A lot of you seem to think the wingnuts are going to be emboldened by Jones stepping down, and I find that curious. They aren’t going to feel emboldened by anything- they have already cranked it up to 11. They aren’t going to feel more energized because they have a scalp- that isn’t how they operate. Chriminy, a month into the administration Malkin was blaming Obama for the stock market- when it went back up, she seemed to lose all interest in it.
I think you fail to realize how these guys think. Nothing makes them feel emboldened or empowered- they had all three branches of government for most of the 2000 era, and they were permanent victims of Ted Kennedy. They got everything they wanted but it was the liberals and the media who were causing the setbacks in Iraq. Feeling emboldened because they got a scalp might seem logical and reasonable, but we are not dealing with rational actors. We are dealing with crazy people. Even if Jones did not step down, they would be behaving the same exact way, BECAUSE THEY ARE CRAZY PEOPLE.
Besides, the next week or two, they will all be distracted by something else. Michael Moore’s new movie is coming out. That will be the next feeding frenzy.
Also, Michael Moore is fat.
Keith
Charlie Rangel is next.
Alan
Can we call them traitors yet?
valdivia
I just love how all the left bloggosphere is now more committed than the right to the idea that Obama is a weakling traitor of the cause. I think this is the major difference between right and left–the right would never give into the other side’s frame so easily, but we on the left jump as high as the right wing wants us even when our guys is doing exactly what he told us he would do. Jones *had* to go, Obama knows when he has to cut people lose, I bet you if he had not on Weds we would not have heard about Health care on the news but about the truther employed by the WH. That is how the Village plays.
Also–I am totally with John.
John Cole
@Keith: If they are smart, they will back down on Rangel for now and save that for 2010 midterms.
parksideq
Tomorrow, Sonia Sotomayor will announce that she needs to “spend more time with family,” and retire from the SCOTUS.
She will be the first Hispanic justice to serve less than 24 hours on the Court. Also.
Skepticat
“I think you fail to realize how these guys think.”
Think?
El Cid
The right may be CRAZY, but the general public sees that the CRAZY right condemned a member of the Obama administration for being an anti-American radical and that official is gone within days, which looks pretty validating for the legitimacy and power of the right’s charges.
Anya
“I’m heartbroken over Van’s departure because it’s these little meaningless concessions that undermine people’s faith in the system. You get folks all riled up about change. You empower a man who embodies that change. And they you let him be run out of office by fucking Glenn Beck? So Glenn Beck is running the White House now? Is that how it’s gonna be? Just tell me that I knocked on all those doors for nothing, and I can start the grieving process, but don’t pretend this will solve anything.” From Jack Turner of Jack & Jill.
That is how I feel. If Glen Beck and the wingnuts are setting the agenda, how did we put in all the efforts to elect this president. I am truly heartbroken, not because of my abiding love for Van Jones but because what this action — feeding him to the wolves — is signaling.
Brick Oven Bill
Two reviews of Beck’s book.
Top Critical Review:
I had to stop watching Glenn Beck on TV because he infuriates me, this book was no exception. It was an interesting read but not very factual, his name calling was toned down, but I would not recommend as a source of real information.
Top Positive Review:
I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, but I was duly impressed after reading it. Beck makes some excellent points about how the government is operating, versus how it was designed to operate.
I recommend that everyone put their preconceived notions about Glenn Beck aside and read this book.
You will note that those critical of Beck seek to suppress the exchange of information and those who support Beck invite the exchange of information. In my opinion, this is because most points Beck makes are valid.
Suppressing the exchange of information is not good. Trying to discredit the messenger is the Alinsky way, but Beck is a fighter, and discrediting him only makes his microphone more powerful.
You will note the book review scores are overwhelmingly either ‘5s’ or ‘1s’. This is the split occurring in the country, which will boil down to ‘pro-Constitution’ vs. ‘anti-Constitution’. This is why the Founders made the military swear allegiance to a document, and not a man. These were very smart people.
scarshapedstar
It doesn’t matter if they are emboldened or not. What matters is that the MSM will start crowing about how they’re emboldened, and suddenly each daily nonsensical wingnut freakout (“Obama encourages parents to change infants’ diapers; outraged conservatives call diaper rash ‘junk science’, carry reeking, soiled babies into government offices in protest”) will be transformed into one more wave of the Perfect Wingnut Storm crashing into Obama’s ship of state.
They love a scalping and while this has about as much chance of appeasing the birthers as a virgin sacrifice has of calming an active volcano, you can bet the mushy middle isn’t too impressed with Obama losing his 73rd consecutive game of chicken with the deranged, powerless minority.
Bush never did this shit, not in his first term anyway, and they respected him for it. Not saying that he should seek to emulate Bush, but when a firing is wrong on the merits and terrible politics to boot, I gotta wonder what the fuck they’re thinking.
licensed to kill time
Walking back on the end-of-life counseling was spun as a win by the right. Changing the wording of the lesson plan for Obama’s speech was spun as a win. Letting Van Jones go will be spun as a win and a validation of their hair-on-fire fantasies about Obama’s evil machinations. That’s what bothers me about it – how they use these capitulations, if you want to call them that, as confirmation that they are correct.
