Just when I think someone of substance might actually make it in Washington, D.C., a week like this happens.
The someone I’m speaking of is Van Jones, now the former green jobs adviser to the Obama White House, who was forced to resign this weekend over utterly petty nonsense packaged and delivered to the country by none other than character assassin (and seemingly wanna-be Speaker of the House assassin) Glenn Beck, a news commentator (with a woeful lack of insight) on the Fox News Channel.
I’ve been following Van Jones’s career for the last five or so years. I’ve read almost every article he’s ever written, and I’m currently reading his book “The Green Collar Economy.” I am familiar with his work at the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, a civil rights organization he cofounded, and with Green For All, a green-collar jobs advocacy organization he founded. These organizations have addressed issues that this country has blatantly ignored, to its detriment, for years–issues involving environmental justice and poverty.
Van Jones is a patriot who puts many of us to shame. He is smart and passionate, and he’s not afraid to tell it like it is. And he has a vision–a really good one–that tries to solve two problems at once: training our country’s overlooked and left-behind communities in jobs that would lead America’s transition away from the carbon-based economy it currently has into one that is environmentally-friendly. Van Jones is a breath of fresh air in a country that’s been polluted by absurdity and dishonest rhetoric (which is really just deceptive meaninglessness).
The dramatic brouhaha in Jones’s case is over two things: the first is that Jones’s name came up on a petition that called for Congress to investigate whether the then White House administration had in any way let the attacks on September 11, 2001, occur; the second is that Van Jones called Republicans “assholes” in a speech he gave at a green energy conference in Berkeley. He was answering a question about why he thought Republicans were more effective when they had the majority in Congress. Here’s the full quote, in context (via SFGate’s Thin Green Line blog):
The answer to that is: They’re assholes. That’s a technical political science term. And Barack Obama’s not an asshole. I will say this, I can be an asshole. And some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are gonna have to start getting a little bit uppity.
The petition Jones signed was, in my opinion, innocuous. Anyone who can remember way back to 2004 knows that there were various petitions like these floating around. I probably even signed one, not totally realizing what the petition called for specifically. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember if I signed a petition like that, but I know I did sign petitions asking the government to fully investigate the events that allowed the tragedy on 9/11 to happen. A lot of smart, well-meaning people signed those petitions, because for years we were dealing with a hostile administration in the White House that wasn’t talking.
The White House shut Congress out of the process. It shut the people out of the process. The administration fiercely shouted down anyone who questioned it. We wanted answers. I hardly think that citizens asking for answers is “radical.” And to tell you honestly, the first thought I had when I saw those planes hit the towers was “Isn’t this what NORAD is supposed to help prevent? How the hell did an aircraft that big enter into Manhattan’s airspace at such a low altitude unnoticed?” It’s just a question. I was willing to be told I had it all wrong. Maybe Mr. Jones was, too. Maybe Mr. Jones was simply asking that the government shed a little light on the subject.
(Of course, precisely because the 9/11 Commission pressured the White House to do so, we did find out about the infamous memo Bush got from the CIA that highlighted an “imminent attack” on American soil, you know the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” memo that was finally released to the public on April 10, 2004? That was a big deal. I don’t think the government willingly let 9/11 happen. But there seems to be enough evidence to demonstrate that it was certainly ignoring threats to our national security. And Bush should have had to answer for that.)
In reference to Jones calling Republicans assholes, I, for one, am glad he didn’t parse his words. Republicans in this day and age are, indeed, assholes. I don’t think there is any disagreement about that, not even among Republicans. The brand of Republican that exists these days is not a friend to anyone, least of all humanity. I mean that in all seriousness. These hacks do nothing at all for their fellow citizens or for their country. They are a bunch of bullies who battled over a pulpit with moderate Republicans and won. The elected bullies are obstructionists who believe the only answer to anything this White House puts forward is a big, earsplitting “NO!” The non-elected, blathering bullies get paid big dollars for being outrageous fuckers who have no conscience (but who the Republican party seems to model its playbook after). Both the elected ones and the non-elected ones are reprobates, jingoes, charlatans. Do I really need to go on? This is not a new concept.
