Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Van Jones Exit Isn't Right-Wing Win, It's an Obama Surrender
The decision of Van Jones to resign as President Obama's "green jobs" czar is not a victory for Republicans who griped about the White House environmental aide's willingness to call them out on their extreme partisanship.
Nor was it a victory for right-wingnuts like Glenn Beck – who waged a bitter campaign against Jones, highlighting his history of activism on behalf of environmental justice, racial reconciliation, global solidarity and an inquiry into events leading up to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
It was an unnecessary and unwise surrender by an Obama administration there is neither ready nor willing to fight "those who spin lies for profit" -- as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People president Ben Jealous described those who smeared Jones.
Jones made a gracious exit from his key position in an administration that was unwilling to stand up for him, issuing a Labor Day weekend statement that said: "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones said in his resignation statement. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."
Jones said he had been "inundated with calls from across the political spectrum urging me to stay and fight." The NAACP and other groups had initiated campaigns to keep Jones in his position as White House Special Advisor for Green Jobs.
Few doubt that Jones would have stayed on, if the president and his aides had been willing to defend the ablest advocate for green jobs.
Nor is there doubt among those of us who have known and worked with this remarkable man over the years that, when Jones signed a petition or spoke at a rally, he did not always agree with every detail of what was being said – anymore than a Republican congressman who speaks at a teabagger rally agrees with the signs in the crowd that call for acts of violence or a conservative talk-show host agrees with callers who claim President Obama was not born in the United States.
Those heirs to Joe McCarthy who have been waging a campaign to discredit and dismiss high-ranking African-American appointees of the Obama administration have highlighted the fact that Jones' name appeared on a petition calling for an aggressive inquiry into whether Bush-Cheney administration aides failed to take necessary steps to prevent the 9/11 attacks.
While some who circulated that petition may have believed the worst about members of the former administration, Jones clearly and unequivocally stated the more extreme position "certainly does not reflect my views, now or ever."
Jones wanted a more serious inquiry, as did many mainstream Democrats and Republicans who worried about the constrained and ineffectual approach of the 9/11 Commission and a Bush-friendly Congress. As the NAACP's Jealous says, "I have known Van Jones for more than 15 years. In that time he, as is characteristic of great public servants, has continuously grown and increased his capacity for improving the condition of humanity. Throughout, he has been guided by a powerful sense of patriotism and love for all."
Jones' Republican critics knew this.
His Fox TV attackers were fully aware that this was an ugly smear campaign designed not so much to embarrass Jones as to undermine the administration.
They just wanted to get rid of Jones, who has for many years been among the savviest and most effective advocates for green jobs – and whose appointment to the green jobs" position was one of the strongest signals that the Obama administration was serious about both environmental protection and job creation.
President Obama and his aides let the right spin a fantasy about a man who led the highly-regarded Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and was recently listed as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential player's of 2009.
In so doing, they allowed Glenn Beck to define the administration.
This won't make the Obama presidency stronger; nor will it position the president to work more effectively with Congress on issues such as health care reform – let alone "green jobs" initiatives.
The right now knows they can make this administration blink. And they will keep poking and prodding White House aides and appointees until Obama and his inner circle push back.
That's how Washington works.
Republican strategists and the echo chamber in the media understand this.
Unfortunately, the president and his aides do not.
33 Comments so far
Show AllObama is a coward, a sellout and unwilling to fight for the voters that put him there. Look out, Mr. Gumby, you may be fighting Mr. Jones for that nomination in 2011 ...IF you last that long. So happy I voted for Nader.
Those of you so disgusted with Obama: would you prefer McCain? Kerry? Gore? Hillary or Bill? Who? Would your choice have any chance at all of winning election in this country? Like it or not, this is a lesser of two evils situation.
Obama at least gave Van Jones a chance. And what did he do with it? Unless the media have misrepresented the facts (which wouldn't be surprising), he disavowed the substance of the petition he signed, and claimed he signed it without knowing what it said. Not a sterling example of courage and decisiveness.
"More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll." http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll. So why didn't Jones explain his sympathies with a third of the population, instead of appearing to dismiss them as extremists who took advantage of him?
I think Obama erred in not carefully vetting Jones for even as minor a position as this -- vetting him, that is, concerning how he would respond to attacks like the ones that brought him down. But once that damage was done, Obama handled it pretty well. It's time to move on, hopefully with lesson learned.
"So why didn't Jones explain his sympathies with a third of the population, instead of appearing to dismiss them as extremists who took advantage of him?"
Same reason Obama severed his ties to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he and Jones both failed, in those instances (the choices seem eternal and recurring) the "three temptations (powers of sex/creative energy, finance and political) in the wilderness". It would do us all well to read the MLK litany supplied by Ted below, look in the mirror, and ask how we're doing with our own temptations.
