The wonderful Holly Near song of solidarity -- "it could have been me, instead it was you" captures my feeling about the resignation of Van Jones in the middle of the night after a month long smear campaign that was not countered in any way by the White House.
When someone as fine as Van Jones does not inspire a White House defense, one can be sure that others are next. Indeed, rabid television personality Glenn Beck promised as much in attacking "Van Jones and others".
Presidential advisor Axelrod and chief spokesperson Gibbs each issued desultory comments thanking Jones for his decision to resign. It is hard to imagine a more fundamental miscalculation. The country has lost a powerful advocate, but the White House has revealed itself as a weakling, and easily intimidated by a mere television pundit.
It is important for progressives to understand the Van Jones episode, for it speaks volumes about how the right wing media echo machine works.
Jones had been under attack since April by the far right website World Net Daily for putting a green face on a red -- that is socialist or communist -- agenda. This attack got no traction -- or pushback. Glenn Beck used his platform at Fox to bring this fringe wingnut attack into the nation's mainstream news.
Soon thereafter, Beck pronounced that President Obama hates white people, and is a racist. He has not backed down on this claim.
The fine group Color of Change (full disclosure, I am on the email list of Color of Change and my company provides funding to Color of Change, along with many other nonprofit organizations), which was co-founded by Jones, launched a campaign to alert Beck's advertisers to each hateful rhetoric and ask if they wished to associate their brands with the bile. Most, upon reflection, pulled their ads.
Beck accelerated his attacks on Jones, devoting parts of 23 shows to attacking Van Jones, and bits and pieces of Jones's activist past would emerge.
Van Jones spent the last decade as an advocate and organizer. He fought on behalf of those without power, including unarmed African Americans gunned down by police, school children without books, and the urban underclass looking for a way out. He created organizations, spoke at countless rallies, taught classes in prisons, and wrote a best selling book.
Van Jones did not play the game of Washington politics. He did not become advocate with one business card, and lobby for corporations with another. He shared the anger of those he sought to support. He did not trade away the best interests of those behind bars or in need of jobs to be polite. He used strong language in tough times. Like every single person I know, he made mistakes.
I was surprised when Van accepted a position in the Obama administration. The administration was noteworthy for how few progressives it recruited. For all practical purposes, the foreign policy team had endorsed the disastrous invasion of Iraq. Most of the economic team had supported the disastrous prohibition of regulation of credit default swaps in the waning days of the Clinton Administration. Most appointees were respectable by Washington standards in how they had opposed the worst abuses of the Bush administration.
We may never know who told Van he had to go, or who made the repeated choice never to defend him during the weeks of vicious smears. Why would a Van Jones have to apologize for calling Republicans, prior to his appointment, a colorful barnyard epithet when the Obama Chief of Staff considers the F word half of the English language? And why might Van's mistakes be worse than those of say, Timothy Geithner, who took tax free income from the IMF and did not report it? And why is Van Jones more troublesome than say, Joe Lieberman, who constantly slandered candidate Obama, and was rewarded by a clear direction from President Obama that Lieberman was to be welcomed back to the fold?
Joshua Micah Marshall has written eloquently elsewhere of the horribly named "bitch slap theory of politics", in which the Right and their Republican friends repeatedly attack progressives and Democrats with demonstrably false and outrageous claims, but can count on those attacked to ignore the attacks, as if it is somehow beneath them. The press, like moths to a flame, reports the conflict while failing to report the facts.
In Marshall's theory, this simply demonstrates to the public that progressives and Democrats are weak. If they won't defend themselves, how could they be expected to defend the country or, say, the interests of those watching?
With this in mind, what are the consequences of failing to defend Van Jones, and no doubt, of stabbing him in the back and pushing him out the door?
Someone will be next. Beck has already mentioned presidential buddy Cass Sunstein, nominated to head a regulatory office in the White House, but blocked from even a vote for eight months by cowardly senators.
Increased reluctance on the part of progressives to trust President Obama. If a known star with a huge progressive following like Van Jones won't be defended at all, what progressive would be? Most movement progressives spent the last eight years fighting against the Bush Administration, and Glen Beck and friends, by their low standards, will have plenty of fodder.
Members of Congress facing tough votes. Though the White House characterized the Van Jones situation as a distraction from weightier matters, who can trust the White House? Does anyone really think that someone who might have supported the White House on health care or global warming would have changed their vote if Jones had not left the scene?
Green jobs. Who will speak for bringing together the needs of the urban poor with fighting our looming environmental disaster? Traditional environmental groups have never quite pulled it off, though some have tried mightily, like the Sierra Club and the Apollo Alliance.
Van Jones, freed of the constraints of the White House, will no doubt resume his efforts as a movement progressive. He is much needed.
But the Obama administration has lost more than a brilliant advocate. By failing to stand up and to call out Glenn Beck for his smears, it has lost power at a time when it needs every ounce of power. It misunderstood, as have so many before it, the fundamental tactics of the right wing media machine. Bullies never are appeased by victory. We will all pay the price.
