CBS: Was VS Post the Last Straw for Van Jones?

John on September 5, 2009 at 11:11 pm

CBS’ Charles Cooper on the Van Jones resignation:

The White House announced the news in the early hours of Sunday morning. In a statement, Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, thanked Jones “for his valuable contributions to the Council on Environmental Quality. Over the last six months he has been a strong voice for creating 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources. We appreciate his hard work and wish him the best moving forward.”

But Jones had turned into a political liability for President Obama after statements he made prior to joining the White House came to light. Last week Jones apologized for a six-year-old petition he signed, alleging government complicity in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He also issued an apology for recorded comments from a February public meeting where Jones referred to Republicans as “a**holes” for not supporting administration efforts.

On Saturday [actually it was Friday afternoon], Jones came under more fire after Verum Serum posted an excerpt for an anti-war CD that Jones appeared in which also featured Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of shooting to death a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. But the case has turned into an international cause celebre with critics arguing that Jamal’s death row sentence should be overturned.

Whether that was the proverbial straw remains unclear but as conservative criticism ratcheted up, the White House did not go out of its way to defend Jones. On Friday, press secretary Robert Gibbs responded to questions by declaring that Jones “continues to work for the administration.” He referred all other questions about Jones to the environmental council.

Personally, I think Van Jones has been walking the last mile since the Truther thing came out. Credit goes to Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit for breaking that. Glenn Beck picked it up and ran with it and at some point members of Congress started calling for a resignation. So, honestly, I’d say Jim was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

They did let him issue that apology, so maybe there was some sort of “so long as there’s nothing else” agreement in place as of Friday morning. If so, maybe we broke that with the album excerpts. I can certainly imagine those clips getting lots of airplay on talk radio next week (if he hadn’t resigned that is).

Truth is, I don’t think Van Jones is nearly as creepy as our current science czar John Holdren, nor as corrupt as the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel, nor as deserving of being thrown under the bus as Obama’s #1 bundler, golf buddy, and facilitator of tax evasion Robert Wolf. So while I think Van Jones deserved to be tossed under the bus, he wasn’t even in my top three.

Still, it’s a start.

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