Because most still have a tendency to "MoveOn"...
..."Obama handled it pretty well. It's time to move on, hopefully with lesson learned"...
...sweep things under the rug for the sense of short term seeming satisfaction. But the dirt under the rug continues to mount until taken care of. Dave Bing, the current Mayor of Detroit recently characterized the situation in Motown as being similar to when he first arrived in 1967, "a powder keg...that could easily explode." (How different is Detroit's Ghetto from those in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Oakland, Pittsburgh, LA, etc.?)
Obama can continue to sweep Rev. Wright, and Jones the why of 9/11/01, under the rug; with many of us in this forum helping to lift the rug's edge with our self-righteous bantering, but the dirt can only build so high until an avalanche comes crashing out. And we miss the opportunity to choose and witness a depth experience, living a life truly worthy of dying for, and accept a tepid life...MovingOn until circumstances force US to meet our greater selves.
A good analysis Mr. Nichols, and oh so damn true.
I thought Obama had rather reached the bottom of the barrel in the "loss of credibility" department, but this demonstrates he has not.
Based on this article and much else in the "progressive" press, Van Jones is the Teflon man when it comes to any criticism attached to him and his actions. I read his resignation statement as a play of sympathy for Obama initiatives on "health care reform" and "clean energy," both of which are euphemisms for King CONG in energy and for Big Pharma and health "care" providers. (Don't want "distraction" over my case to interfere with THOSE great initiatives): like one final squeal of loyalty to the Great One (I, who am about to die, salute you) as he falls on his sword (or under the bus, if you prefer the updated imagery) And then for him to say that the "views" about 9/11 embedded in the petition he signed in 2004 were "not then or now" my views?---and for Nichols to offer the weak excuse for Jones' plain lying: that he can't be responsible for every little petition he signed at a rally, any more than he could be responsible for every sign held in a crowd. That gem may pass for "reasoning" at The Nation, Mr. Nichols, but it won't pass muster among the more or less clear-headed folks who post on these comment boards.
And finally, where is the sense of distinguishing between a right wing "victory" and an Obama "surrender?" That's like saying that the United States did not win World War II, that the Japanese empire surrendered. Isn't it obvious by now if not before the Jones fiasco, that the right wing in this country is almost guaranteed a victory every time they mount any remotely popular critique of Obama? (Please, please you Republithug bullies, don't hit me again!) It wouldn't surprise me, though I'm not exactly predicting this, that even his seemingly tepid plan to tell the nation's school kids to do their homework and eat their veggies will be cancelled because the furor has made it too "distracting" for him to achieve his "deal at any price" to get some kind of health care reform legislation. (The Republican noise machine doesn't even have to make any sense in its critiques; just make the noise and it will "distract" the opposition enough to stop it.)
It's hard enough for mere mortals to understand Obama. But to understand his critics, his defenders or hybrid severe critics/defenders like John Nichols and Ira Chernus--now that's REALLY hard to do.
Well said and true.
Great analogy on surrender/victory. But its not just Republicans making noise, at this point Seniors and Independents are pretty noisy about all this as well.
"In so doing, they allowed Glenn Beck to define the administration."
Well said, Obama is letting the neocon's define the administration.
Earlier this year, Charles Freeman, who was Obama's nomination for Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, withdrew due to baseless smear attacks led by the Israeli lobby. Another case, in which Obama failed to support the nominee.
obama is a Yuppie Coward. obama does what Yuppie Cowards do.
One thing this shows quite clearly is that Obama is indeed a total coward before any and every rightwing slander and assault on his tepid administration. He's far more interested in not annoying the Glenn Becks, Limbaughs and Hannitys of Faux News, than he is in defending his own appointees from any nutball's fascist attacks. All he's ever really seemed to want is appeasing the far right on absolutely every issue. He NEVER gives a shit what his "progressive base" thinks about anything. And he's been like this from day one. How anyone can still be deluded about this imposter's "liberal" credentials is truly mystifying.
This really is disgusting.
Who's next? Attorney General Eric Holder, despite supposedly being more independent? If he ever was serious about investigating the war crimes of the previous administration, you can forget that dream now... Message sent and received.
-30-
Thats the pattern. Let each element of (potential positive) change find its own natural path to destruction. Heath care, Green jobs, workers rights, prisoners rights, accountability...just let the pigs at the top of the $hitheap keep directing the flow of progress as our beaming president and his lovely daugthers and wife wave madly, give a little cheer, and have a cocktail or a beer. Now the MF's are buying up life insurance policies. That cant be good. Lets see how the pattern plays out...
I take comfort in the fact that Democratic voters rejected Obama in the primaries. They had to count the votes in a funny way to put the little guy over the top.