I agree that they will keep the knob turned up to eleventy-one no matter what, however.
Ambergris
Mark Lloyd will be next, in combination with a campaign against the nonexistent fairness doctrine.
kth
@Brick Oven Bill: Shorter retarded wingnut: a “thumbs up” review is an endorsement of a free exchange of ideas. A “thumbs down” review is an endorsement of censorship.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@El Cid: Beck could bring in David Icke and Gene Ray tomorrow and the Village would take the charges of lizardmen and time cubes as very serious allegations. The fringe right’s already been legitimized.
cleek
@El Cid:
i’d bet the general public doesn’t know anything at all about this little blow up.
mid-level appointee in charge of some silly-sounding initiative which will never go anywhere anyway stepped down? Yawwwwn.
Eljai
I’m been a big fan of Van Jones. It made me feel confident and hopeful to see at least one real grass-roots progressive on the Obama team among the corporate hacks like Tim Geithner. It appears to me that the right-wing crazies have successfully mainstreamed the demonization of an intelligent, passionate, progressive leader. If there’s going to be another feeding frenzy regardless of what we do, then how do we stop this nonsense? I’m just really frustrated with this turn of events.
NS
JackieBinAZ
@Brick Oven Bill: I bet you cook a lot of pie in that brick oven.
JackieBinAZ
Now if that filter could pie any reference to Megan McArdle, my happiness would be complete.
JD Rhoades
So let me get this straight: you can call the President a racist, call Democrats traitors or tell a US Senator to go fuck himself, and you get to keep your job. Call Republicans assholes and you’re shitcanned. Have I got this right?
Violet
@cleek:
It made the news. It was one of the top stories on the Today Show this morning. David Gregory was brought in to discuss it. Yuck. The average person may not know who Van Jones is, but they probably know one of Obama’s people had to leave due to some controversy. That’s never a good thing.
The wingnuts don’t have any base in reality anymore. The Democrats should recognize that and learn to play hardball. I don’t think they have a clue how to combat the kind of crazy that the wingnuts bring. It’s not that hard, though. Speak the truth. Don’t waste your time trying to find consensus. And practice strict message control. The Dems are bad at all three. They need to get their act together.
And yeah, we had a good run as a country. And I do know how to garden. Need to learn how to can, though.
HyperIon
@cleek: i’d bet the general public doesn’t know anything at all about this little blow up.
it’s on the front page of WaPo.
i don’t think the “bit off pinkie” story got on the front page.
Rosali
I hope Color of Change comes back with guns blazing. There’s still lots of work to do.
Ed Marshall
The most depressingly stupid, grade z, Glenn Beck grade conservotrolls are out and gleeful this morning and that’s all I need to think it was a bad idea shitcanning them. If they don’t have frowny faces my day is ruined.
Davis X. Machina
Charlie Rangel is next.
Can’t expect the Purple Heart for a self-inflicted wound. Charlie’s a grown-up. He knew better, and over-reached anyways.
cleek
with all due respect, JC, this is surely wrong. not only are they going to feel even more emboldened (look what the Dan Rather thing did to them – turned them all into aggressive investigative forensic scientists, spawned the Birther movement), most political amps go a hell of a lot higher than 11. for example: if this is 11, where would you rank mob violence or politically-motivated assassination ?
(my little Fender amp goes to 12, btw)
cleek
@HyperIon:
i don’t know anybody IRL who reads WaPo.
JHF
All I know is that I can’t stand any of this. It totally ruins my day(s) and makes me ugly, so my wife hates me. And yet I can’t stop looking at the same half-dozen blogs every day. It’s like the dead guy outside my front door. I have to look and see if I recognize him.
A year-long power failure would help. Either that or a) 24/7 sex, drugs, & rock & roll, alternating with b) grace-delivered periods of actual spiritual enlightenment. Neither one seems sustainable for very long at a time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get better at them both. Only have control over the first, of course. My country needs me horny, blotto, and loud!
Will see what I can do.
smiley
This story is by far the biggest thing going at memorandum:
http://www.memeorandum.com/090906/p4#a090906p4
Has been for the last day or two. I think Neiwert over at C&L is right. Maybe I don’t understand how right wingers think but I understand how reinforcement works. If that sort of attention is in fact a reinforcer for that behavior, they’ll continue to try to do it.
El Cid
Any allegations of time cubes must be treated with utmost seriousness.
Polish the Guillotines
Here’s the thing about crazy people: They can’t control themselves and eventually pick the wrong targets.
They can get away with the “where there’s smoke there must be fire” implications for a little while, which convinces normally sane bystanders to give them some consideration.
But then they go after the bystanders.
Happened with McCarthy when he went after the Army. How crazy do have to be to accuse the institution that just saved the world from fascism — and housed and fed millions of people’s dads, brothers, uncles — of being a hot-bed of communism? Does not compute. Epic fail.
All we have to do is keep the nuts away from the levers of power and they’ll eventually marginalize themselves.
