having to resign under a cloud created by Glenn Beck and the Faux News team in yet another created controversy.
One of the problems I have with Obama is that he’s allowing these right wing zealots to force his hand. They’re never going to vote or support him, so there’s no point in allowing them to shape anything by responding to these attacks. They’re not going to be satisfied until they overturn the results of the election and none of this is going to stop, so he might as well just dig in his heels, say the hell with them and do what he needs to do. He can’t be concerned about the poll numbers or his favorability rating on a daily basis and you don’t just throw people under the bus because they insulted republicans or think that the full truth is not out about September 11. Hell, my own opinion of the republicans is definitely not favorable and there are plenty of unanswered questions about September 11th.
The Obama administration needs to take a hard unwavering stand on what they believe and if Beck and his ilk want to get their panties in a bunch and throw a hissy fit, let them, but no more waffling and wavering to please folks who are never going to be pleased.
Glenn Beck Gets First Scalp: Van Jones ResignsGlenn Beck has his first scalp. Van Jones, under fire from the extremist television show host for his background in radical activism, has resigned from the administration.
Jones was Special Adviser for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality – the so-called ‘Green Jobs’ Czar. Jones’ 2008 book, The Green Collar Economy, was a New York Times best-seller. Beck is a talk show host for Fox News.
Jones never denied his past affiliation with the radical left. In the ’90s, he was involved with the group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which sympathized with Maoist-inspired peasant movements throughout the world and was organized to protest police brutality.
Jones, however, left radical politics and made the decision to work within the system, rather than try to overthrow it. For Beck, however, Jones’ past statements were evidence that Obama is secretly marshaling a cadre of lieutenants pushing an agenda that is “radical, revolutionary and in some cases Marxist.” (Meanwhile, in reality, Obama is backing away from even including a public health insurance option as part of health care reform. How that squares with Obama’s Marxist agenda Beck has yet to explain.)
Before Beck mentioned Jones in the last few weeks on his Fox News television show, Jones remained an obscure figure in the administration. After Beck mentioned him, protesters at town hall meetings made Jones a staple of their complaints.
Jones, in a statement, said he no longer wanted to be a distraction.
“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide. I have been inundated with calls – from across the political spectrum — urging me to ’stay and fight.’ But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”
It’s exceedingly unlikely that Beck will be satisfied by Jones’ resignation, seeing in it evidence that he was correct in his assessment of Obama’s supposed radical lieutenants. “Jones is the tip of the iceberg,” Beck has said.
Once Beck made Jones a target, a series of revelations put him in political danger. Asked in February of this year why Democrats were having trouble pushing through legislation despite overwhelming majorities, he said, “The answer to that is, they’re assholes.” He was presumably referring to the GOP minority but may also have been roping in conservative Democrats.
Jones went on: “And Barack Obama is not an asshole. So, now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity.”
It also emerged that Jones had signed a “truther” petition back in 2004. Truthers insist that there are unanswered questions about what U.S. officials knew about the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks before they occurred and want further investigations. Truthers are the left-wing version of birthers, people who believe that Obama was born in Kenya, is not a citizen and his presidency is illegitimate.
There’s nothing inherently left-wing about 9/11 conspiracy theorists or right-wing about birthers; rather, they tend to fall on opposite ideological extremes because of mistrust of the president in question, be he Bush or Obama. But the birther movement includes prominent Republicans, including members of Congress, while connection to the truther movement can help cost a relatively obscure administration official his job.
There’s a lesson to be learned. “If you want to say batsh*t-crazy stuff and still be treated as a respectable participant in the national debate, you’d better be a Republican,” gaugedblogger Mark Kleiman after hearing the news of Jones’ resignation. “Suggesting that President Bush invited the 9/11 attacks in order to start a war is really no crazier than suggesting that President Obama wants to let terrorists loose in the United States, or that he plans to kill old people and disabled children, or that there’s something sinister about his encouraging schoolkids to study hard.”
Those latter three charges, of course, have been leveled recently by elected Republican members of Congress.
A Jones remark about environmental justice also landed him in trouble. He was accused of race-baiting for suggesting that “[t]he white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color’s communities because they don’t have a racial justice frame.”
During the presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly threw aides overboard who became political liabilities; White House observers saw Jones’ departure more as a matter of when rather than if.
His fate was sealed when Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to defend him at a recent press conference.
QUESTION: Van Jones. I know he has issued an apology for his proctological remarks, but apparently there is also video of him accusing white polluters of poisoning people of color communities. Does the president still have confidence in this guy?
GIBBS: He continues to work in the administration, and I would refer you to the statement that CEQ put out last night about this.
QUESTION: CEQ?
GIBBS: That’s the Council on Environmental Quality
QUESTION: Yeah, but Robert is that as far as you are going to go with this?
GIBBS: That is the statement that has been put out last night.
QUESTION: The stories on television have been pretty offensive.
GIBBS: And I think if you refer to the statement, he apologized.
[snip]
QUESTION: Van Jones. His name appears on a 2004 petition, demanding to know the truth about 9/11, whether or not the Bush Administration played a role in 9/11 so as to justify a war for oil. He said in his statement yesterday that he doesn’t agree with that, and an administration source said he didn’t fully read it before he signed it, he agreed to have his name signed to it. Now it comes out today that in 2002 he was on an organizing committee for a 9/11 Truther march. Your administration has been very active in knocking down the so-called Birthers, the people who allege without any evidence, and despite all evidence to the contrary, that the president was not born in the United States. How can the administration tolerate somebody who subscribes to a different insane conspiracy theory, as a senior adviser?
GIBBS: Again, it is not something that the president agrees with, and again I would point you to the statement from CEQ.
QUESTION: How many past statements have to emerge before he no longer has the confidence of the president?
GIBBS: A good question for next time.
Jones’ resignation, coming around midnight on the Saturday of a three-day weekend, minimizes the amount of time Beck and his allies can spend celebrating.
“It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead,” Jones said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/06/glenn-beck-gets-first-sca_n_278281.html
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