Are you one of those who would claim that Hillary would have been better? Now there's a delusion.
I still have my Kucinich bumper sticker firmly in place. Hillary? geesh....
Sioux Rose
He capitulates to the right wing because he is obviously made in the cloth cut from "The Chicago School."
Years ago I lived in London and met some handsome Arab men whose wealthy fathers sent them there to get their education. Now it would seem that organized crime (or its politically well-placed equivalent) has sent its sons (and a few daughters) to private schools to get the kind of training that does organized crime proud. And that level of nefarious corruption reflects in most policies signed, sealed, and delivered from the Oval Office.
Obama appointed people who were in on past policies, or implemented recent ones that align entirely with the Bush neocon agenda. He does not represent OTHER than that, but benefits from the ILLUSION that he has higher ideals, and were it not for the power of the right wing echo chamber, imagine what the man could get done. Bah, humbug!
Obama may not have been a cheerleader like Bush, but my new motto for him is "Rooting for the Looting teams." What corporation has Obama not bowed down before? Big Pharma/insurance, MIC, banker-hustlers? It's a macabre dance of death to any who value what's still living, including our own languishing spirits, not quite dead yet!
Barak Obama - The Legend of Bagless Vance
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
no defeat at all
obama is a nwo shill and the plan to destroy what is left of our country is going very well under his carefully guided presidency (shout out to obama's mentor the evil dr kissinger), via the bank scam and the healthcare disaster brother o is cooking up
after 6 months of his shit i for one have seen enough
worse,we are headed straight back to a gop majority in washington thanks to this incompetent little bugger - and the next gop regime will make bush's seem like - well, not that bad a thing
once his "work" is completed then he will revert back to being what he always was in the eyes of the nwo - an uppity nigger from chicago. he'll be discarded and every now and then we'll ask ourselves - why in the hell did i vote for that bastard
that is how psychopaths operate
down with the assassin turncoat obama/sotero
Obama is not incompetent, he is following the agenda set forth by his corporate bosses .... it's all by design. Yes, this will be a one term president, triple majority and all.
"Brand Obama" was marketed exactly for these results? The psyops are far ahead of us. I am anxiously awaiting their next move - more obfuscation, maybe a bone or two, little ones of course, but in American, it doesn't take much to satisfy the hungry masses. "Oh look, a little bone! We are loved, after all!" Vote Obama, 2012! or else!
The right wing attack machine helps Obama because it puts him in a position of needing support. "We can't let them do this to our Obama!" "They want to take him down!" "They hate his socialist agenda!" When the "they" have an historically low public approval rating, why is Obama even giving them the time of day let alone giving in to their rantings?
rv: agreed
Nichols is wrong:
"Republican strategists and the echo chamber in the media understand this. Unfortunately, the president and his aides do not."
Why is Nichols pretending that Obama and his cohorts just don't understand how things work? Obama, a Senator from Chicago, doesn't "understand" what a triple majority means? Obama thinks a triple majority means the Republicans - whose ratings are in the toilet - should have power over the Dems who now enjoy a triple, filibuster proof majority! this is a chance of a lifetime and they are blowing it!??
And Nichols says that Obama and his inner circle will genuflect to the right wingnuts until they learn to push back. Ha! That's funny because that's exactly what I see Obama and his "inner circle" doing ... they're pushing back - only it's We the People their pushing back against.
Yes. Disappointment with this administration abounds...but why focus on what's failing? I applaud Mr. Jones (whom I have seen speak, and he is a fantastic and vibrant force for real change)--for conserving his energy for those who need it most--the millions of people who suffer the consequences of our stacked socioeconomic deck, who want living wages and healthy, proud-making jobs.
That he doesn't cast his pearls of hope and truth at the swine who attack him will be construed as weakness. I see it as the high road. Van Jones would rather blaze new paths than walk the donkey's endless circular rut that is washington politics. Go Van. I support you.
Yawn.
Before getting all fired up, consider this. Why is the absence or presence of a particular personality so important to the Obama regime? Could it be that it has no enduring policy proposals to back up its green jobs claims in the first place?
Clean coal? Nuclear energy? Those were Obama's campaign promises.
If you want green jobs, maybe try voting for the Green Party.
Corporate-owned parties (Dems and Repugs) don't have such priorities.
-TIA
It's not so much the absence of Jones that hurts--though that is lamentable--as the manner in which Obama cut him loose in the face of a campaign of baseless lies and smears by truly creepy characters. Many of us who have been disappointed in BO thus far have taken consolation in the fact that at least he is a fundamentally decent person who will surely see the light eventually. But even Obama's basic decency must now be in question in light of this cowardly capitulation to the forces of evil.
Lani Guinier, anyone?