Svensker
Just got back from a trip to Toronto (no Fox News!) and then a leisurely drive down through upstate NY (no internet!) and it was so relaxing and nice. Now that we’re back, it’s hard to believe how nuts these people are. Doesn’t make me want to be an American much any more. What’s the point?
Leelee for Obama
I think Charlie Rangel may be retiring for the next election. He’s 77, and this tax mess will be part of any campaign, and maybe he’s ready to say I’m done.
I don’t think Harlem will be electing any Republicans in 2010, does anyone else?
gocart mozart
On the bright side, we had a pretty decent run as a country.
AB
On the bright side… don’t Stewart and Colbert come back next week? We could sure use the reinforcements.
SGEW
Oh, Charlie Rangel. I love ’em like crazy (he’s been my Congressperson for years, and I have been an enthusiastic constituent), but if he really did fuck up as badly as the allegations allege, then out he goes.
Jebus, Charlie. Playing fast and loose with rent stabilized apartments? Fucking break my heart already.
Bill E Pilgrim
Oh I don’t think the issue is whether it “emboldens” anyone, at least not for me it isn’t. The issue is that it won’t appease or silence anyone either, it doesn’t remove the issue as a right wing talking point, it just gives them a new one.
“He proved that we were right that he had hired an inappropriately radical adviser because he fired him when we raised a stink about it” is just as powerful as the raising a stink was.
You should never try to placate these people, or hope that by doing so it removes the issue as an issue. You could do that by just ignoring it. Case in point? The birth certificate. If Barack Obama “released” another birth certificate to appease these lunatics, would that make the issue go away?
Nope. Plus you don’t need to, by ignoring it, it goes away about as much as it ever would in any circumstances, plus you never legitimized it by taking it seriously.
He chose exactly the right approach on that one: ignore it. This one, not so much.
Ed Marshall
Check this out:
How Van Jones Happened and What We Need to Do Next
The Van Jones affair could be an important turning point in the Obama administration if we use it as a window to understand the structure of the left and to stop the huge power-grab now taking place in the name of green jobs. It’s also one of the most significant things I’ve ever had the honor of being involved in. Here’s how, from my perspective, it happened and what it means.
This is the bullshit you are going to hear now for months.
BR
Forget what Color of Change will do to combat this – what are you and I doing to fight back against Beck?
We need to contact every one of these advertisers:
http://foxnewsboycott.com/botm/botm-september-2009/
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909030040
I did it this morning and it took 20 minutes. If everyone here does the same, we’ll see the tide of advertisers leaving Beck continue.
Ella in NM
JSDreyer
The wingers didn’t get everything they wanted in the 2000s. They didn’t privatize social security, for example. They didn’t get school vouchers. The didn’t get a federal ban on homosexual marriage. They didn’t even get to “save” Terry Shiavo.
NR
Everything you said in this post is true, John.
And yet, Obama is still trying to placate these people.
So really, who’s crazier?
Polish the Guillotines
By way of dkos, it looks like the next targets have been selected.
This has apparently inspired Keith Olbermann to go even harder against Glen Beck.
Food fight!
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@NR: What evidence do we have that Obama is trying to ‘placate these people’?
feebog
I think it is important to seperate the true crazys from the merely ignorant and misinformed. Case in point, the Al Franken confrontation by Tea Baggers at the State Fair a couple days ago. Al not only talked them down, he had them actually listening to what he had to say within a few minutes. Its important to recognize that there are some right-wingers out there who are not right-wingnuts. OK, maybe just a few, but we need to make the distinction.
Brick Oven Bill
Glenn Beck has said little that was not honest and factually accurate. Note how BR seeks to silence him.
True Liberalism boils down to the 7 Liberal Arts; Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. These were the tools than men used to break free from the intellectual repression of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
The modern Left has much in common with the Catholic Church-1500s. Shut up, shut up, shut up. This does not prevent the earth from rotating around the sun, however. The Constitution was inspired by the Enlightenment, and its celebration of understanding, as enabled by the 7 Liberal Arts. You cannot shut this up.
Question with boldness, Glenn tells his audience. This is pretty good advice.
Bill E Pilgrim
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: I’m really not following this.
So they can bring up any insane thing they want, make it an issue…. and then to capitulate and react to is, we say now is only to get other people to stop talking about it, not them?
So anything they want to make into an issue, if they can succeed in doing so, then it will have the force of law, so to speak, not because anyone cares what they think, but only what others think?
So I guess my question is, in that case: What’s the difference?
devopsych
Call them what they are, a lynch mob.
licensed to kill time
@Brick Oven Bill:
You and Glenn Beck both toss great word salad.
Ann B. Nonymous
Have I missed something? A little perspective:
First newsworthy sub-sub-Cabinet level resignation in the Obama administration, September 5, 2009.
First mass terrorist attack in the Bush administration, September 11, 2001.
I’m going out to brunch. Pomegranate mimosas.
BombIranForChrist
They aren’t going to feel emboldened by anything- they have already cranked it up to 11.
I think this is something that Obama critically does not understand. There is no reasoning with these people. There is no reasoning with people who are elected by these people.
They are emboldened, alright. They are emboldened by crazy.