Michael Kieschnick is the president of CREDO Mobile. He has known Van Jones for a decade and has served together on the advisory board of The Beatitudes Society. CREDO Mobile has supported the Ella Baker Center, Color of Change, and Green for All, each founded or co-founded by Van Jones.
Kevin Grandia: The Right Wing Attack Machine Behind the Van Jones Affair
You won't be surprised that Glenn Beck wasn't the mastermind behind the campaign to remove Van Jones. The attack was orchestrated by a fringe group of free-marketeers called Americans for Prosperity.
Mr. Jones attributed his conversion to the people he met during his incarceration, saying, "I met all these radical young people of color, I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. It was like 'this is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary."
In 1994, Mr. Jones was one of the founders of STORM, a Marxist-Leninist group whose hero was Chinese Communist dictator Mao Tse Tung.
Mr. Jones was arrested again in 1999 during the anti-free trade riots in Seattle.
How can anybody defend this man?
And Obama did not invent the Czar (and Van may not have been one), but it was never used like this. To bring people in as a Czar so they would not be vetted by congress. Clinton had the most Czars before Obama, with 10. The Democrats are creating very Dangerous precedents...If they go to reconcilliation for Health care, they will throw out the meaning of a Senate Vote. It means any party can conform legislation to fit a simple majority....same precedents with these Czars...if there is a far right administration, one that makes Bush seem middle of the road, he will have unheard of power because of things Obama is doing now.
and now get this:
you say "if there is a far right administration, one that makes Bush seem middle of the road, he will have unheard of power because of things Obama is doing now."
You wanna quake with fear? Thanks to W. BUSH, Obama RIGHT NOW has powers (unheard of before Bush) to investigate and freeze your bank account, confiscate your fire-arms in the event of national emergency, invade any country he pleases if he even suspects they might be hostile to us, wire-tap a telephone BEFORE getting a warrant to do so, ignore legislative demands on the executive in terms of spending, and suspend Habeas Corpus, again on supicion, without having to determine a state of insurrection.
Has he done any of this? Is he likely to do so? No, because all these presidential powers Bush presumed happen to be unConstitutional, and Obama is an expert on the Constitution, which he loves (and which Bush called "a worthless piece of paper").
The whining on he right is pathetic.
"And Obama did not invent the Czar (and Van may not have been one), but it was never used like this. " The special advisors on specific issues have always been used this way, long befoore Nixon and Reagan began using the term; no doubts that the Executive has the right to a board of advisors on specific topic. Historically none of these advisors have been vetted by Congress, for they do have direct Administrative powers except by special appointment (in which case Congress has every right to intervene, and frequently has done so).
"If they go to reconcilliation for Health care, they will throw out the meaning of a Senate Vote. It means any party can conform legislation to fit a simple majority...." This again has always been true; and Bush used the recopnciliation process quite a bit in budgetary matters - a simple majority is a parliamentary norm, it is the fillibuster that is exceptional to the US Senate.
Please, I beg you to actualluy read history and not get your information from television talking heads who believe scaring you is providing you with entertainment.
Van Jones became a liability and he smartly approved the recommendation to throw him under the Second Bus. (The first Bus has no more room under it… Grandmother, Preacher etc.}
That’s what a politician does to protect him or herself and get elected again.
The question is, what does a Leader do?
I would have said, "Yeah, I know a lot about him. He's really a pain in the ass. When he ran Bay Area PoliceWatch, he slanted every case to make the cops look as bad as possible. And while he might be talented enough, he's totally and completely unreliable."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/columns/williesworld/#ixzz0QztpuXPS
The would have had their Pundits / Party Members / AstroTurfers defend him with every ounce of their being...
But we Progressives will sit on our hands and wonder.... Why isn't OBAMA doing something..?.
The Question posed should be:
Why the H3LL aren't our Pundits / Party Members / MoveOn's etc doing some of this heavy lifting too.
We just can't open the door to the Oval Office for Obama then let him walk in alone.
But that is exactly what WE have done.
But you are so right, the fact the Administration caved to Glenn Beck (who is basically considered insane by nearly everyone) of all people and when they did that not only did Beck get a taste of blood; it gave his crazy claims credibility. That was just the worst thing the Obama Administration could have done.
Beck has recently gotten the director of the NEA demoted and yes, now he's going after Susstein.
If Keith Obermann had done the same he would have been vilified in all media. Beck, instead, gets what he was seeking: the resignation of now one, but two, members of the Obama admin.
Does anyone see the "fair and balance" part of this?
Person B says "A is a communist" "A said 'white polluters'" and "A signed the Truther's petition";
and this column is about Person B being a villian?
How about you?
Have you no decency?
It is pretty tough to demonstrate a "backbone" when the media consistently throw facts out the window in favor of fear mongering and sensationalism.
It is terrifying.
Boy oh boy, I’d queue all week to watch that one.
The American People should not be denied the freedom of speaking out...speaking often...about our government for we are the government.
Where were you when Cheney ran the governmnet???
They are advisors to the President on specific issues of importance to him/her. THe fact that they are called Czars is because the press has given them than nickname. THey are not REALLY CZARS,! Okay?