White House Declines To Express Confidence In Van Jones

So, now anybody who believed there was an insufficient investigation into 9/11 is going to get cut loose by the WH?

I am predicting a lonely next 3 years.

Oh, and he swore. I forgot that Rahm doesn't tolerate that f---ing sh-t.

This guy does what? Try to get more green homes built. You mean he isn't anywhere near any other policy? You don't say...
Imagine if Republicans were ever forced to defend the people in their party that endorse wacky conspiracies?
There are a helluva lot of prominent Republicans in positions where they actually wrote policy that have endorsed such crazy things as:
-Believe our president was born in Kenya.
-Believe our president is a secret Muslim.
-Believe Hillary Clinton shot Vince Foster. One prominent Republican even shot pumpkins in his backyard in order to prove something or another.
-Believe that in addition to Vince Foster, there is a long list of people the Clintons have murdered to keep their secrets-whatever the heck those are supposed to be.
-Believe that the Clintons decorated a Christmas Tree with syringes and condoms.
-Believe the Clintons were running drugs through the Governor's mansion in Arkansas.
I think that believing that the governor of Arkansas was running coke in a speedboat on the weekends is a lot more kooky than considering that their might be a lot of dirty ties between Saudi and Texas oil money, which is what the Carlyle Group/bin Laden stuff is about. We have pictures of these people glad handing each other over the course of the last 40 years. We have zero pictures of Bill Clinton decked out in a Miami Vice era vest cruising his speed boat to Columbia.

Funny that whenever sunlight is cast on Obama and his grand schemes there is an uproar from the American public.

Here is a guy whose sole qualification is a community organizer. Hmm sounds familiar. Now we have a Green Czar who can't define a green job and the Obama adminstration has spent $60 billion on this without creating one green job.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/209073

Him being a nut job is just icing on the cake.

So Michael, did you ask the White House when we would get an answer?

I don't get the controversy here. A lot of reasonable people wanted to know more about the relationships between the Bush family, the Carlyle Group, the bin Laden family and the House of Saud. This curiosity now disqualifies you from public service?

Remember the outrage when Bush hired John Poindexter, who had been convicted of five felony charges of conspiracy, making false statements to Congress, and obstructing congressional inquiries (as Wikipedia notes: "The convictions were reversed in 1991 on the technical grounds that the prosecution's evidence may have been tainted by exposure to Poindexter's testimony before the joint House-Senate committee investigating the matter, in which Poindexter's testimony was compelled by a grant of 'use immunity'.") ?
The guy ran a counter-terrorism shop at the Pentagon (we put a guy who lied to Congress in charge of a intelligence program and then we act amazed that some spooks might have lied to Congress...totally stupid).
No you don't remember the outrage. It was ignored by the traditional media.
I would be willing to bet that Bush hiring a crook for an important position was never mentioned in accurate context within Time Magazine.
Yet here we are hand-wringing over something some guy who promotes green jobs said.

How totally exhausting that the White House always appears these days not to have responses to attacks which should have been reasonably anticipated.
Do they imagine that Beck and others like him will stop their attacks, promotion of hysteria and spreading anti-Obama propaganda? I think not!

I am a little unclear about the tactics this administration had decided to use to diffuse the inevitable baseless dissent from far right wingers, and "invective" spewed on them by other desperate extremists from a fractured Republican party for whom a failure of this administration would appear, at least at this time, to be their only hope for the “rebirth” of their party.

It is the extremism that completely disgusted people like me and caused us to become Independents. I provide this information only because the Republican party tactics and the journalistic styles of their "base" is obvious and same. Why is the Obama administration acting as though the unfolding events are surprising?

The events are not in the least unexpected or surprising to me, so why should seasoned politicians (the Obama folks) not have a prepared response to the “Van Jones” matter.
An apology and then silence? Not really helpful at this time.
But then, I am no politician and maybe the Obama camp has a plan and at this time, inaction is a part of it.

