Obama should slowly phase out the role of Van Jones. He may have interesting ideas about the economy and environmentalism, but in light of things he has said and done in the past, its just not worth having him around the Obama administration:
A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into “evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”
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.” In a statement issued Thursday evening Jones said of “the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.” He did not explain how his name came to be on the petition. A source said Jones did not carefully review the language in the petition before agreeing to add his name.
But that’s not all:
In 2005 Jones told the East Bay Express that the acquittal of Rodney King’s assailants in 1992 in that infamous police brutality case changed him significantly. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.” Jones and other young activists in 1994 formed a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, rooted in Marxism and Leninsm. Two years later, Jones launched the Ella Baker Center, an Oakland, Calif., based “strategy and action center” which states that it tries to “promote positive alternatives to violence and incarceration.”
Oh yeah. He called Republicans “Assholes.” Sorry I left that out.
In February during a discussion on energy at Berkeley, Calif., (and prior to his joining the Obama administration) Jones referred to Republicans using an epithet for a proctological orifice, which he called “a technical, political science term.”
Asked why Republicans asserted more control of the Senate when they had a smaller majority before 2006, Jones said “the answer to that is, they’re a–holes.” He added that President Obama is not an a–hole, but, “I will say this. I can be an a–hole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity.”
Obama should get rid of him. He’s too much of a political liability.
What interesting ideas has he had about the economy and environmentalism? Could you let me know which ones are interesting and/or things you agree with?
Yes.
Okay, let’s hear it.
*audio track not available in your country*
So what you’re saying is is you’re not going to offer an opinion. Another poorly-vetted Obama employee. This one turns out to be a truther and a Free Mumia supporter, and all you have to say is that he’s a headache for the administration.
This website doesn’t need to be just another news aggregator; we have the Drudge Report for that.
No, what I’m saying is that your question seems more of a thinly veiled attack on Obama, considering that you consistently refer to the president as “Obamessiah” and eagerly report the latest conservative diatribes against him. When all we get are more posts about how bad Obama is, The Waterglass comes closer and closer to the Drudge Report. The post is about the political situation Van Jones presents to the Obama administration, and that is all the opinion I care to offer in this post. An opinion about Jones’ recommendations for green jobs is for another post, not this one.
For years I defended Bush against your “liberal diatribes”; I marshaled facts, I did research, and I actually worked at my posts and comments.
All I’ve seen from you since November is an extremely thin broth of news cobbled from CNN, with no real commentary. I at least had the intellectual courage and effort to put forth an honest opinion. And your complete lack of engagement regarding the Obamessiah (ooohhh, I used that term) does not give you the right to just dismiss my work as “conservative diatribes.” I at least had the sack to express an opinion.
What I’m going to do over the next few weeks is reevaluate the purpose and future of this website. Because what I won’t let it become is another news aggregator focusing mostly on celebrity deaths and gigantic reticulated python stories. I worked too hard here and put too much money into this place for it to slide into that level of irrelevance.
Or, if nothing else, you could at least admit that it’s less fun to be on defense (not that you’ve bothered to engage) than on attack, and man up to not wanting to put forth the same effort now as you did when Bush was in office. At least that would be honest.
(Edited down from a much harsher reply.)
When you have finished your re-evaluation, please let me know.