Van Jones Resignation Will Backfire Against the GOP

To some, the Van Jones resignation is a “teaching moment”, a hard lesson that will result in Republican politicians suffering potential political payback due to “fringe mainstreaming”. Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air had this warning:

“For every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction — except in politics, where the reaction usually outstrips the action. With the resignation of Van Jones for his 9/11 Truther flirtations (his version) or outright advocacy (which the evidence indicates) and the humiliation of the traditional media deliberately leaving themselves and their consumers behind the New Media on the story, the reaction will come, but not soon. Instead, we can expect the media to hold Republicans to the standards the conservative punditry imposed on Van Jones, and to be a lot more aggressive about it than they were with Jones himself.”

I agree, and respectfully disagree with Ed on this. The Van Jones resignation won’t change the way the MSM has always held Republican politicians to a higher standard. The MSM has a history of being “a lot more aggressive”, that’s the way they’ve operated and will continue to operate. As for Republicans being more closely vetted, today, the MSM reported that Jones wasn’t vetted at all.

Ed also stated that those who expressed public support to the “Birther” movement will no longer “get the benefit of the doubt”, that those who signed a “Birther” petition can kiss a future White House appointment as a Presidential adviser “goodbye”. Actually, prior to Jones’ resignation, conservative pundits and “intellectuals” had already voiced their opinion that those who could be construed as Birther sympathizers should be regarded with a jaundiced eye, while actual Birthers should be shunned as conspiracy kooks.

Ed says Republicans should be “worried” about fired up progressives who will want to “trade one scalp”-retaliation for Jones-for another.

Actually, Ed’s warnings are rather tame compared to rather “ominous”, the “GOP will face a huge backlash” over Jones’ routing from the White House. Which begs the question: why all the handwringing and dire predictions? After all, we’ve seen “fired up” Progressives before and how they’ve fared.

If we take a stroll down recent memory lane, paybacks have been in play since Clinton’s impeachment and Bush’s win over Gore in 2000, which resulted in BDS, or Bush Derangement Syndrome. One infamous case, Dan Rather, hosting CBS’ 60 Minutes Wednesday, who, shortly before the 2004 election on September 8, 2004, tried to derail Bush with claims that there was evidence Bush had gone AWOL while serving in the Air National Guard. CBS ousted Rather, along with three executives and producer, Mary Mapes. The ouster occurred after an independent panel found that CBS failed to follow “basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece”. After initially defending Rather and Mapes, CBS asked for an independent investigation headed by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press President Louis Boccardi. Rather’s rather “illustrious” career as a “hard-hitting” news journalist was tainted, while Rather’s legacy will be forever linked to Rathergate.

And then there were these types of comments from Progressives:

“I would like to apologize for referring to George W. Bush as a “deserter.” What I meant to say is that George W. Bush is a deserter, an election thief, a drunk driver, a WMD liar and a functional illiterate.”
Michael Moore

“I despise him [President George W. Bush]. I despise his administration and everything they stand for….To my mind the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man’s leadership….There has to be a movement now to really oppose what he is proposing because it’s unconstitutional, it’s immoral and basically illegal….It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It’s humiliating.”
Jessica Lange

“Bush wasn’t elected, he was selected— selected by five judges up in Washington who voted along party lines,”
Alec Baldwin

Another infamous BDS case, comedian Rosie O’Donnell, whose career imploded when, while co-hosting ABC’s “The View” on April 4, 2007, outed herself as a 911 Truther with her famous comment, “fire doesn’t melt steel”.

On May 23, 2007, on yet another contentious exchange between O’Donnell, bird-of-a-feather cohost and comedian Joy Behar, and conservative co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Behar outed herself as another sufferer of BDS:

“JOY BEHAR: I was watching Al Gore on, on “Larry King” last night and, you know, he has a new book out, Al Gore, where he basically really says that Bush was the worst president that we’ve ever had in the history of the country. And I noticed that Jimmy Carter, a former president, is saying the same thing. So now if the former president Jimmy Carter is saying it and a former vice president of the United States is saying it and I have a list here of the things that Bush has done. I don’t really understand why he’s still there. Does anyone have any idea why we can’t get rid of this guy who stole the election in 2000, killed the surplus with tax cuts –”

Two days later, on Friday, May 25, ABC announced O’Donnell wouldn’t be back on the View. O’Donnell had failed to show up for Thursday’s taping.

