Progressives decry resignation of Van Jones
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, September 7, 2009
The middle-of-the-night resignation Sunday of longtime Bay Area activist Van Jones as a White House environmental adviser left many progressives angry at the Obama administration for buckling to conservative criticism of Jones' controversial past comments and actions.
The administration is losing not only one of the nation's leading environmentalists, progressives say, but one of the few liberal voices with President Obama's ear.
Jones resigned amid a furor over his signature on a 2004 petition questioning the government's actions around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Supporters say the administration surely knew his background when they appointed Jones, the first African American to write a best-selling environmental book, as special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In fact, agents interviewed at least one of his former supervisors in San Francisco - Eva Paterson - when the FBI vetted his appointment.
This year, Time magazine named Jones one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Former Vice President Al Gore is a fan, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said his best-selling book, "Green Collar," showcased his "sparkling intelligence, powerful vision and deep empathy."
Little backing
But few stepped up to protect Jones during the past few weeks.
"He was swift-boated," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink and a San Franciscan who has known Jones for 15 years. She spoke to him recently and said he was "very conflicted" about whether to resign.
But with Obama facing an uphill battle to gain bipartisan support on health care, as Jones said in his resignation statement Sunday, "I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past."
"The timing was hideous for Van," said Paterson, a San Francisco civil rights attorney who hired Jones, a Yale Law School graduate, at her Equal Justice Society organization in the early 1990s and has remained close to him.
"Still, I find it very disturbing that real progressive people with a track record of lots of speeches and actions will find it difficult to speak out," Paterson said. "That's going to have a chilling effect on anyone like that who may some day want to serve in public office."
read it all here and lots of comments..
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz0QRsE2Y7e
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by avatar4321