I can only hope that there is a plan being executed despite what appears to be the shocked and lethargic appearance of the Obama team.
I hope they do something to remedy this apparent state of affairs soon.

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/

...and so the ideology of fluff rules our political discourse.
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http://friendfeed.com/jayrosen/d4b1284f/in-ideology-of-fluff-outrageous-irony-plays
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In the ideology of fluff "outrageous irony" plays a huge role in making the fluff look like news. But here fluff goes poof.
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In the ideology of fluff, political thought follows the Holden Caulfield maxim: find the phony. You isolate the "outrageous irony," as Michael Scherer put it.
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Another way to boil it down: "Oh, the hypocrisy!" And if you're a journalist working in this style, the frothing irony is more important than the underling issue.
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Which enrages the people who care about the issue. The rage is then used to prove how independent the ironist is, taking the heat and telling the truth.
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Every practitioner of fluff reporting draws strong reactions because events have to be trimmed, sliced or just plain distorted so the account seems more ironical rather than ideological-- i.e. biased. This trimming and fiddling with the facts doesn't matter to people who don't care about the issue being trivialized, and it's to the benefit of those on the "other" side of whomever was taken down a notch by it. So they don't squeal.
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That leaves the fluffster and (in the fluffster's mind) partisans upset by a tweaking.

Isn't it great how inconsequential news items can be predictably exploited by the political press corps to advertise their "objectivity"?
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Isn't it wonderful how the rightists have figured out how to exploit the political press corps' increasingly desperate need to identify itself as distinct from those whom they cover?
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Aren't we all so much better off for this arrangement?

MIchael Scherer asserts: "Up until recently, Van Jones, who is widely respected as an environmental activist, ...."

Van Jones "is widely respected as an environmental activist" by whom? Answer: Whack job 9/11 Truther conspiracy theorists (who comprise 61% of the Democrat party) and other tree hugging fanatics, particularly those in the Washington press corps.

BTW, this is a favorite technique of members of the Washington press corps to allege, with no evidence, that someone (i.e., a leftist) is "widely respected".

I don't know enough about Van Jones to provide a full list. And I know saying that Al Gore is a fan of his work won't mean squat to you since Al is just an elitist, lying, tree-hugging hypocrite. (He did win the Nobel...o, but wait, that's jus some socialist/commie award given out to extreme radical lefties) But here's Meg Whitman - Republican candidate for governor in California and one of Mitt Romney's and John McCain's BFF - on Van Jones:
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"There's a guy over in Oakland, I think his name is Van Jones. And he and I were on a cruise last summer in the Arctic, on climate change. And I got to know him very well. And a lot of the work he's doing to enfranchise broader communities I'm a big fan of. He's doing a marvelous job... I'm a huge fan of his. He is very bright, very articulate, very passionate. I think he is exactly right."
....
But of course Mitt Romney and John McCain are just flaming liberals disguised as Republicans so Meg Whitman if probably the type of woman who would chain herself to a tree to prevent it from getting cut down while reciting Marx aloud from memory.

"How can the administration tolerate somebody who subscribes to a different insane conspiracy theory, as a senior adviser?"
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My god, how can the press corps. of the most powerful nation on earth be so logically and rationally challenged? It's no longer a bug, it's a feature.
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"Birtherism" is "insane" because there is proof of Obama's birth. "Trutherism" isn't the same thing at all as long as it merely asks the question - and doesn't state unknowable things - because there is no proof that Bush Administration officials didn't know that an attack was coming. Considering that they were warned weeks before that, "...bin Laden [is] determined to strike US," and the repeated, proven lies they told about their lack of intentions to invade Iraq, it's not even very hard to believe.

ogliberal:

Well said. Welcome to the pro-America community.