As for the Van Jones resignation, the onus should be on the President and his administration and not on those who, by simply using Google search, uncovered Jones’ past associations and views, views which the White House now states it doesn’t support. The White House has admitted it didn’t require Jones to fill out a standard seven page form which is required of cabinet appointees, while the White House stated it was “familiar” with Jones’ associations and “remarks”. The White House failed to defend Jones’ claims of a “vicious campaign” of “smears and lies”. If the White House was “familiar” with his “remarks”, remarks such as “whites and white polluters poisoning” communities composed of “people of color”, then what does this mean? Did the White House either not “approve” of this remark, or approve of it? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Which leads to this. Huffington Post’s David Sirota, writing about the Progressive’s “take” on Jones’ resignation, was angry at the White House for “booting out” Jones:

“Finally, the Jones announcement will inevitably create a chilling effect on the aspirations of other movement progressives. Van is a fantastic person who has done fantastic work. He’s kept his advocacy real and didn’t compromise his principles. And so when he was appointed to a high-level White House job, it seemed to validate that you could, in fact, keep it real and also advance in American politics and government. That is to say, his story seemed to prove that an outsider could also succeed on the inside – and that outside advocacy doesn’t automatically prohibit you from one day working on the inside.

Now, though, because of today’s announcement, that lesson has been rewritten. Jones being tossed from the White House says that even in an administration headed by a former community organizer, progressive movement activists (as opposed to far-right conservative movement activists who are celebrated in D.C.) probably cannot hope to ever enter or rise in government.* I’m not saying that’s an ironclad rule – but that is the message of this particular event, and you better believe that all the movement activists who know Jones or looked to him as a hero will get that message loud and clear. And that’s a tragedy.”

Sirota continued the meme that Jones’ was booted out for being linked to Truthers:

“The obvious rejoinder to these points is that Jones supposedly brought this on himself by long ago making a mistake and signing a misguided petition about 9/11. Obviously, he made a mistake** – and he admitted that. But even if you don’t accept that apology or admission of fault, the idea that him signing that petition means he’s worthy of removal is just a pathetic argument that highlights the most damning hypocrisies of all.”

Sirota also claimed that Jones was “harassed” or “forced” into signing the 911 Truther petition:

“The 9/11 Truth movement has tried to aggressively harass/intimidate almost every person in public life – me, Van Jones, and everyone else – in an attempt to force people to sign onto its statements that the government wasn’t just negligent, but orchestrated 9/11.”

This is laughable as Van Jones doesn’t strike anyone as the type who could be intimidated.

As a journalist, Sirota ignored other evidence that Jones was involved in the Thruther movement in 2002 and was cited as attending a rally two days after 911, the same rally that was the genesis of the Truther movement. Even so, it was Jones’ other “views” that landed him in hot water: of “white polluters” and “white environmentalists” poisoning “people of color” and Bush being responsible for the thousands that perished during Katrina in New Orleans.

Van Jones, Huffington Post, September 1, 2005

Don’t say that a hurricane destroyed New Orleans. Hurricanes don’t drown cities.

It was a “perfect storm” of a different kind that put that great city underwater: Bush-era neglect of our national infrastructure, combined with runaway global warming and a deep contempt for poor African-Americans.

The result: catastrophe. The flooding was not a result of heavy rains. It is a result of a weak levee — one that was in mid-repair when the storm hit. And that levee, which has held back floodwaters for time beyond memory, collapsed for one simple reason: Bush refused to fix it last summer, when local officials were begging him to do so. Instead, he diverted those funds to the war effort.”

And…

“Had the responsible agencies valued the lives of the poor, they would have helped the destitute flee in the face of the hurricane — even those who couldn’t afford a car or a motel room. But when the “face of suffering” is Black, somehow our high standards for effective action and compassion begin to sag.

Of course, seeing this, Bush could have taken a strong stand for the poor and the suffering. But his half-hearted, emotionally flat statement on Wednesday did little to rally the nation. It seems that, as long as “the terrorists” didn’t do it, Bush just can’t get himself too worked up about Americans dying by the hundreds.

So tonight Americans are dying in the flooded streets of New Orleans like flies. And many of the men and women in uniform who could help rescue them and restore order are nowhere to be found. Instead of helping their grandparents and aiding their neighbors in this time of crisis, Louisiana and Mississippi guardsmen are half-a-world away, fighting for a lie.”

It was these types of “remarks” and “views” as well as Jones’ association with Color of Change and STORM, coupled with Jones’ role as Obama’s special adviser, Green Jobs Czar, that caused many to take a closer look and question the government. The fact that the President appointed Jones as a special adviser, calls into question as to why Obama-who has publicly stated he was to be judged by the people he surrounded himself with-chose Van Jones as his Green Jobs Czar. What’s driving the Left round the bend is the very salient fact that they’re in the process of learning they don’t “own” the right to question the government, and that some of us refuse to play “by their rules”.

Van Jones “questioned” the government. In the end, his resignation was the result of those who followed Jones’ suit and… questioned the government, both how and why Jones wound up as one of Obama’s special advisers.

By LBG

Image - Backlash

Source – Quotes – BoycottLiberalism.com
Source – Newsbusters - The View Showdown

Tags: 911 Truthers, Dan Rather, government, Obama, President, resignation, Rosie O'Donnell, Van Jones, White House