There are some similarities, but this is much worse as an act of political cowardice on Obama's part. Though I have immense respect for her, Lani Guinier does have views in political philosophy that were highly controversial, having to do, roughly, with revising the way we vote in order to give minorities a greater voice. The criticisms of her by the right were not purely based on lies and smears (though there was some of that). Reasonable people could and did object to her on legitimate ideological grounds. In the case of Jones, the entire campaign against him was nothing but a pack of lies and smears spewed forth by utterly unreasonable and despicable characters. It is appalling that Obama cut him loose in this way.
Just like, for sure!
I totally disagree with the title of this article which seems again to prove that John Nichols cannot see the forest for the trees.
To say this is not a right wing victory is the same as saying Mr. Jones has been hoping this would happen.
Obama could hardly surrender something he has never really claimed or fought for.
Obama is not stupid or innocent in this. He has rarely missed a chance to do the bidding of the right wing, while he regularly and almost consistently ignores progressives.
When the democrats see that Obama isn't likely to win the next election for them, he'll be able to run for the republican ticket and then the dems can nominate Lieberman. I hope the folks at "the Nation" won't have too much trouble deciding who to back.
birdbrain: obama also did not lose the health care debate, in the same sense, he never even got into it
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A lie cannot live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A right delayed is a right denied.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
WE are a Nation of technological Giants and Moral Midgets
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I agree with John Nichols entirely. It was with a great deal of pride in our political system that I voted for Obama, but his seeming addiction to bipartisanship and pleasant conversation with total foes has become an obstacle to progress as progressives define it.
Health care reform without an aggressive public option will be a gift to the insurance industry and a drain on taxpayers, and watered-down global warming legislation without tough measures to reduce permanently the use of coal will do nothing useful.
FDR, we need you again.
A final comment: one expects rightwing savages to rant and rave and to mangle the English language, but is it necessary that supposed progressives do so also? Some of the comments on Common Dreams appear to be written by deranged wannabe high school dropouts.
Obama is the wrong target - he is a popular brand behind which the Wall Street elite is carrying out an almost unchallenged consolidation of power. Those who produced one of the most successful marketing campaigns in recent political history have specific corporate goals for the Obama presidency and he is achieving all of them superbly.
A real leader would use the opportunities Obama has been given, even if he faced certain defeat. He would realize that "the political center" is an optical illusion. He would instinctively understand that Republican support could only be a cruel hoax. Instead, he would rally his newly fledged legions of young fans and proclaim positions radical enough to get them excited, even if he secretly knew they would face severe obstacles. He would set the bar high enough for real achievement to be possible.
But Obama is not that leader. His rapid capitulation to Fox news personalities on the issue of Van Jones is of a piece with what is already becoming a long litanies of surrenders. The refusal to fight is the refusal to care.
One foreseeable result of the cumulative crises which he is bound to mishandle is the election of a far-right Republican president in 2012. This Republican may have the intellectual chops of an Arnold Schwartzenegger or the feckless, good-old-girl charm of Sarah Palin, but it won't matter. This president will take orders from the same corporate headquarters as Obama, but with the incomparable advantage of arriving after 4 years of feckless "liberalism." It's the Hannity and Colmes strategy. Use a cartoonish liberal cliche to highlight the granite chin of fascism.
This new president will be empowered to wipe away what's left of the Constitution, establish military rule, and eliminate all government programs other than the armed forces, law enforcement, the Federal Reserve and the prison system. Anything less will be characterized as "Obamism."
What else is new?
Maybe Van Jones' resignation was all for the best (as d4ndeliOn suggests), or maybe this latest purging of the Obama inner circle should be cause for still greater cynicism and gnashing of progressive teeth. Is it evidence of tactical ineptitude, or evidence of substantive betrayal, by the new White House team leadership? Does this distinction even matter any more?
For me, only two things appear certain about the Van Jones dust up.
First, in the great cake walk of Cabinet level and upper echelon appointments of the Obama administration, when the music stopped the ideological affiliation of those safely seated in chairs around the big table where consensus would be brokered were definitely not a rainbow coalition. The hard right, the moderate right, the centrist flip floppers, the Dem party hacks, the habitual triangulators, and loyal neo-liberal apologists were all prominently represented. The seats for the progressive left were very few and very far between. And there is now - significantly - one less.
Second, any hint of reopening inquiry into the official narrative about the 9/11 attacks appears to be the new third rail of domestic US politics (messing with the Social Security safety net used to be). Van Jones' biggest problem was his signature on that 9/11 petition. It's a touchy, touchy issue because Barack Obama and his national security team could declassify all the stuff with held from the 911 Commission by Bush and Cheney tomorrow, if they wanted to.
Bill from Saginaw