Lest anybody think that my reply to textee was a full-on defense of Jones, it was not. If the guy is a Truther - and I'm sorry but it looks like he is/was - then he's got to go. I have no patience for that BS and there's no room for it in the administration. The fact that he once held communist/Marxist beliefs doesn't bother me. (and no, it's not because I'm a commie - remember that many of the founding fathers of the neo-con movement were commies...people change, beliefs and ideologies change) He called Republican a**holes? Well, good for him, because that's true of about 95% of the GOP members of Congress. (and that's who he was talking about...not rank-and-file members of the party) But I can't excuse even brief/minimal ties to the Truther movement.
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The worst part of this is that Obama is going to have to cut this guy loose. It will be yet another case of Obama caving to the rantings and ravings of the right. It will be viewed as a big win for Glenn Beck. In this case, doing what the wingnuts want would be the right thing to do not because he's afraid of the wingers but because no Truther should be a member of the administration. The problem is that the WH and the Dems, since earlier this year, have capitulated to the wingnuts in many cases where they should have just told them to shove off. It makes it look as if the crazies are winning...as if they are running the show. And in a way, they are. But you can't finally decide to draw the line with Van Jones....it ain't worth the fight.

As I noted in the above thread. Minnesota Governor and rumored presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty is musing that Obama asks schoolkids to write to him so he can collect their addresses and use them for some sinister purpose:
http://is.gd/2SZ35
The crazy person is going to run for president and be given all sorts of respectful and deferential treatment by the Time Magazine's of the world.
Meanwhile, the Van Jones guy who signed a petition and thought invading Iraq was a stupid idea is going to be forced to resign because he is controversial.

Square1 at 3.1 above-

You have called people "morons" at least three times this week (including your comment about Beck misspelling "oligarchy"), but you keep writing it as "morans".

Just trying to be helpful.

This is the politics of personal destruction, as practiced by smear artists Fox News and their fascist henchmen.

If Obama wants civil discourse and honest discussion on the facts, he should support Van Jones, who has been honest and clear about his opinions - and that is not a crime or a disqualification for office (remember F#$K you, Dick Cheney?).

Obama needs to hold firm. Feeding the trolls just makes them bigger.

"Obama needs to hold firm. Feeding the trolls just makes them bigger."
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I would agree but as I noted above, there are too many red flags with this guy for this to be the case where the administration finally draws a line in the sand. He's just not that important in the bigger scheme of things - he's minor advisor who probably hasn't spoke to the president since he got the job. You can find another green jobs guy/gal.
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But as I also noted above, the problem is that the administration and the Dems have caved in to the loonies far to many times in the past, mostly in cases where the response should have been, "Thank you for your opinion...now eff off." This is where that comes back to bite your in the arse...in a case where you really do need to cut your losses, it looks like just another victory - in a long line of them - for the Beck Brigade.
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And given this guy's past - he seems to have taken part in just about every movement on the left in a very short time period - my guess is that his "trutherism" is not just confined to legitimate questions. Scherer was right in saying this guy is a respected environmental activits - he is. (see my quote above from Meg Whitman) And he may be great at what he does on that front. He can continue doing it - just outside of the administration. If Tom Daschle had to turn down the HHS nomination because of some relatively minor tax problems, you can't hold fast to a guy like Van Jones.

For all of the Democrats who get all of their "news" from ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post, what do they know about the raving, America hating, lunatic and 9/11 Truther Van Jones?

Answer: Absolutely nothing.

Check out the Nexis search conducted by Byron York:

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.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/The-Van-Jones-non-feeding-non-frenzy-57271402.html

This guy was a big, big star at one time.

Oh, wait...

That was Van Johnson.

My mistake.

Oh and also about apologies. Obama had better NOT apologize for anything again for the rest of his Presidency.
It is not the Presidential thing to do. Presidents do not repeatedly apologize for statements made or invite rabble rousers for beer.

Most objective observers knows he means well and have confidence that he was elected because he is the best man for the job.
He cannot please everybody and should not try. Even if things were perfect and the economy booming, there would still be those who would be spewing anti-Obama rhetoric.