DougJ
I don’t think Jones stepping down is a big deal. People step down for this kind of thing all the time. Trent Lott had to step down as majority leader for some drunken after-dinner words, for example.
I also agree that the wingers already have it at 11.
But what’s significant here is that this was led by Beck, not Rush and Hannity. There’s a new leader of the Republican party.
gbear
@Ann B. Nonymous:
Thanks for that. Well said.
It’s time to get out in the sunshine here too. A non-stupid world awaits.
JenJen
@valdivia: This is exactly right. You must be in my head, because I’ve been thinking this for weeks now.
Ptirebiter
@ John & Valdivia:
From your lips to firedog’s ears.
We really can’t afford to expect even the minimum degree of rational response from these people. Believing otherwise could cost us Poland.
Jonny Scrum-half
Brick-Oven Bill — I don’t disagree with your suggestion that it’s smart to be skeptical of government. I also don’t disagree that many liberals are too eager to find reasons to defend Obama and their “team.”
But why did I hear the exact opposite from Bush supporters from 2002-08, in particular whenever anyone expressed opposition to the invasion of Iraq? Then, I was told that to express disagreement with the government’s position was the same as giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy. Or, alternatively, that I was suffering from “Bush Derangement Syndrome.”
I’m really beginning to believe that people are incapable of honest disagreements about things.
Mrs. Peel
So I guess Obama’s overall strategy is you always bring a white flag to a gun fight.
He folds faster than a cheap umbrella in a windstorm.
Beeb
It isn’t about placating wingnuts, precisely. It’s about throwing the latest shiny object under a bus because it’s easier and less time consuming than fighting back. Of course another shiny object will appear, but at least that one is gone. And it was SOP in the Obama camp before his election. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now, but it is what it is. Doesn’t anyone remember Samantha Power? OTOH, gone for now isn’t necessarily gone forever. See, e.g., Samantha Power.
Mrs. Peel
And Van Jones was right. Repiggies do what they do because they ARE assholes.
Deal with it.
valdivia
@JenJen:
glad to know I am not the only one who thinks this way. I am so exasperated now with all the pearl clutching. I hope weds will put everything to rest, at least for a little while.
WereBear
We have yet to come up with a perfect way of Disabling the Wingnut, and as long as they have the MSM by the short and curlies, it will be an uphill battle.
However, I do like this.
Allan
OK, here’s the deal.
Van was never going to be a good fit inside the Obama administration. He’s not a nicey-nicey let’s all hold hands and sing kumbaya person. He was going to be muzzled as long as he stayed, which I suspected would only be a year or so before he would resign so he could go back to calling Republicans assholes.
By calling for his head, the wingers have actually unleashed one of our most effective advocates.
Thank you, Glenn Beck.
And if you thought Color of Change did a number on your advertising base, just wait til Rupert sees what we all do the the entire Fox News empire with an uncensored Van Jones out front.
You’ll wish he was back in the Obama administration holding summits on weatherizing when we’re done with you.
ppcli
@Polish the Guillotines:
If it’s true that they’ve targeted Sunstein, then it will be an important test case. I have a feeling that there were lots of other issues behind the scenes with Jones. (Also, his Wikipedia page describes him as a fellow of “The Institute for Noetic Sciences”, which to judge by their website is dedicated to fairly nutty pseudoscience. I’m no happier to have a fellow from said institute in a science-related job than I would be to have a Discovery institute fellow.) But if Obama gives Sunstein the Lani Guinier treatment, it will be a long, painful term, with victim after victim.
.
It’s not as if this is new. Robert Welch (John Birch Society founder) said that Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers (Secretary of State and CIA head) were agents of a communist conspiracy. A lot of people listened. The only thing that has changed is that Welch has been cloned and given a nightly hour on Fox news.
valdivia
@Allan:
word.
gbear
@Mrs. Peel:
So does our patience and faith. Fickle bunch, we are.
Jones isn’t disappearing at any rate. He’ll be more effective outside of government than inside. Both Jones and Obama know this. Let him go back to fucking with Beck’s advertisers full time for a while.
Sly
“Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than of blind-folded fear.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Beck is not telling his audience to do this. Not in the least. He’s telling them to be afraid of FEMA camps, Communists/ Fascists, artwork by Diego Rivera, the scary man in the White House, and a random string of events and people that make up the acronym “OLIGARH” (sic).
On the plus side, though, I will say that, taken for what he is, Beck is immensely entertaining. For decades the only major voice of the right has been an amalgam of flagrant self-promotion and snickering douchebaggery. In most cases the only thing that came over me after listening to Sean Hannity or Mark Levin was the urgent need to take a shower.
Beck has both of those, to be sure. He’s a shameless self-promoter, milking both 9/11 and a twisted reading of Enlightenment philosophy to enrich himself. He’s also the kind of guy who does a whole segment on Earth Day about one of his interns keeping an SUV running to stick it to Al Gore, that dirty hippy.
But he at least brings paranoid schizophrenia properly back into the mix of the modern conservative animus. Selfish, ignorant, and crazy have seldom found refuge in a single political movement. Be proud!
licensed to kill time
@WereBear:
There’s a commenter called Party Like It’s 1990 who has been pimping this for the last few days – he pops in and drops it, doesn’t hang around.
