Resignation and Reality

If you follow the political blogosphere, you likely know about the various controversial statements and associations that eventually led to Obama's "green czar" Van Jones resigning.

Jones signed his name to a petition saying that he thought the Bush Administration let 9/11 happen; earlier documentation links him to other publicized "truther" activities as early as January of 2002. Jones is also a supporter of convicted Black Panther cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal, and buys into the theory that the murderer was framed. Jones also maintains that a shadowy entity of white Americans polluters is shipping poison into "people of color communities."

None of these allegations are debatable. None have been taken out of context or "spun." They accurately reflect what Van Jones himself said, felt, or subscribed to as a man and an activist. Because none of these beliefs are defensible to rational people, Jones had little choice but to resign. The fact that the did so in the dead of night on a holiday weekend only proves how indefensible his positions were.

But the most fascinating aspect of this entire affair is the left's response to Jones being called to the carpet for his beliefs.

Peer into the links on Memeorandum for yesterday or this afternoon and you will see a near-uniform claim that Jones was somehow unfairly smeared.

They try to focus attention elsewhere, on various irrelevant claims. They claim that Jones was targeted because he went after Glenn Beck of Fox News (utterly untrue; Beck had targeted Jones well in advance of Jones' organization going after Beck).

They state there must be collusion between Fox News and the center-right blogosphere in trying to bring Jones down... and of course, there is no evidence at all to suggest such an alliance exists. Perhaps they're projecting.

And of course, some claim that Jones was targeted because he made inflammatory statements, such as calling Republicans "a--holes," a belief that many Democrats share (and conservatives, truth be told, often reciprocate the sentiment).

None of those claims are relevant, and they are replete with denial.

How Van Jones feels about Republicans isn't relevant to his job, nor was his use of coarse language to describe those feelings. It did not play a role in his resignation. Fox News, while certainly influential, doesn't have nearly enough power to bring down a presidential appointee. Nor does Glenn Beck, or Matt Drudge, or the conservative blogosphere.

One thing and one thing only brought down Van Jones, and the political left cannot bring itself to face the truth.

Van Jones was laid low by the truthful, unembellished and accurate accounting of the many radical beliefs he shares with both President Obama and the far left progressive movement from which he came.

Cop-killer Mumia has long been a living martyr for the radical left, just as mass murderer Che Guevara has long been a celebrated dead hero in liberal enclaves.

Beliefs that the Bush Administration let the 9/11 terror attacks occur are closely tied to the mainstream progressive belief that Bush used the attacks to fabricate an "illegal war for oil" in Iraq. The theory that Bush falsified reasons to invade Iraq for some sort of profit is so commonly accepted on the far left as to be beyond debate.

Jones' theory that white polluters were attempting to poison ethic communities fits hand-in-glove with long-running left wing conspiracy theories that crack cocaine was created by government agencies to destroy/oppress minority neighborhoods.

Whether they call themselves liberals or progressives, radical leftists cannot admit the obvious fact that Van Jones was forced to resign from Obama's White House for being too open in his support of common left-wing beliefs. These tenuous theories are accepted and repeated in radical leftist populations as fact, but like the "theft" of the 2000 election, the significance of the so-called Downing Street Memos and delusions of the previous President plotting a military coup, they are theories that non-radicalized Americans easily recognized as the ranting of fevered minds.

Van Jones is just the first casualty of the collision between objective reality and an insular community-based reality woven from a tapestry of delusions, conspiracy theories, and impotent rage. Very likely, he will not be the last radical to fall, and that probability scares the crap out of them.

Update Via Hot Air Headlines, Dan Calabrese concurs:

The real reason Jones had to go was not his ideas per se. He thinks the way President Obama thinks. Jones had to go because his presence in the administration revealed so much about how the left operates – and these are supposed to be closely guarded family secrets.