Remember, even in the face of an obvious lie, even Bill Clinton withheld his own apology until the infamous unwashed and crusty blue dress forced it out of him.
Also to date, Cheney is running around kindle in hand "drawing pictures" still lying with great aplomb about how successful and right it is to kill people in a so called quest to obtain information.

Let us not forget Powell who lied to the UN General Assembly about weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has been gutted and their leader killed and yet we have seen no such weapons.

So for Obama, no more apologies. Let the Right do what they are expected to do—it is their job—they are the opposition. The President should focus on doing his part and looking Presidential as he does it.

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/

Oh and also about apologies. Obama had better not apologize for anything again for the rest of his Presidency.
It is not the Presidential thing to do. Presidents do not repeatedly apologize for statements made or invite rabble rousers for beer.

Most objective observers know he means well and have confidence that he was elected because he is the best man for the job.
He cannot please everybody and should not try. Even if things were perfect and the economy booming, there would still be those who would be spewing anti-Obama rhetoric.

Remember, even in the face of an obvious lie, even Bill Clinton withheld his own apology until the infamous unwashed and crusty blue dress forced it out of him.
Also to date, Cheney is running around kindle in hand “drawing pictures” still lying with great aplomb about how successful and right it is to kill people in a so called quest to obtain information.

Let us not forget Powell who lied to the UN General Assembly about weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has been gutted and their leader killed and yet we have seen no such weapons.

So for Obama, no more apologies. Let the Right do what they are expected to do—it is their job—they are the opposition. The President should focus on doing his part and looking Presidential as he does it.

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/

Scherer writes: "Up until recently, Van Jones, who is widely respected as an environmental activist, has been targeted by conservative pundits, who argue that his impolitic remarks, and the fact that he once identified as a "communist," raises concerns about a secret agenda in the Obama White House, a suggestion that is unhinged, and not only because President Obama is in no way pursuing any policies that can be accurately characterized as "communist." Jones, for his own part, no longer espouses "communism," and his role, as an adviser to the CEQ, puts him at a far remove from major questions of economic policy."

But again, Van Jones said in 2008: "Right after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat if the civil rights leaders had jumped out and said, 'OK now we want reparations for slavery, we want redistribution of all the wealth, and we want to legalize mixed marriages.' If we'd come out with a maximum program the very next day, they'd been laughed at. Instead they came out with a very minimum. 'We just want to integrate these buses.'

"But, inside that minimum demand was a very radical kernel that eventually meant that from 1964 to 1968 complete revolution was on the table for this country. And, I think that this green movement has to pursue those same steps and stages. Right now we say we want to move from suicidal gray capitalism to something eco-capitalism where at least we're not fast-tracking the destruction of the whole planet. Will that be enough? No, it won't be enough. We want to go beyond the systems of exploitation and oppression altogether. But, that's a process and I think that's what's great about the movement that is beginning to emerge is that the crisis is so severe in terms of joblessness, violence and now ecological threats that people are willing to be both pragmatic and visionary. So the green economy will start off as a small subset and we are going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society."

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That's Jones saying plainly that his work has a hidden radical kernel with the intent of putting a complete revolution on the table. He's saying plainly that everything he's asking for now is a trojan horse.

The wingnuts at Little Green Footballs are saying that this Truther petition was sold under false pretenses.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34594_Truther_Document_Signatories_Say_They_Were_Misled
This is silly.
Again, we have powerful Republicans like Pawlenty saying the president asked 4th graders to write to him so he could cull their addresses and do something evil with them, but no one is trying to chase him out of the political debate for being insane. Instead some guy who tries to create a green economy is crazy.

Yep, that's true: wingnuts won't stand for anyone in government supporting outlandish, crackpot theories or thoroughly debunked tin-foil-hat delusions. Just wouldn't be Ahmurikin.

Oh, wait....