Allan
Thanks, Valdivia. I’m going to repeat something I said earlier today over at RumpRoast on Betty Cracker’s thread, because I think it bears repeating.
We on the left have thought that it was sufficient to shine a light on the racism, the idiocy, the anti-Americanism of the Christianofascist right with our mastery of the YouTubes and the damning quote and our mockery. But publicly shaming someone who lacks the capacity for shame has no actual impact on our targets.
What we must do instead is what we’re doing with Beck. We must attack these enemies of democracy where they live. We must hit them in the pocketbook. We must force their firings and resignations and remove them from positions of power and influence. We must destroy them. That is all they understand, and until they stand in the burned-out shambles of their careers and their livelihoods weeping for all that has been taken away from them, they will not have been properly dealt with.
Mr Furious
Jones isn’t disappearing at any rate. He’ll be more effective outside of government than inside. Both Jones and Obama know this.
Horseshit.
While that may be true, nominating him for the post if that’s what they believe was even more stupid than backing down.
JenJen
@licensed to kill time: Indeed! licensed to kill time FTW!
And this is overdue: BOB? Piss off, would you?
Mrs. Peel
So does our patience and faith.
Bite me.
It’s becoming obvious that the “hope” Barry was selling us was his eternal “hope” that he could placate the Repugs. He’s more than willing to go to war with his own party then to take on his enemies across the aisle – I’m just returning the favor.
I didn’t vote for him to have Rahm Emanuel run the country.
valdivia
@Allan:
well said. again.
I actually think part of the problem is that we on the left get angry at Obama instead of getting angry at the sources of the Village spin and putting our anger to work on them. So we need to push Obama, absolutely. That does not mean declaring him a wimp, a failure and Bush-light. It means arguing forcefully and positively for action and rewarding good behavior (release of holly grail report, openness of WH record). Instead we take Village rumors as the word from God and start hyperventilating on hypothetical (see release of holly grail report and WH openness). Instead we should begin pressuring the Village to act with the shame and decency they should have and the only way to do this is by acting as you suggest. Agitate against the M-F’ers.
The Jones thing is not a hypothetical it happened but it could not be helped. The idea that Obama will let all his close appointees go because of this is just as nuts as what the other side thinks.
licensed to kill time
@JenJen:
I hesitated to click reply on a BoB comment, but his posts always strike me as the proverbial handful of spaghetti on the ceiling with word salad on the side.
Mr Furious
I didn’t vote for him to have Rahm Emanuel run the country.
Word.
Emanuel should be knocking heads, not calling shots. That’s not what it looks like.
Ned Ludd
I’m pissed that Obama is letting Dawn Johnsen’s appointment languish. Republicans hate her because she worked for NARAL 20 years ago and called the Bush administration’s torture memos “outlandish” and “shockingly flawed“.
BTW, what ever happened to Emily Moran? She started as the White House Communications Director, but within a few months was gone from the West Wing.
I voted for Obama because I didn’t want the worst of Clinton’s old triangulating Wall Street crew back in the White House. And who do we get? Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, and Rubin/Summers protégé Timothy Geithner. Oh, and pro-Iraq War, “who me apologize?” Hillary Clinton, too.
Allan
Mr. Furious, I can’t tell you how many veteran blog readers and political junkies I have seen this week asking, “Who is Van Jones?” Gawker ran an article with that title this Friday.
Even in progressive/left circles, he was still little-known even after being appointed to the Obama administration.
He’s famous now, isn’t he?
Whatever he says or does next will be amply covered.
ironranger
No rational people can fathom how rightwingers can claim sole ownership of values & morals until we see they are following an entirely different rule book that they made up so they could do exactly what they want any time they want. Three year old children (or spoiled, out of control teenagers) behave much the same way.
balki
JC – With all due respect, where do you get off blaming this on the Republicans? You called on him to step down a couple of days ago when you suspected his involvement with the 9-11 truth movement. Yes, you backed off when he came up with whatever his excuse was, but your initial reaction to throw him under the bus at the mere suggestion that he was affiliated with “truthers” only bolsters the right’s view that it’s acceptable to banish someone from public life based on affiliation with an idea that you find objectionable.
I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that he wouldn’t have stepped down just because of the petition (for which he already gave an excuse). I would guess he’s getting out now because there’s more info that’s not yet public. So it appears that he may be a truther after all. And now he’s been run out of town. This is what you called for.
Brachiator
@cleek:
Probably not true. The UK Daily Mail not only has coverage about Jones, but they have a YouTube embed referencing a 2005 speech that Jones made about white school kids and incidents like Columbine.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1211354/More-race-embarrassment-Obama-gaffe-prone-adviser-says-suburban-white-kids-carry-Columbines.html
Even though the Daily Mail piece correctly points out that Jones was calling for more attention to be paid to all school kids with problems, they way this old speech was dug up and the way it is being connected to Rev Jeremiah Wright and Skip Gates, it’s pretty clear that the opposition was going to ramp this up as further evidence that Obama is a crypto-racist who hates all white people.
