Van Jones and 9/11 Denialism

September 5th, 2009 at 11:52 am by David Frum | 38 Comments |

On CNN’s Situation Room last night, I was asked about the White House’s green jobs adviser’s signature of at least one (and maybe two) statements endorsing the denialist point of view. The White House is apparently excusing its man on the grounds that he did not appreciate the significance of the documents. My reply: “This is a man in charge of supervising $80 billion worth of contracts – and your defense of him is that he signs things without reading them?”

38 responses so far

1 midcon // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:15 pm

There is no excuse. The guy has to go. Denialists, Conspiracy Addicts, and all the rest are the greatest threat to this country in the interests of our national security, these people, regardless of what side they are on, must be weeded out, isolated, marginalized, and other extreme measures.

Keep the pressure up! As I said, I dont’ care if its candidate for governor, Bob McDonnell who in his 30s wrote a thesis that advocated the government “restrain, punish and deter” homosexuality or this guy who thinks that 9/11 was an inside job or whatever this is what’s wrong with our country.

The Van Jones’ specious explanation that he did not read it is ridiculous. What he meant is that he did not think it would come back to haunt him. We need to root out extremism regardless of where we find it!
2 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:19 pm

This was driven by “whack jobs” like Glenn Beck, who put this on the national stage for discussion.

Yet Glenn Beck is somehow bad for this country and Conservatism.

There in a nutshell is your problem.

Conservatives quietly going along to get along towards that Socialist Utopian Future isnt a conservativism that I can support. Its a nihilist defeatist Conservatism that is truly uninspiring.

“Well the Left is going to prevail in the long run, lets try to influence the new institutions and mores that they create as best we can….isnt a winning platform.
3 balconesfault // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:36 pm

Not really a “statement” – which would suggest that like the small handful of PNAC signators, Jones was part of the intellectual process that developed the truther position.

Instead, as happens so often if you regularly attend political functions, or even walk down city streets, Jones seems to have had a petition stuck in front of him, and he signed it.

He claims to have signed without really having looked at it that closely. I suspect that there are millions of Americans who have signed various petitions that they didn’t really agree with in similar circumstances.

Is there any evidence that Jones was more closely associated with the truther movement than that? Not that I’ve seen – how about you? And Jones has made the declaration that he doesn’t agree with the position.

What else do you want? The most publicized Republican voice on National Security these days is a guy who himself obtained multiple deferrals to avoid being drafted into Vietnam. Should that be regarded as a permanent blight on his ability to call for military action?
4 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:45 pm

The MSM blackout on this story is pretty much 100% complete.

From a Nexis search a few moments ago: Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0. Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0. Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0. Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0. Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.

Ace is all over this story.

http://minx.cc/?post=291798

The game is, as long as the MSM ignores it, they can claim it’s just a right-wing hatchet job.

Qwinn
5 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:49 pm

Jones is a radical. Its not a big secret.

He didnt have a piece of paper shoved in his face and sign it. He knew what was going on.

Its the classic Leftwing anti American position.

He also participated in race riots.

Communist check
Truther check
Racist check

Change we can believe in!
6 midcon // Sep 5, 2009 at 1:47 pm

3 balconesfault // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:36 pm Instead, as happens so often if you regularly attend political functions, or even walk down city streets, Jones seems to have had a petition stuck in front of him, and he signed it.

balc, I have been in public places with petitioners and they have come to my door. I have never signed a petition without knowing what it says (reading it) and agreeing with its intent. I will suggest that you haven’t either and neither of us have political aspirations (at least I don’t). While I recognize that you are inclined to be supportive of the ideas and policies of the current administration, you have to call ‘em on it when the situation warrants. For Van Jones to have his name associated with a 9/11 conspiracy is not just embarrassing, it also speaks to his judgment and decision-making.
7 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:24 pm

All I have to say is that is one GOOD LOOKING man. I don’t care what he has to say. I just like looking at him. For the first time, I fully understand why so many men were able to overlook Palin’s words. Good looks can be blinding.
8 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:53 pm

Actually, Little Green Footballs has been doing a lot of research on this and found NOTHING to suggest that Van Jones is a truther. I am sure that many on the Left – in their zeal to attack Bush – signed off on petitions for futher investigation without realizing the full extent of what they were affixing their names to. Other than, the petition there NOTHING as I said. Here is more for anyone who is interested:

Where’s the Truther Beef?

Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, and the Truthers

Glenn Beck’s connections to Truthers are far more extensive and direct than Van Jones’. It’s not just Ron Paul. I didn’t even bring up the fact that Beck frequently lets Judge Andrew Napolitano host his show, when Napolitano is a close friend of Truther Alex Jones.
9 rbottoms // Sep 5, 2009 at 4:02 pm

Glenn Beck’s connections to Truthers are far more extensive and direct than Van Jones’. It’s not just Ron Paul. I didn’t even bring up the fact that Beck frequently lets Judge Andrew Napolitano host his show, when Napolitano is a close friend of Truther Alex Jones.

