Sep 06 2009
Van Jones Resigns Because Americans Don’t Want Him
The liberal media is claiming left wing nut Van Jones had to resign because of GOP attacks! The so called attack was made up of making public is radical statements and positions. Those mean and crazy people used the man’s own words against him! The Scoundrels! Powerline had a good recap of the views of this wing nut.
What has me confused is how fast the White House dumped the guy. As Powerline noted key people in the White House have admitted to watching Van Jones for sometime. So why the big dump? Did they not know? Did they not understand the damage someone who is closer to Fidel Castro than John F Kennedy would have on a crippled and bumbling administration?
The good news is Van Jones can now go back to the land of fruits and nuts and wax about the wonders of socialistic fiction. The bad news is how did the Obama administration get itself into this mess, and why the quick shove out the door? Are they really in that bad of shape politically? Was the August recess even more damaging than most pundits could imagine.
I want to give Peggy Noonan credit for the most pointed observation of the last month on why Team Obama is in a tailspin:
The past 10 months, the president has lessened and not increased the trust of the big center. He did a number of things wrong, but one has not been noticed much, or noted. He moved too quickly, before he’d earned the right to change a big chunk of American life. You earn that right by establishing trust.
It is a common theme of hubris this town (DC) goes through every time a new administration comes in. The neophytes think winning an election means they have the heart and backing of the people. The fact is, winning the election means you have the honor to prove you deserve the heart and backing of the people.
Team Obama never understood that. And with their failed stimulus bill the only key legislation they have passed, doing nothing more than proving that the liberal idea of government spending fixing economies is pure fiction, the Democrats’ trust level is shot right now. They promised if we rushed to past the pork laden ‘stimulus’ bill they would turn the economy around. They were wrong. It means little to decide whether the lied or were dupes. They were wrong, and they blame ‘the mob’ that is America for not being happy with their failures and extending them to health care.
Van Jones is just the first sign that team Obama knows it needs to move smartly away from the far left fringe (liberals, progressives, whatever). The question is whether it is already too late to dump the left and full the center into believing there has been a massive change of heart in DC. I don’t see how President Obama can pull himself out of this mess, one he made with all his overblown promises that now he cannot make good on for anyone – left, right or center.
Update: One of the other things that is curious is that Van Jones was gone before any major news outlet took up the story of his radical views. Now how is that possible? Without news media support in applying the pressure, how is it Van Jones and the White House felt ‘attacked’?
Update: Seems Van Jones is another DC Drama Queen. Apparently Van Jones doesn’t appreciate people noting his words, views and statements:
“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight Saturday. “They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”
All I saw and heard and read were his own damnable words. Is he calling himself a liar and distorter? The guy wanted to end capitalism and thought 9-11 was an inside job. And he claims others were ‘distorting’ reality. BTW, its now hunting season for all the Van Jones types inside the White House, now that people see how easy it is to expose their views and get them tossed. There’s probably a treasure trove of radicals inside Obama’s inner circle (Dr. Emmanuel, the health care rationer-in-chief comes to mind).
You’re right…….Powerline was the best I have read for explaining the meaning of Jones. Unfortunately, all the people who deliberately hired him are still there. It is coming from the top.
You close with a very good point – by trying to be all things to all people, Obama is going to end up angering left, right, and center, just as you said. He made all these fantastic promises without ever sitting down and having anyone actually figure out just how they were supposed to happen. This is the lessen of a man for whom everything has always been easy and given to him on a silver plate – he begins to believe that all he has to do is wave his hand and everything will work magically.
When the magic doesn’t happen, he’s lost because he has no idea what to do next, and that’s why his speech this week is going to be an epic disaster. The problems this bill faces are *intractable*, especially how to pay for it! By promising that he can fix everything with a single speech (when it is unbelievably foolish to even entertain such an absurd claim) he has set himself up for failure in the most direct and public way possible.