I don’t think that JC is wrong here. The mainstream GOP set their strategy as soon as Obama was elected:
Deny or de-emphasize the importance of every Obama victory. Criticize everything that Obama says or does, even when it can be shown that a Republican did or said exactly the same thing in a similar circumstance. Tacitly endorse every wingnut rant against Obama, backpedalling only when necessary and then only at the last minute.
For example, had the release of the two journalists in North Korea happened under Dubya’s watch, Bush would have been hailed as one of the greatest statesmen that every held political office. Instead, even Clinton’s role was derided. I heard more jokes about Clinton partying it up on the plane with two attractive journalists instead of analyses of the background to their release.
DougJ — I don’t think Jones stepping down is a big deal.
It’s not big deal by itself. But it feeds the wingnut frenzy in two ways. Jones’ background can be ramped up to depict him as an America-hating radical, falsely making him a reflection of Obama. And Obama’s acceptance of his resignation, even though trivial, will be ramped up into another “sign” of the incompetence of the Obama Administration.
Comrade Luke
I wonder what would’ve happened if Van Jones was president and his czar was Barack Obama, who the right had just discovered was linked to Bill Ayers.
Mr Furious
Allan: You’re right. I never heard of him before this week, and that is certainly true of most people—even among active, progressive bloggers.
But what is he known as now? A bad-ass enviro-activist? Or, the guy Obama laid on the stone altar for Beck?
—
This is the kind of shit I thought would bedevil a Clinton Administration. Obama’s team was supposed to have their shit together. Either this was a bad vetting job or worse strategy.
Raenelle
I’d bet Michael Moore wouldn’t be fat if he were a Republican.
licensed to kill time
@Brachiator:
This:
Jim
A 9/11 conspiracy theory seems just as grounded in reality as Jesus and his fairy ponies and eleventy Holy brothers. I’ll hardly expend any tears over Jones, and politically the choice was clear. But the idea that Glenn Beck (who supported the PATRIOT Act but thinks “cash for clunkers” is tantamount to T-4 and who derides Van Jones’ “Truther” conspiracies but IN THE NEXT SENTENCE argues that because Rockefeller Center may have been built in part by a Russian immigrant, that’s proof positive that Obama is going to murder retarded infants), a M-O-R-M-O-N, is somehow leading this troupe of rabid rural Christianist Southern racists against someone for peddling “nonsense theories” is just great. America rocks.
Can’t wait for next Saturday! I’ve always loved that the people who talk about 9/11 the most and use it as a rationale for everything and the people who will be frolicking to bullshit 9/12 “let’s celebrate never having gone to college” rallies are exactly the type of people that “hate New York liberal Jewish hippie bullshit” and would probably self-immolate if they ever visited an actual urban area.
WereBear
@licensed to kill time: I was actually unaware of it until today. Just think it’s out-there satire. I hope.
Actually, I think Glenn Beck should get some Comedy Award for Best Performance Artist. Maybe presented by some African American group.
As crazy as he is, I think that’s the only thing his fans would find objectionable… the thought that he doesn’t mean a word of it, that it’s all been a big put-upon at their expense.
licensed to kill time
ha ha.fail
gbear
Fuck. Take care.
licensed to kill time
ok, I give up on the block quote. I meant to second Brachiator wrt the journos-if-Bush-had-freed-them would have been a Huge Triumph.
@WereBear:
methinks satire, as well. But it would be irresponsible not to speculate…no? heh heh.
NR
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: He’s continued a fuckton of Bush policies, for starters.
slag
@Anya:
This sentiment is the natural outcome of this decision. We can argue all day whether or not this emboldens the crazies (I, personally, think it does because any attention they get makes them more outlandish in their crazitude), but the dispiriting of allies is a given in this situation. It’s inevitable. And maybe team Obama doesn’t think their allies are worth the fight. But that attitude works both ways.
Leadership without loyalty doesn’t exist.
LiberalTarian
“A lot of you seem to think the wingnuts are going to be emboldened by Jones stepping down, and I find that curious. They aren’t going to feel emboldened by anything- they have already cranked it up to 11.”
I disagree. I think they’ve been at 7. You weren’t here in California for the full-scale Prop 8 freakout. Sharks don’t say, oh, we already got a piece of the guy … hence the expression “blood in the water.”
Obama has been playing this wrong. It isn’t attacking him from the left to note it’s a weak approach to appease people using Father Coughlin antics. Where are Obama’s defenders, people who will call these idiots assholes? Oh, that’s right, Van Jones …
GregB
Remember, Howard Dean’s scream was the work of an unhinged leftist lunatic.
Beck’s maudlin weeping jacks and throat bleeding screams during his broadcasts equal the voice of the people.
Just keeping you up to snuff.
-G
Deborah
@cleek:
I’m a moderate political junkie and I’d never heard of him. While I agree with John’s overall point that Winger’s exist at a constant level of emboldenment regardless of reality, this brief foufafa for the chattering classes really doesn’t matter much in terms of any serious issues for regular voters.
