UPDATE BELOW: Jones resigns
Van Jones is the “Green Jobs Czar” of the Obama White House, which sort of makes the vice president look important. Anyway, Jones is a very odd person. To put it mildly, he was very, very, very leftist in the 1990s. That’s OK, we all do foolish things in our youth. So, Jones regained a little political sanity and joined the Democratic Party. Now he’s a green czar, which I swear is the name of a cartoon I watched when I was a toddler in the late ’60s.
But I digress: So here is Jones, toiling at that resume-enhancing job with Obama when some more sinister news emerged. It appears Jones signed a “Truther” document in 2004 that urged Congress to investigate whether the Bush administration was complicit in the 9-11 attacks. As ABC News reports, “Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is Number 46 of the petitioners from the so-called “Truther” movement which suggests that people in the administration of President George W. Bush “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.” Read story here
Now that goes beyond youthful misguided idealism — it’s wacky and sinister. Jones apologized for his named being listed on the petition and repudiated it.
All that is a lot for the Obama administration to defend, particularly if the figure of controversy is a “green jobs czar.” But wait, there’s one more whammy from Jones’ past. In 1999, he organized a far-left rally in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who murdered a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. Supporters of the cop killer are regular attendees at the far left International Answer rallies that turn off most Americans. Read about it here
So when will Van Jones get the boot from the administration? I’d say sooner rather than later.
UPDATE: Early Sunday morning EST, the White House announced Jones has resigned. Link is here
Preston
on Sep 4th, 2009
@ 5:47 pm:
We may hope. Though I suspect it’s possible to find people just as loony whose resumes aren’t spoiled by such easily documented stupidity.
flatlander100
on Sep 4th, 2009
@ 6:34 pm:
Well, two points need to be made, I think. First, Mr. VJ says he did not support the point of the petition “then or now” and, the WH says, did not read very carefully the petition he permitted his name to be affixed to.
Here’s his problem: there are only two possibilities. (1) He knew what the petition said, he concurred in its ends, and so he gave permission for his name to be used, in which case he is now lying about it, and so is [or should be] disqualified for his current job for that reason as well as for his bad judgment in supporting the petition at all. (2) He is telling the truth, that foolishly permitted his name to be used on a petition he didn’t bother to read, in which case his judgment and the care with which he works are [to put it delicately] highly suspect, and so he can reasonably be considered unfit for his current job.
As for the MAJ rally, I seem to recall that MAJ’s supporters argued that he was not guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. I have no opinion on the matter one way or the other, except to note that he was tried and convicted. But enough people have been released from death row over the last ten years when it turned out prosecutors hid evidence of their innocence or manufactured evidence of their guilt, that it is not entirely implausible or unreasonable of “left wing whacko” for someone to believe [rightly or wrongly] that a particularly convicted person didn’t do it.
Were I president, I’d find the petition matter troubling as an indication of very bad judgment in someone I’d appointed. It’d probably be enough for me to ask him to leave. But I wouldn’t find the MAJ matter reason for dismissal, even if I disagreed with him about the man’s innocence. To take a local example, if the Mexican-American man recently accused of child kidnapping and molestation in Ogden had been tried and convicted of that crime — had the alleged conspiracy to frame him not been unraveled by and Ogden PD detective — I imagine if a local politician had continued to insist he was innocent, he’d have been blasted by opposition campaigners as “a defender of child rapists.” Sometimes the convicted are, sadly, not guilty. It happens.
So, I’d hand him his walking papers for the petition matter, on grounds of bad judgment. But not for the MAJ matter.
laytonian
on Sep 4th, 2009
@ 7:23 pm:
Truthers, birthers – all the same ilk.
I don’t care *what* their political bent is, we should have NO ONE in a position of authority in our government, signing truther (or birther) petitions, or spreading that ideology. Or sending out chain letter emails promoting such. Or supporting anyone who does.
Mr Obama, Van Jones needs to be gone.
Now, let’s see all the LDS rise up and proclaim the lies that their fellow LDS (and retired BYU professor) Stephen E. Jones has spread, as one of the primary Truthers in the US.
rixt
on Sep 5th, 2009
@ 1:35 am:
If I could, I’d put aside all the leftist antics of this Jones clown. I can’t excuse the fact that this guy (among many others) actually got past the FBI vetting process to be allowed to work for the White House, but I can ask the important question. After almost half a year as the “green jobs czar”, just how many jobs has Van Jones created, aside from his own? Someone needs to account for the effectiveness of the American taxpayers’ investment in ALL of these 40 some-odd “czars”. America: padding the pockets of enemies of the people since 2009.
flatlander100
on Sep 5th, 2009
@ 1:04 pm:
rixt:
You ask: “just how many jobs has Van Jones created, aside from his own?” Well, let’s see. He’s been in office I think seven or eight months now. If you’re going to use “green jobs produced” as the measure of his effectiveness — and given his job, it’s a fair one — don’t you think seven months is, perhaps, just a tad early to be drawing any conclusions? Just a tad?
Seems to me you’re setting up a lose/lose situation for him, or anyone else in a similar job. If they begin pouring federal subsidies willynilly into anything that claims to be a green business, they’ll be slammed for “acting hastily, why the rush, we need to be careful with the public’s money, etc. etc. ” And if they proceed cautiously, they’ll be criticized for not creating thousands jobs on only months.
I don’t mind holding the Obama administration to high standards — hell, holding it to any standards would be a change from the previous administration. But fair assessments will have to wait until whatever is being assessed has had a reasonable time to either work or not work.
Michael Trujillo
on Sep 5th, 2009
@ 1:15 pm:
You keep saying far-left as if that’s a bad thing.
GMS
on Sep 5th, 2009
@ 9:53 pm:
Far-left is a bad thing, Michael.
Merle
on Sep 5th, 2009
@ 10:05 pm:
Van Jones is a self avowed communist. He has started several far left wing organizations in his career, plus he is a race baiter. It is very troubling that he has not been asked to resign by Obama’s administration. If a Republican administration had an adviser who turned out to be a former KKK member, that person would have had to leave as soon as anyone found out, and with good reason. Obama is being very foolish by not dealing with this in a decisive way. Obama is supposed to be the president of all the people, not just the left. Unfortunately, he has many other czars with questionable backgrounds or beliefs that cannot stand scrutiny.
Neal Humphrey
on Sep 6th, 2009
@ 7:17 am:
Prophetic blog …
flatlander100
on Sep 6th, 2009
@ 3:53 pm:
Merle:
Can you give us the name of the organization that Mr. Van Jones [now departed] belonged to that you think is the equivalent of the KKK? So far as I know, Mr. Jones was not a member of any organization that conducted, or even advocated, racial lynchings. But if you can’t, please have the courtesy to say so.
NanoThermite
on Sep 6th, 2009
@ 10:25 pm:
Google Nano Thermite 911 ; This is the best evidence to support inside job demolition of the twin towers and building 7. There is no question that there is nano-thermite in all the dust from the demo. No Question. Perfect chips of nano-thermite all over in it. Military Grade Nano-Thermite. Hmm Military Grade; go figure. Van Jones was right about 9/11 being a demolition anyways; now we just need to find out exactly WHO placed all that NANO-THERMITE throughout the buildings from top to bottom; floor to floor.
Neal Humphrey
on Sep 11th, 2009
@ 2:31 pm:
We need to start a pool predicting the upcoming losses of Obama’s czars. My money is on Mark Lloyd, the dufus who is the FCC diversity czar.