Now why did they dump Van so fast? I don’t believe it was anything other than sheer desperation, and this is where a worshipful lap dog media actually hurts Obama far more than it helps him. If the MSM had vetted this guy months ago, as they would have for any other administration in history, this would have been taken care of long ago. But no one said anything, leading Obama and his team to believe that since no one was saying anything, everything would be fine. (yes, that’s juvenile, but that’s the level were working on here)
But NOW – with Obama’s popularity tanking, with the health care bill in trouble, with everything depending on a last minute recovery – NOW Van Johnson’s moonbattery explodes into the public view and threatens to drag everything down at the most critical time possible. No wonder they are panicking!!! And no wonder Van had to go as quickly as possible. I noticed that the resignation did NOT come from Van himself, but instead was issued by the White House. Heheh, don’t have to work too hard to read between the lines on THAT one.
Real World Lesson you never learned before, Obama – if you have a weakness in you or in your team, it will ALWAYS jump up and bite you in the rear end at the worst possible time! That’s just how the world works. And of course, once you’re behind that 8 ball you have to react in a hamhanded and desperate way, which is going to let all your enemies know that they’ve got your number and you’re vulnerable.
THAT’s why you go through all the trouble of vetting people; not just to make sure they’re going to be good, but to make sure you don’t get made to look like a fool at the worst possible time. Bet it would have been nice to have learned that lesson before now. That’s would have been that experience thing everyone keeps talking about.
[…] here, and […]
WWS….I agree, that while the media thinks it’s doing Obama a favor, they really are his worst enemy. Actually I suggested that it was so during the campaign. They, the media were able to find a DUI George Bush got when he was in his 20’s or something. But they praised Obama’s speech on race after Wright. My question at the time would have been why he had to make the speech in the first place. I think that Obama must have thought he could get away with anything…..and it looks like he is trying. Like, closing Gitmo with out thinking it through. Like leaving Iraq, with out finishing the job. Like government run Medical Care, with out checking in with middle Americans values and the cost. He said he would put the coal industry out of business, and cause energy prices to skyrocket, who challenged him on that?
What must the White House budget look like? Michelle has doubled the number of employees for herself. Obama must have quadrupled his number from any predecessor. the media could help him, but I guess they think it is racial to question the motives of our new President. It really is a shame!
My husband pointed out that simply because Van Jones resigned doesn’t mean he won’t be advising the president.
…
Obama knew what Van Jones was. Where is the much vaunted application that each WH applicant has to fill out telling about their lives down to how they cut their toenails? This guy has surrounded himself with communists. This one was brought into the light of day. I wonder who Glenn Beck will go after next? Hopefully all of them. The field is immense.
We have no control over who Obama associates with or who advises him but this guy is off the payroll. Out in the open anyway. With the gigantic budget congress gave him Obama is pretty much independent of any checks and balances.
OT I read that Wednesday at 8 a.m. the Alan Keyes suit will be heard and not just pushed aside like all the others. Maybe this is the reason for Obama’s talk to the school kids. A distraction, if you will. I question the timing.
I thought White House took its time to get rid of Van Jones. Too slow to get rid of him. Why? Because they either did not vet him or tried to cover up things about Van Jones.
IMHO, I think it is too late for Obama to reset himself as a centrist. As the rest of the CZARS go under the bus, the less America trusts Obama. Worse if Valerie Jarrett goes under the bus because Valerie is Obama’s closest advisor. One should look closer into her connections with both Michelle and Barack. That video of Valerie from a few weeks ago about Van Jones isn’t going to help her at all.
What Alan Keyes lawsuit? Obama’s birth certificate or his abortion arrest at Notre Dame?
kittymeyers, your husband may be right…Wright was allegedly advising Obama after Wright was thrown under the bus.
What about Frank Raines and that other guy (who had to resign from the VP panel) that ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the ground?
Now those are the events that should have raised huge red flags with the 53 million people that voted for Obama. But they did not. Why? MSM? What? They had their blinders on????
kittymeyers, your husband may be right…Wright was allegedly advising Obama after Wright was thrown under the bus.
What about Frank Raines and that other guy (who had to resign from the VP panel) that ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the ground?
Now those are the events that should have raised huge red flags with the 53 million people that voted for Obama. But they did not. Why? MSM? What? They had their blinders on????