He signed this petition, didn’t he? I’m willing to buy “I just signed without reading it carefully,” that maybe he thought it just meant “let’s not slack on intelligence gathering.” But at a time when the left is deriding the right’s conspiracy theories and can, in the media, point to Kos’s decision not to run any more truther stuff, and in office, point to the only congressional truther being promptly tossed out in a primary–well, no truthers in government. Even if they’re iffy truthers.
slag
@BR and @Brick Oven Bill: You both inspired me to write to Beck’s sponsors directly. It was indeed fairly easy to do. Good work team.
mark robbins
“I just love how all the left bloggosphere is now more committed than the right to the idea that Obama is a weakling traitor of the cause.”
Yeah ’cause everyone is calling Obama a traitor, that’s not a dramatic mis-characterization at all. That’s a fact that I’ll easily demonstrate with lots of links to people on the left side of the aisle calling Obama a traitor over and over and over and over again, it’s such a widely dispersed meme. Oh wait, no i won’t do that at all, because no one is saying that.
The Obama administration doesn’t show loyalty to people who don’t matter. He’s a low level staffer, so we can tear him loose without doing any damage to ‘the cause.’ Nevermind that it displays an astonishing lack of loyalty, and a weird allegiance to ‘centrism’ that makes no sense at all. You don’t need to vet the politics of every appointee. You need to vet the competence of every appointee. If someone from the private sector can be swayed to serve the government at below market value, they deserve their job. What does it even matter if the guy believes the moon is made of cheese if he’s doing his job competently? Obama isn’t moving past politics, he’s letting the right redefine ‘acceptability’ and ‘competence’. Considering how incompetent government is when the right is in power, that’s really dangerous.
I voted for Obama because I wanted competence in the whitehouse. Disloyalty to underlings is a red flag for incompetence.
mark robbins
He signed this petition, didn’t he? I’m willing to buy “I just signed without reading it carefully,” that maybe he thought it just meant “let’s not slack on intelligence gathering.”
Littlegreenfootballs.com
Go read for twenty minutes, then come back and not be totally ignorant of the facts.
smiley
I’ve never understood that saying.
mark robbins
“Former Vermont governor Howard Dean rallied to Jones’ defense, saying he had signed the controversial 9-11 “Truther” petition by mistake.”
Get him out now!!!!!!!!!
He’s a truther!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
JK
Valerie Jarrett is the next target.
Brachiator
@mark robbins:
Damn, some of you people are thick. The political context of Obama’s administration matters. And part of that context is the core of crazy people, whipped to a frenzy by the mainstream GOP, who refuse to accept the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency and look for evidence that he is a Marxist, Muslim, terrorist, dictator.
Obama’s people probably believed that they could include radical progressives in their administration. This is not the current political reality.
Sarah Palin could get away with some slight associations to a separatist organization. Wingnuts can openly flirt with secession, Christian nationalism, and even outright appeals to the notion that “real Americans” are mainly heterosexual white Christians.
Van Jones could not get away with any connection that could be construed as being radical.
By contrast, when Obama suggests that Muslim Americans are as American as anybody else, you can count on some degree of wingnut apoplexy.
Because some core of America is letting itself be held hostage to racial anxiety, along with the standard issue propaganda that the GOP was ordained by the founders to be the only legitimate political party of the United States.
In addition, Van Jones was in a new political position. And Fox News, the official propaganda organ of the GOP, sees Jones’ resignation as a victory in the war against Obama’s takeover of the American economy:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/06/phil-kerpen-van-jones-resign/
So did I. And this is why it has become even more important to support the Obama Administration and to defeat Republicans, who will stop at nothing to oppose the effective operation of government.
Ptirebiter
As a number of people have pointed out; you can’t shame the shameless. They’re is no Maginot line or mythical last drink for these folks and demanding one is crazy. In all our self generated rage about cowardice and betrayal we seem to be forgetting just who it is the GOP really is try to lynch. This is the kind of paralyzing individual grandiosity that creates the vacuums that are happily filled by Dick Cheney. I’m really sick of the “this isn’t what I voted for” so bite me meme. Guess what? The world doesn’t give a shit about what you personally voted for or against. It does however care what your preferences might be and is again willing to listen to your reasons. When that’s not good enough, the world says bite me.
David
As has been pointed out here above, as of September 12th, Obama will have a better record of
Keeping Us Safe From Terrorism®
than Dumbya.
Argive
These people like feeling embattled. They like feeling as though their backs are currently up against the wall. Being a minority of sorts seems to agree with them; they are the last isolated bastion(s) of true, Constitutional democracy out there. Van Jones? They’ll take a little pleasure in his scalping, and then they’ll be right out there the next day, clutching guns they’ve never fired in anger while spraying Cheeto dust all over their keyboards in reaction to some perceived wrong the left has committed.
Because they took an OATH, man.
To defend this country.
From all enemies, foreign AND domestic.
And they will.
So help them God.
Sloth
The intersection of the set of things that foxnews believes and the set of things that are real is vanishingly small.
But they are right, we’ll need a new Green Jobs Czar. I nominate Bobby Kennedy Jr. I get first dibs on the popcorn!
ominira
@cleek:
Not only did it make news stateside, it was the top-read item on BBC’s world news feed earlier today.