The Right ginned up a controversy over the radical Van Jones and then lied about it. Man I am shocked. I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with the fact that Jones’ organization helped ignite the exodus of advertisers from Glenn Beck’s show. Payback being a biatch and all that.

“Moneypenny, I’m to eliminate all free radicals.”
~ James Bond, Never Say Never Again
10 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 4:12 pm

rbottoms

Little Green Footballs is a right wing site. So we are trying to police our own. When did Kos or any other site police their own?!
11 LFC // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:08 pm

I don’t see how signing some denialist petition about 9/11 has any impact on how this guy will run a program to create green jobs.

If he was nominated to run DHS, however, it would be a whole different story.
12 rbottoms // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:16 pm

Little Green Footballs is a right wing site.

You jest.

When did Kos or any other site police their own?!

Quite often.

So we are trying to police our own.

About time.
13 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:43 pm

LGF isnt a right wing site. Charles Johnson is a hippie musician, with Leftist politics.

If you cant get that right, then no wonder the world seems so confusing to you.
14 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:45 pm

Attacking Beck, who is not a top official in the White House, and was never considered for any such position…

to cover for Van Jones.

Pretty lame. And you call yourself an intellectual.

LOL!
15 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 6:18 pm

escapevelocity,

LGF is critical of creationism and thinks that Beck is a nut. In your book, he is a lefty.
16 sinz54 // Sep 5, 2009 at 8:22 pm

balconesfault:
Van Jones has said a whole bunch of other things that are highly questionable:

http://twitter.com/shitvanjonesays

Nobody put words in his mouth here. This is stuff he tweeted on Twitter.

And what Van Jones said about Columbine is both incorrect and inexcusable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAQDIQmSqF8

Evidently he forgot about the Beltway sniper shootings.
17 sinz54 // Sep 5, 2009 at 8:31 pm

escapevelocity:

“According to Gil Ronen, a reporter for Internet news outlet, Israel National News: ‘If anyone ever compiles a list of Internet sites that contribute to Israel’s public relations effort, Johnson’s site will probably come in first, far above the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s site.’
“In the United States, LGF [Little Green Footballs] is perhaps best known for playing a key role in raising doubts about the authenticity of the Killian documents regarding President George W. Bush, which preceded the resignation of CBS’s Dan Rather. The site won the Washington Post’s reader poll for Best International Blog in November 2004 and played a role in bringing attention to altered photographs in the Adnan Hajj photographs controversy. In July 2008, LGF identified that photographs of Iran’s nuclear missile test had been altered, and was credited by much of the media for this.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Green_Footballs

I was permanently banned from LGF in 2006, because I had dared to suggest that the Iraq War was not going well. (Before 2007, to criticize the Iraq War on LGF was to invite almost reflexive banning by Johnson. Only after Bush addressed the nation in January 2007 and admitted how poorly things had gone was it O.K. to discuss that issue openly on LGF.)

All in all, a conservative like you should be pleased with that kind of a track record.
18 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 8:57 pm

Chekote, Charles Johnson is a Leftwinger….your attempt at witticism, not withstanding.
19 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 9:10 pm

sinz, I used to use LGF as a news source on Islam. Never was a member. However, Ive heard things got pretty crazy over there.

He seems to have tired of anti Jihadism and the Lefty’s that appease and apologize for Islam.

His new gig seems to be anti Creationism….well at least the last time I looked.

He seems to have gone off the deep end, attacking Pam Geller (Atlas Shrugs) and Robert Spencer, and anti Jihad Anti Shariah movements in Europe.

But I have been assured that their is no threat to the West from Islam, perhaps that assertion lays in throwing Israel under the bus, with the massive rising tide of anti Semitism and anti Israel on the Left and especially on the European Left. Perhaps they think that throwing the Israeli Jews to the Wolves will assuage their new neighbors.

Funnily enough, the Lefts turn on the Jews of Israel is entirely predictable, as part of their anti Westernism, and their new ally in destroying Western Bourgousie Capitalist Imperialist Civilization. Its a hard row to hoe, fighting both teh Western Left and Islam at the same time….however we did it with Communism….its nothing new. The Western Left is an abomination, without them, Islam is not a threat to anyone and can be easily contained and controlled.

I have a feeling that the Left will be so thoroughly discredited after dealing with Islam (and Communism in the recent past) in Europe the next few decades that their ideology may be finally thrown into the dustbin of history, at least in Europe, eternally reviled as vile and imbecilic. One can only hope.

