Van Jones - The Gift That Keeps On Giving

UPDATE SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 6: VAN JONES RESIGNS. From a Washington Post blog: "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight Saturday. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

He continued: "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."

Could it be that no one has that much time and energy?

And how will all those MSM outlets Byron York mentions below explain this to their readers/viewers - that an Obama appointed czar given $30 billion tax payer dollars to spend on "green jobs" has suddenly resigned? And their readers/viewers don't even begin to have a clue why? They don't have a clue because their sources for news are so in the tank for Obama. And the MSM figures if they don't report on it, it's not newsworthy. Out with the old media - in with the new. If you were getting your news on the web you knew about Van Jones weeks ago.

One down...

My original post begins here.

And to think that I was getting tired of the Van Jones-athon on Glenn Beck's radio show. I think Van is about to meet Obama's grandmother - under the bus.

From Glenn Thrush at Politico:

Rep. Mike Pence, the no. 3 Republican in the House, is calling on Obama green jobs czar Van Jones to resign.

This sort of thing would usually be laughed off by Democrats -- a conservative Republican telling a Democratic appointee to quit.

But the Obama team isn't exactly jumping to back Jones today in wake of revelations that in the past he signed on to one of the "truther" groups that claimed 9/11 was an inside job. Oh, and he called Republicans a**holes in a video earlier this year before he was appointed.

Asked about Jones' affiliations with the 9/11 group at the daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs would only say: "It's not something that the president agrees with." And then Gibbs referred other questions to a statement Thursday by the Council on Environmental Quality in which Jones said he never backed any of these 9/11 conspiracy groups.

"Given recent revelations concerning the associations and statements of the president's green jobs czar, Van Jones should resign his position and if he is unwilling to do so, the president should demand his resignation. His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this Administration or the public debate," Pence said. "The Constitution of the United States vests Congress with the responsibility to advise and consent in the appointment of high ranking officials by the president. To date, President Obama has appointed more than thirty individuals to ‘czar’ positions within his Administration without permitting the Congress or the American people to properly examine their backgrounds or public records."





The Van Jones (non) feeding frenzy
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/04/09 11:30 AM EDT
From a Nexis search a few moments ago:

Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.

If you were to receive all your news from any one of these outlets, or even all of them together, and you heard about some sort of controversy involving President Obama's Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, your response would be, "Huh?" If you heard that that adviser, Van Jones, had apologized for a number of remarks and positions in the recent past, your response would be, "What?" And if you were in the Obama White House monitoring the Jones situation, you would be hoping that the news organizations listed above continue to hold the line -- otherwise, Jones, who is quite well thought of in Obama circles, would be history.

H/T The Drudge Report