Count me in as relieved and thrilled that Van Jones was forced into resignation.  He was a big part of the reason I wrote that I was unsettled.  The fact that a man like that was anywhere near the White House is chilling.

Stanley Kurtz:

In light of all we now know, this gauzy January 12 profile of Jones in The New Yorker is well worth a read. What do you see? I see the too-rapid rise of an inexperienced and poorly vetted man (poorly vetted by the entire liberal establishment, not just the White House) adept at getting and wasting vast sums of money for virtually non-existent plans, all based on seductive political rhetoric rather than substance.

Jonah Goldberg:

I just watched David Axelrod, the top ranking political advisor in the White House, and Robert Gibbs, the President's spokesman on "Meet the Press" and "This Week" respectively. Neither of them was willing, even after repeated questioning, to offer a single negative word about Van Jones. Not one word. A 9/11 Truther and defender of Mumia-Abu Jamal is not radical enough for this White House to distance itself from the man in any way. Again and again, this White House has been offered chances to condemn the man's views and they have willfully and quite deliberately refused.

Andy McCarthy:

The point, of course, is that Obama vetted Jones just fine. President Obama is not Mr. Magoo — haplessly gravitating to Truther Van and Ayers and Dohrn and Klonsky and Davis and Wright and the Chicago New Party and ACORN, etc. Jones is a kindred spirit. Obama knows exactly who he is. Jones was given a non-confirmation job precisely because that circumvented the vetting process. This isn't one of those things that just happen. This is Barack "Transparency" Obama gaming the system. 

And similarly, from VDH:

When Van Jones talks of the aims of the civil rights movement and its initial minimalist agenda, he references the ultimate desire of 'redistributing all wealth.' When one collates that revelation with Obama's own off-handed "spread the wealth" comment, his 'fair share' sermons, and his 2001 public radio interview thoughts on “the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society,” we begin to see a pattern in which one’s income and wealth do not properly belong to the earner, but are seen as illegitimate and thus legitimately can be redistributed to others.

I am glad that man is gone.  But the fact he was ever there in the first place still alarms me.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:32 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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