We live in interesting times.
20 rbottoms // Sep 5, 2009 at 9:29 pm

Found who really wants granny dead. It isn’t Obama, it’s Wall Street.

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them. But some who have studied life settlements warn that insurers might have to raise premiums in the short term if they end up having to pay out more death claims than they had anticipated.

The idea is still in the planning stages. But already “our phones have been ringing off the hook with inquiries,” says Kathleen Tillwitz, a senior vice president at DBRS, which gives risk ratings to investments and is reviewing nine proposals for life-insurance securitizations from private investors and financial firms, including Credit Suisse.

“We’re hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering,” said one investment banker not authorized to speak to the news media.
21 joemarier // Sep 5, 2009 at 9:32 pm

Charles Johnson in an interview said he was a hawkish Democrat, and I think that’s about right.
22 joemarier // Sep 5, 2009 at 9:35 pm

Whoops! bad recollection on my part. He said he was “pretty independent…I don’t consider myself right-wing.”

http://washingtonindependent.com/39629/civil-war-raging-in-right-wing-blogosphere
23 Chekote // Sep 6, 2009 at 1:04 am

Van Jones resigned. This is not smart politics on the part of the GOP. It will enrage the Dem base and AA community just when they were starting to get disillusioned with Obama. Stupid move. Yeah, Jones was a commie. But now we have to deal with a more powerful Beck.
24 rbottoms // Sep 6, 2009 at 4:42 am

It will enrage the Dem base and AA community just when they were starting to get disillusioned with Obama.

What makes you think we care about the Green Jobs czar quitting? That’s like the under-secretary for Fish & Wildlife taking a hike. They’ll replace him with someone else and we’re back to the only people who know who he is would be the people in Berkeley who will welcome him back with open arms.

Big flipping deal.

Just because you’ve constructed stories in your head about what liberals really care about doesn’t mean we have to adhere to your script.

The prize is health reform, not wind farms.
25 Chekote // Sep 6, 2009 at 11:20 am

Jones has been an activist in civil rights circles and is well known. He will be turned into a martyr. Some will blame his departure to racism. Others will blame his departure on special interests who want to prevent a “Green Economy”. This is just bad politics by the GOP.
26 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 12:08 pm

Conservatives will always be accused of racism Chekote, by the Left.

Letting them control you with their ridiculous accusations isnt a good strategy.

But you are certainly one to advocate that line of foolishness.
27 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 1:46 pm

Next Far New Leftist Loon in the White House….

John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
28 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 1:53 pm

Obama’s Science Czar advocates…

Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.

Just another rational reasonable person to have debates with. Takes the abortion and birth control debate throws in a little Environmental Constrastrophism and comes up with Nazi German Eugenics program for progressive hopeful change we can believe in!
29 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 1:53 pm

That should really bring in the women’s vote!

LOL!
30 sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:13 pm

escapevelocity:
Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, doesn’t believe anything of the kind.

He had once surveyed population control measures around the world. But he wasn’t an advocate of most of them.

He was an advocate of non-coercive population control measures.

For America, the question is moot. America’s population would be stable without a constant influx of immigrants.

And political correctness prevents liberals from insisting that developing countries undertake measures that the developed West doesn’t have to.
31 sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:16 pm

rbottoms:

I don’t think the blacks, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, peaceniks, and youthful “netroots” of Obama’s coalition worked hard to elect Obama just to get health care reform.

That may be the only “prize” worth speaking of, as far as you’re concerned.

But it’s not the only “prize” they care about.
32 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 9:54 pm

And political correctness prevents liberals from insisting that developing countries undertake measures that the developed West doesn’t have to. — sinz

This is absolutely correct.

Because it amounts to genocide.

Id love to see Planned Parenthood open up branches all over the cities in Islamic countries, manned by Leftwing movement volunteers, bringing choice to Muslim women. That would be quite the spectacle, and very dangerous as well, I would imagine (though Ill probably be called a racist for saying so).
33 mthen // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:15 am

Sinz54 “Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, doesn’t believe anything of the kind.”

Im not saying that Obama hired this guy to kill Grandma but its not as simple as you put it either.
Ive read a bit of the book in question beyond the snippets on the internet and it is not simply a survey of existing pop control measures although it does discuss them. Its also not so easy to say that the text does not advocate these policies. One also cant say that the text does advocate them as it calls “voluntary” population control measures “preferable”. The thing is that the tone of the text (as it discusses some way out there coercive measures) is not only not negative or even a neutral academic tone but it reads as slightly positive.
34 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 4:46 pm

Via Ron Radosh, historian of the Radical Left…

Lessons from the Van Jones resignation…

http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh/2009/09/06/the-lessons-of-the-van-jones-resignation/

What he calls a smear campaign is simply an accurate pointing out of what he believed and how recent his beliefs are.