Even though Van Jones won’t be on the WH payroll and still advising BHO, Glenn Beck, Redstate, Gateway Pundit, et al, had better continue to report that Van continues to advise BHO.
[…] over at Power Line has a good recap. This morning, Malkin, Gateway Pundit, Sister Toldja, and AJ at Strata-Sphere writes … Van Jones is just the first sign that team Obama knows it needs to move smartly away from […]
In trying to game the timing of this announcement in the most pathetic way possible, Obama and Axelrod have once again stabbed the MSM, his most faithful servants, in the back. Wonder if they’ll notice.
Why say that? Because I see this morning that the announcement was made JUST late enough so that none of the Sunday morning papers could cover it. Oh, that’s clever – so clever that anyone who’s interested in this story (which is just about everyone) is forced to go the internet and the alternative media to find out the scoop. By the time the MSM gets around to it, the story will be over a day old, and what good is that? Hopefully they won’t talk about it at all, right?
Force all the reliable customers away from old line media and onto the alternative, internet media. Yeah, great plan. Heck of a business model you got there, guys!!!
Barbara – yes, what upcoming Wednesday Alan Keyes suit, as lurker asks? I Googled it but Google is dumb (mute) about it.
Van Jones is to the Obama Administration’s domestic policies what Andrew Young was to the Jimmy Carter Administration’s foreign policy.
.
A man saying publicly what the Administration really believed behind closed doors…and didn’t want the American public to hear.
.
This has consequences when the Main Stream Media is in your back pocket and won’t give you meaningful critical feedback.
.
The “Army of David” effect of this will show up for Pres. Obama much like it did for VP Al Gore in 2000.
.
Gore lost Tennessee in large part because a lot of local Tennessee papers picked up a World Net Daily series on Gore family political corruption that the Main Stream Media ignored.
.
Thus the Gore for President Campaign ignored Tennessee — who needs to defend his home state — until late election Democratic internal polling suddenly showed Bush43 was leading there by an unbeatable, with remaining Gore 2000 resources, margin.
.
In 2010 there are a lot of “blue area†Democrats that are going to “Get Gored†like Tennessee circa 2000.
Harry Reid is probably gone from the Senate. I don’t think there is much he is going to be able to do in the next 14 months to prevent that. Pelosi’s seat is safe. She is from a fairly “radical” district in San Francisco and I don’t see any Democrats challenging her in the primary. Both Republicans in the district will vote against her but it won’t matter. But I don’t think she will be elected speaker again even if the Democrats maintain control of the House.
I just think the Obama thought that this guy was just fine. They did not have any problem with his views, as usual they were blindsided by the reaction of regular people. It is not as if most of them actually know any regular people.
“It is not as if most of them actually know any regular people.”
They think they ARE regular people. And the probably believe that “normal” people think just like they do. They have a hard time distinguishing stuff in the media that validates their wishes from reality. They forget that the mainstream media is a propaganda outlet for their own agenda and so they look at what the media produces and come to the conclusion that it represents mainstream thought when it doesn’t. It is called a positive feedback loop … or “breathing your own exhaust”.
You want A to be true. So does the media. So the media prints stuff that would validate A being true. You read the media and see what they are printing and believe A to be true in “mainstream” thought so you act as if it is … except the media no longer represents mainstream thought. The people actually do not buy into concept “A” and so you have created a huge backlash and you are having trouble figuring out why. Until the press returns to having outlets for multiple agendas, it is best not used as a gauge of general opinion in the US.
I can’t find the post about Alan Keyes lawsuit. Yes, Whomever, google is dumb about it. All I could see was a lot of snark but nothing recent. But then Google owners are rabid Obama fans.
The post I read said the suit was filed with the Secretary of
State California with a judge named David sonething who was a former marine and very strict about the Constitution. The post said the suit would not be dismissed like the other birth certificate suits were. The lawyer for Keyes has a Kenyan birth certificate. The lawsuit will be Wednesday morning at 8am. That’s all I remember. I wish I cold remember the judge’s last name. I would have been able to track it down then.