Listen To What They Say...

Well, Van Jones is no longer the "czar" he once was. (A moment of silence, anyone?) According to his resignation, "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 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 our future." 

Hmmm... well, it's quite sad that people are able to mount a "vicious smear campaign" against him that requires using only his own words... one would think if there were lies and distortions, those might be directly noted in one's resignation. After accusing the people who simply brought to light Jones' own statements and past of "lies and distortions," one has to wonder if Van Jones is capable of doing anything "in good conscience." 

Glenn Beck, on both his radio and television shows, called Van Jones a "communist-anarchist radical." BUT, he didn't simply make the statement and then walk away, he played large segments of speeches made by Jones to back up his label. I think it helped, too, that Van Jones himself said he was a communist. 

Of course, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and Howard Dean are big supporters of Van. Howard Dean was so unfortunate as to be included in a panel on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. He chose to weigh in on the issue by saying:

"This guy's a Yale educated lawyer, he's a best selling author about his specialty, I think he was brought down. I think it's too bad. Washington's a tough place, uh, that way, and I think it's a loss to the country." When asked about Jones' signing the 9/11 truther's petition to investigate whether or not the Bush administration had caused 9/11 to occur, Dean's response was, "Well, he was told by the people waving those clipboards around that he was signing something else, so I think that's too bad. Look, all of us campaigning for office have had people throw clipboards in front of our face and ask us to sign, and he learned the hard way you ought not to do that but I don't think he really thinks the government had anything to do with the cause of 9/11."

I guess this can just go to show that Napoleon was correct in his assessment that "In politics stupidity is not a handicap." How can anyone say, with a straight face, that America has suffered a loss because Van Jones was a Yale educated lawyer on one hand, and then immediately following, suggest that this Yale education didn't even serve Jones so well as to inform him not to sign something he hasn't read? Even I, lacking a Yale education, know better than that! And further, for Dean to suggest that Van Jones ever campaigned for anything is a bit deceptive. Jones was appointed by the president without even a senate hearing... 

Given all this, one has to assume one of two things... either Howard Dean is a moron, or he thinks we are. 

I guess good riddance to Van Jones, although I, too, think it would have been better had he stayed in his position. It was helping to bring to light some of Obama's greater sympathies. Oh well... the mainstream media wasn't really covering it anyway.