The reports this morning concentrate on Jones’ signing of the 9/11 truther petition, which Jones has said he never agreed with, and on which his name was used without his permission. Early this morning, the White House was still defending him. Nancy Sutley, who heads the White House environmental council, said in a statement early Sunday that Jones “had been a strong voice for creating jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources,” ABC reported.

In other words, they are trying to make it appear that someone who wrote a best-selling book on the green economy would have made a great contribution, but now to save the President’s program is no longer able to proceed. They have not showed, as so many bloggers have, how Jones’ views on the environment are also extremely radical, and racist to boot. They have not showed, as I pointed out earlier this week, how Jones means his green jobs movement as a stepping stone to overturning the “oppressive” and exploitative economic system in America.

econdly, because of his Sunday resignation, the media has not picked up on the latest video report featured on Powerlineblog and Gateway Pundit that exposed the CD issued by Jones and the group he founded, The Ella Baker Freedom Center. Since Jones produced and distributed the CD, and is actually on it himself voicing vicious anti-Israel smears in which he says the “occupation” of Palestine by Israel began in 1948, there is no possible way he can dissociate himself from it. Moreover, others on the CD talk about America as the real enemy of freedom and accuse our troops of being baby-killers.

(I might add that the name of Jones’ Oakland group, The Ella Baker Freedom Center, is most appropriate. Most people have referred to the late Baker as simply a civil rights activist. I am writing from vacation in Nantucket, without benefit of my files at home. But in my book, Divided They Fell: The Demise of the Democratic Party, 1964-1996, I point out that the late civil rights lawyer Joe Rauh had noted that everything Baker said in the 60’s might as well have been taken verbatim from The Daily Worker, the Communist Party newspaper. Baker was so pro-Communist that she attacked Hubert Humphrey and other liberal anti-Communists as ultra reactionaries. Known as the “grandmother of SNCC,” Baker was aligned with those in the movement who were trying to push the organization to the far left.)
35 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 5:09 pm

Comedy Gold!… Leftist MSM Reporters Beat Up On Internet After Van Jones Resigns (Video)

Gots to cover for the Obama man, Communist Radicals in the White House, and the MSM’s own gross incompetence or more likely outright partisanship/political bias.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/09/right-on-time-leftist-msm-reporters.html
36 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 5:13 pm

These folks seem to be lamenting the fact that they have lost control of media, via bandwidth increases which have democratized media. They no longer can protect their far Left kooks in positions of power.

Priceless!

Power to the People!
37 EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 8:10 pm

Obama’s advice to students: Be careful about saying nutty things online

Sage words, my friends. Left unmentioned: If you ignore his advice and crank up the crazy, you can always get a job as a czar in the Obama White House. They won’t even Google you.

According to several White House sources, Jones was hired for his “green jobs czar” positions over concerns raised by the White House Counsel’s Office, after Jones’s background materials came back with several of what were termed “inconsistencies” in the Standard Form 86 Questionnaire for National Security Positions.

The counsel’s office places part of the blame on the Office for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, which is overseen by Obama Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President Valerie Jarrett. Jones’s “czar” job was created by the OIAPE, and Jarrett interviewed Jones for the position. In speeches before far-left groups over the past five months, Jarrett touted Jones’s hiring, in part, because the groups, many of which count 9/11 truthers and radical environmentalists and anti-capitalists as members, were familiar with Jones’s brand of anti-Americanism and economic radicalism…

Jarrett did view Jones as a critical member of the administration for her outreach efforts, in part, because he was so well known and respected in the radical-left world the administration is counting on to help with issues like health care and cap and tax, and, more

The key word there is, of course, “because.” Jones wasn’t hired in spite of his background; he was hired because of it, because he could be counted on to rally the sort of soft-headed fringe-left morons who get off on the idea of a White House advisor with a fringe-left past. Team Barry might not have known specifically about the Truther stuff, but if so, that’s only because they went out of their way not to find out.

Skip ahead to 1:40 for the key exchange. One other point left unmentioned by The One: If you do screw up badly and embrace a cause that’s utterly obnoxious, you can count on the left to try to mainstream it to save your ass. Exit fun fact: At this same Q&A, Obama evidently told students that he regrets not having studied more math as a kid. I think we all regret it, champ.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/08/obamas-advice-to-students-be-careful-about-saying-nutty-things-online/
38 ben thumb // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:24 pm

“these people, regardless of what side they are on, must be weeded out, isolated, marginalized, and other extreme measures.”

http://nyccan.org/