Leelee for Obama
@Sloth: Now, sloth, that is too obvious-so we need to come up with a stealth “green jobs” czar. Much as I love Bobby, Jr., he really has done this vaccine thing to keep himself out of contention for too many high profile positions. What’s OK in NY, just don’t fly in DC. And considering Ted was the only one to get old so far, I can’t say I blame him.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
A lot of you seem to think the wingnuts are going to be emboldened by Jones stepping down, and I find that curious. They aren’t going to feel emboldened by anything- they have already cranked it up to 11.
So now we’ve reached Peak Wingnut?
drillfork
Obama cares about nothing other than making the Democrats the go-to party for corporate donors. That’s his agenda. It isn’t the shrieking of the right-wing loonies but the approval of Wall Street and big industry that drives him…
mark robbins
“The political context of Obama’s administration matters.”
Only because the party in power is a bunch of disloyal wimps.
Sometimes the truth is painful. I would love to see the administration turn it around. I see zero chance of that happening.
bvac
I haven’t been following the Van Jones chronicles, but aren’t the people accusing him of signing a 9/11 truth petition basically spinning new wild conspiracy theories about the Obama administration on a daily basis? Has anyone fleshed this out in detail, that it took just a few months for mainstream republican figures to latch onto every bug fuck crazy right wing conspiracy theory about Obama that they could, while prominent democrats went eight years ignoring or denouncing similar ones about Bush?
I guess it doesn’t matter either way. Whatever.
B.D.Ayes
You know, this is the middle of a three day holiday weekend.
There’s a possibility that lots of folks aren’t paying attention right about now.
jaquestraw
you demorats need an equally able mouthpiece to go up against Beck jon stewart and bill maher suck ass.ya’ll aint got shit.Thats why your manufactured man without a past candidate is going epic fail.Hopefully he doesn’t fail as bad as Carter.Clinton enjoyed 8 years only because fox news wasn’t in existence like it is now.
jaquestraw
@bvac
Remember Dan Rather ………that was cool
bvac
heh. indeed.
Allan
@jaquestraw: Excellent parody. Well done! The misspellings, the random use of capitalization and punctuation, the ignorance of simple historical fact – you have well and truly captured the essence of right-wing asshole.
Allan
I learned something interesting on Twitter tonight.
Nothing infuriates the #iamthemob #tcot #teaparty crowd more than quoting Jesus. It has the same effect as garlic on vampires.
Apparently they’re servants of Satan!
jaquestraw
@ Allen glad you enjoyed it just keep in mind flake that the minute you start taking anything serious is the minute you start down the road to insanity I should know I am amped up to 11 MF’er
Allan
Again, bravo. I like how you’ve mixed in some incoherent methhead babble to capture the flavor of a fucked-up trailer-park denizen trying to kick someone’s ass and falling face-first into the mud, then shitting his own pants and passing into unconsciousness.
jaquestraw
Why dont you move to chicago and crawl up van jones ass so far that he regurgitates you out .Last time I checked this is America people have a right to free speech and that includes Glenn Beck.
Allan
I like the way you use the ignorant meathead miscomprehension of the First Amendment. Congress can’t pass laws limiting your freedom of speech, but you and Glenn have no right to free speech in all situations. Glenn Beck’s employer can fire him for what he says on the air, and the owner of this web space can delete your comments at will if he decides you’re just too fucking stupid to tolerate any longer.
And as inviting as you make a trip up Van Jones’ colon sound, I don’t understand why I would travel to Chicago to explore it since he’s a Californian.
FlipYrWhig
the dispiriting of allies is a given in this situation
Yeah, but Jack and Jill Politics came pre-dispirited. The head-shaking and permanent disappointment… that’s just the liberal-left default position. I have a garage full of Nation magazines from the Clinton Administration that’s like a museum of that habit of mind, and I voted for Nader in 1996 because of it. Preening and foot-stamping about how disillusioned you are and you never thought it would come to this and alack, alas, o-wail-a-day… where does that lead, exactly?
We’re stuck in a nation full of easily manipulated morons. You go to politics with the civil society you’ve got, not the one you wish to have. Instead of concluding that everyone in the world is a loser and a sell-out except you, maybe the dilemma is that it’s really, really fucking hard to make progressive politics work, and it will continue to be for 20 more years until all the Fox-heads have died off or become demented, like, more. Which, incidentally, is why I still hold out hope that death panels will be in the final bill. To hasten along that gladsome prospect…
Dream On
Don’t worry – ’tis but a flesh wound. All part of Obama’s multi-dimensional chess game.
Too bad the Republicans are playing checkers…
Capn America
Let’s not forget Beck implying Keith Ellison (at the time, the first and only Muslim American in Congress) hearts the terrorists.
jaquestraw
@ Allen:Glenn Beck’s employer can fire him for what he says on the air, and the owner of this web space can delete your comments at will if he decides you’re just too fucking stupid to tolerate any longer.
Uh……Duh that’s a two way street as Mr.Jones no doubt just realized.