Van Jones
By Herb BoydManaging Editor, Our World Today
Yet another of President Obama’s choices has chosen to forgo his position in the administration. Van Jones, a noted advocate of green environmental issues and a key figure in Obama’s White House Council on Environmental Quality, resigned the post last week amid a furor of dissent and accusations on the right. With poll numbers dipping precipitously, indecisiveness on a war in Afghanistan, health care reform in chaos, and unemployment reaching record highs, President Barack Obama doesn’t need another headache. But he couldn’t be feeling too good about Jones’ departure.
“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.”
Talk show host Glenn Beck may be responsible for some of the rapid “smear campaign,” according to several media sources. For the last several weeks Beck has been relentlessly attacking Jones and his radical past, especially his affiliation with STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) and Color of Change.
Color of Change, an organization founded by Jones but who is no longer connected with it, was among the groups asking companies not to advertise on his show after he claimed Obama was a racist. So, in effect, Beck had a twofer—Color of Change and Jones.
According to the president’s chief of staff David Axelrod, Jones was not forced to resign because of comments he made about Republicans and his signing of a petition suggesting President Bush was using 9/11 as a pretext to launch a war against Iraq.
“He didn’t want his comments to become a distraction,” Axelrod said during an interview with David Gregory on MSNBC.com. When asked if he thought it was a smear campaign against Jones, Axelrod refused to answer. “He [Jones] showed his commitment…by removing himself as an issue.”
Jones said he had received many calls to stay and fight but he felt it best to step aside, hoping he hadn’t “offended anyone with statements” he made in the past. He apologized for them.
Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that he thought Jones “was brought down” and that his resignation was “a loss to the country.”
Since Jones was hired as an adviser on green issues and jobs he didn’t have to go through the normal vetting process for presidential appointments, and thereby escaped some of the careful scrutiny of candidates.
What the Obama team knew of Jones can be readily gleaned from his website, where it discloses that he is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy. He is a 1993 graduate of the Yale Law School and an attorney.
His book The Green Collar Economy, is considered among the best on the issue, and became an instant bestseller last year. Currently, it is being translated into six languages. “As a tireless advocate for disadvantaged people and the environment,” his website relates, “Van helped to pass America's first ‘green job training’ legislation: the Green Jobs Act, which George W. Bush signed into law as a part of the 2007 Energy Bill. He is the co-founder of a number of successful non-profit organizations, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green For All.”
He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including: the Reebok International Human Rights Award; the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader designation; the prestigious, international Ashoka Fellowship; and many more. Earlier this year, Ebony Magazine listed him among its “Power 150.” Similar honors were bestowed on him by Essence and TIME, which named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
