GREAT OBAMA JOBS GUY DOWNED IN CROSSFIRE

White House Adviser Van Jones Resigns Amid Controversy Over Past Activism
Garance Frank-Ruta and Anne E. Kornblut (w/Juliet Eilperin), September 6, 2009 (Washington Post)

"White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned late Saturday after weeks of controversy stemming from his past activism.

"Van Jones, outgoing special adviser for green jobs, White House Council on Environmental Quality: "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 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. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future."

Jones started doing green jobs in Oakland, where this was the question. It still is. (click to enlarge)

"Jones issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition that questioned [the Bush administration’s involvement in 9/11]…and the other for using a crude term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the administration…His one-time involvement with the Bay Area radical group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which had Marxist members and leanings, had also become an issue. And on Saturday his advocacy on behalf of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of shooting a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, threatened to grow as a fresh point of controversy…

"Jones, a towering figure in the environmental movement, had worked for the White House Council on Environmental Quality since March. He was a civil-rights activist in California before turning his focus to environmental and energy issues, and he won wide praise before joining the Obama administration for articulating a broad vision of a green economy Democrats could embrace."

This guy just lost his best friend in D.C. (click to enlarge)

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.): "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate."

Senator Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.): "Can the American people trust a senior White House official that is so cavalier in his association with such radical and repugnant sentiments?"

There is no doubt Van Jones will continue to be. And the jerks who drove him from office will continue to be a part of the problem. (click to enlarge)

Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, thanking Jones for his service: "What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual…[The President doesn't endorse, in any way, the things that Van Jones said] but he thanks him for his service…"

David Axelrod, White House adviser, on NBC's "Meet the Press": "The political environment is rough, and so these things get magnified. But the bottom line is that he showed his commitment to the cause of creating green jobs in this country by removing himself as an issue, and I think that took a great deal of commitment on his part…"

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.): "I don't think he's the issue…I think the czars are the issue."