What Van Jones signifies

Not that we’re inclined to do so, but it would be a mistake to write off Van Jones as a one-off nutjob in the Obama administration. He signifies. The Obama team sought him out and signed him up for his job as green jobs commissar precisely because he is who he is.
Listen, for example, to Obama alter ego Valerie Jarrett pay tribute to Jones before a friendly audience earlier this year: “Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he’s not that old, for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House.”
Who do they have in the White House? A self-proclaimed Communist. A vulgar Marxist twice over. A supporter of cold-blooded cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal. A 9/11 Truther . A racist hater, whose hatred extends to the United States. And insofar as his current job is concerned, we have a man who sees the “green jobs” con as a tool for overthrowing capitalism. We have, in short, the complete left-wing nightmare package.
Jones also signifies the meaning of the Obama administration’s delegation of authority to a profusion of “czars.” As Michelle Malkin observes with perfect concision: “Obama czardom is the deliberate end-run around transparency.” No messy Senate confirmations required.
Jones also signifies the cooperation of the mainstream media in Obama’s machinations. The nonfeasance of the mainstream media in the performance of their job has been virtually complete. They have left it to the likes of the indomitable Gateway Pundit to reveal what a man we have in Jones, and therewith the project in which the Obama administration is engaged. The mainstream media have Obama’s back. Yesterday Byron York ran a Nexis search on Van Jones and posted the resutls:

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.

As of today, I think York’s calculation still obtains for the New York Times, but the Washington Post has contributed a few words on the White House’s “tepid support” of Jones. A reader is more or less left to fend for himself in figuring the the substance of Jones’s statements or views that have produced this “tepid support.”
Jones also signifies the Obama administration’s reiteration of the worst of Jimmy Carter. What Andrew Young was to Jimmy Carter, Van Jones is to Obama. Carter appointed Young the United States ambassador to the United Nations. He was, according to Carter, “the best man I have ever known in public life.”
Prior to his appointment, Young had spoken up on behalf of the Black Panthers. Young had defended the Panthers on ABC with the explanation that “it may take the destruction of Western civilization to allow the rest of the world to really emerge as a free and brotherly society, and if the West is incapable of brotherhood with colored peoples, then this small body of colored peoples, this small body of colored peoples, black people within the white West, they may be the revolutionary vanguard that God has ordained to destroy the whole thing.”
As Steven Hayward recalls in The Real Jimmy Carter, “Young lived up to this sensibility early and often in his UN post.” He spoke favorably of the deployment of Cuban troops in Africa. He defended the Soviet trial of human rights activist Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky. He equated the United States with the Soviet Union in its incarceration of “hundreds, maybe thousands of people in our jails that I would categorize as political prisoners.”
Hayward writes that “Young finally went too far when he violated explicit U.S. policy about having direct contact with the Palestine Liberation Organization” in 1979. Young was forced to resign that September. But as Hayward acutely observes: “While Young’s candor and imprudence cost him his job, he undoubtedly expressed the soul of Carter’s foreign policy better than anyone in the administration.”
Making the necessary adjustments to account for Jones’s role in the Obama administration, Jones also signifies the soul of Obama’s domestic policy as well as anyone in the administration.

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