Now let’s look at the hypocrisy of the Republicans’ complaints regarding the petition. Van Jones is a citizen of this country who has the right to express himself politically through petitions. So Jones signs a petition that in all probability never got anywhere, and Republicans throw themselves in a tizzy over it to cause a national disturbance and try to win a battle in the ongoing political theater. And they won this battle (thanks a whole lot, Obama).
However, Republicans love it when the then Vice President Dick Cheney tells Senator Patrick Leahy to “go fuck yourself,” saying that liberals were getting their panties in a twist over something trivial. And Republicans seem to think it’s OK for Glenn Beck to openly talk about poisoning the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, on his show. (Dear FBI, is Beck on your radar yet?)
And Republicans seem to be OK with Rush Limbaugh being Rush Limbaugh. This guy appears to be the most narcissistic, power-hungry, money-loving piece of shit that has ever existed in American politics. I mean that in all seriousness, too. Limbaugh’s allegiance is to money, money, and money. And he can make a lot of it by being an asshole, which is much easier than earning it the honest way.
Now let’s forget about the hypocrisy, because the Republicans haven’t even considered it. They know that to do so is death, politically speaking. They’d never admit to being wrong about anything. Ever. And truthfully, we expect this kind of behavior from them. I’m not shocked by this Republican-lead pseudo drama.
The real tragedy here isn’t even the attack itself on Van Jones. The sad story is that Obama couldn’t stand behind the person he picked to lead the charge on green-job creation and policy in this country. I am really mad about that. Obama caved in to nonsense. Van Jones may be left of Obama on the political spectrum, but there is no doubt that Jones was honored above all else to be a part of Obama’s administration, and he was going to be a team player. Too bad Obama wasn’t.
Van Jones’s political activism is not a secret. It never has been. I’m sure the White House was well aware of his signature on this particular petition. I guess it just hoped the petition wouldn’t become the focus of anyone’s attention. But it did, and in the lead-up to Labor Day weekend, of all weekends. A person charged with helping develop policy to bring labor in line with environmental stability while helping to create much-needed jobs for Americans was pressured to resign on a weekend in which we should all be thankful for even having a weekend (it was the labor movement that gave us the weekend, after all).
Even worse, Obama, through Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesperson, makes it all sound like it was Van Jones’s idea to resign. Gibbs delivers the obligatory statement, “What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual.” Well, I might believe that if the president was actually coming through hard on his agenda. Obama has all but completely caved to the crazy people over health care. He definitely caved in to this detestable excuse of a complaint. And now, a promising political servant is buried under this administration’s dung heap.
Worser still is White House political adviser David Axelrod saying that Jones “showed his commitment to the cause of creating green jobs in this country by removing himself as an issue.”
Oh really? Van Jones isn’t the issue. The issue is that the current White House can’t grow a spine and stand up to the likes of Glenn Beck! This is not Van Jones’s fight. This is the president’s fight.
Obama pushed back so well during his presidential campaign. That’s why he won. Why is he cowering now? How much more of a mandate does he need? He should be the leader who makes the country turn away from the side show. If I were him, this is what I would have told the country, “Van Jones is thoroughly suited for the position he holds. I will not play into the rhetoric surrounding statements he made before he joined my administration. I tapped him to do a job, and he’s doing it well. He will remain in my administration, and that’s the end of this tiresome discussion.”
That’s all Obama had to do. Make a statement, and then ignore the noise in the background. Stand by his own decisions. Stand by the people he has working for him. He should have let Van Jones go about the country’s business.
But instead of taking this moment to show us all that talk doesn’t have to be cheap, Obama let the Glenn Becks of the world win–the people who don’t want him to pass any meaningful legislation during this term. Meanwhile, Beck and other ne’er-do-wells are slappin’ each other high fives and cooking up their next batch of lies and fake things to be fake pissed off about.
Pressuring Van Jones to resign was a bad move. This whole ordeal was badly managed. I’m totally not fake pissed off about this. Can you tell?
(You can call the White House and complain: 202/456-1111.)
Interested in more commentary on this subject? Check out Baratunde Thurston’s “When Will This White House Learn You Cannot Negotiate with Terrorists?“; The Thin Green Line’s Cameron Scott in “Life and Times of Van Jones“; CNN’s Gergen on “Van Jones: ‘Sad to See a Man of Good Work Get So Little Credit’”
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