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Controversial Obama Administration Official Denies Being Part of 9/11 "Truther" Movement, Apologizes for Past Comments*
September 03, 2009 9:19 PM
A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."
Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is Number 46 of the petitioners from the so-called "Truther" movement which suggests that people in the administration of President George W. Bush "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
In a statement issued Thursday evening Jones said of "the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."
He did not explain how his name came to be on the petition. An administration source said Jones says he did not carefully review the language in the petition before agreeing to add his name.*
"My work at the Council on Environmental Quality is entirely focused on one goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and use renewable resources," Jones said in his statement tonight.
Jones also said in his statement that "In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago. If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."
With a history of incendiary and provocative remarks, many of them dealing with his view of how whites exploit minorities, Jones has emerged as the subject of much conservative scrutiny in recent days, particularly from Fox News' Glenn Beck. (Jones defenders point out that most of Beck's criticism came after a group Jones helped found, Color of Change, began pushing advertisers to boycott Beck after he accused President Obama of being a racist.)
Priding himself on controversial remarks in the name of social justice, Jones once said of the San Francisco Mayor, "Willie Brown's Police Commission is killing black people."
Jones is the best-selling author of The Green Collar Economy and a leader in the "green jobs" movement -- the idea that clean energy jobs can create jobs, especially in poor communities. He has been praised from leaders ranging from Al Gore to former eBay CEO (and Republican) Meg Whitman, who in May said that Jones is doing "a marvelous job… I’m a huge fan of his. He is very bright, very articulate, very passionate. I think he is exactly right.”
"He’s successful at getting into the minds or under the skin—depending on how you want to analyze it—of politicians," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told author Elizabeth Kolbert for a profile of Jones in the New Yorker. "I will never forget being infuriated by him—totally outraged—and completely mesmerized."
Kolbert wrote that "the basic premise of Jones’s appeal—that combating global warming is a good way to lift people out of poverty—is very much open to debate. ... it’s not at all clear that the number of jobs created by, say, an expanding solar industry would be greater than the number lost through, say, a shrinking coal-mining industry. Nor is it clear that a green economy would be any better at providing work for the chronically unemployed than our present, 'gray' economy has been."
But those theories aren't the ones that have made Jones a lightning rod in the past few weeks.
In 2005 Jones told the East Bay Express that the acquittal of Rodney King's assailants in 1992 in that infamous police brutality case changed him significantly. "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist."
Jones and other young activists in 1994 formed a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, rooted in Marxism and Leninsm. Two years later, Jones launched the Ella Baker Center, an Oakland, Calif., based "strategy and action center" which states that it tries to "promote positive alternatives to violence and incarceration.
More recently, in February during a discussion on energy at Berkeley, Calif., (and prior to his joining the Obama administration) Jones referred to Republicans using an epithet for a proctological orifice, which he called "a technical, political science term."
Asked why Republicans asserted more control of the Senate when they had a smaller majority before 2006, Jones said "the answer to that is, they're a--holes." He added that President Obama is not an a--hole, but, "I will say this. I can be an a--hole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity."
"I apologize for the offensive words I chose to use during that speech," Jones said in a different written statement to Politico on Wednesday. "They do not reflect the views of this administration, which has made every effort to work in a bipartisan fashion, and they do not reflect the experience I have had since I joined the administration."
- jpt
UPDATE: It's worth pointing out that Ben Smith at Politico has spoken to two signatories of that petition, Rabbi Michael Lerner and historian Howard Zinn, who say they were misled about what they were signing. And the conservative website Little Green Footballs points out that Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of “Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It" has posted on her website, the American Center for Democracy: "PLEASE NOTE: Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is not a signatory of the 911Truth.org. She has asked several times to have her named removed from the list, but the organization failed to comply."
September 3, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (1086)
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I think we waste too much time on lousy topics instead of educational and productive material. If we would have followed my suggestion 50 years ago, I would have my flying car right now.
Posted by: Brandson | Sep 20, 2009 5:14:43 AM
Jones is an avowed racist and Marxist.
Posted by: d | Sep 7, 2009 6:54:28 PM
All the advertisers did not leave just a few. They requested that their commericials Not be aired during Beck's Show only. They are still on his station just at a different time.
Posted by: d | Sep 7, 2009 6:47:31 PM
I don't think he's a bad guy. He just did a couple of dumb things. I think if he had the ability to do a great job he should have stayed.
Posted by: alice | Sep 7, 2009 7:44:48 AM
No one seems to be vetting or be vigilent about these so called "czars." I think it is time to pick them off one by one. What I know about them is; they are all as bad or worse than Jones. They are all cut from the same cloth as Obama. They are hiding but not forever.
Posted by: eli | Sep 7, 2009 12:43:59 AM
Aw, poor Van--- everyone is being mean to him just because he signs things without knowing what they say and says things he didn't really mean! Can't we all just be lovin and get along? After all, anyone who doesn't think he's wonderful is a racist no matter what he does or says so there!
Posted by: daisy | Sep 6, 2009 1:05:13 PM
Many Americans question the official 9/11 story. The irony is that 9/11 truth is now being identified with the communism/radicalism of Van Jones. It's a clever strategy to politically execute one of your own so the public will associate 9/11 with communism/socialism.
Posted by: Dave | Sep 6, 2009 9:50:18 AM
Glenn Beck got hurt where really hurts most, which is his pocket, same people will allow you to mess even with their moms, but don't mess with their money.
That is what America is all about $$$$$, that is why the europeans call us donkeys with money, that is why we start this non-sense war, BinLaden was never capture and never will, both Bushes are protecting Binladen. Bush & Cheney use Irak as a pretext to faith terrorism, when indeed their agenda was diferent. One day the true will be know.
Perhaps no other President in the free world is doing what Obama is doing, which is working his own agenda, not somebody elses, we americans want quick fixes, we invent fast food, quick oil changes, quick marriages, quickbooks, quick here quick there.
Reparing the mess of both Bushes, father & son (12 years) of a "selected" group of people working their own deals is not going to be fix "quick", so for those desperate people want to see a quick fixes my best advice will be to tight your belt, because that is not going to happen, but long range we definitely will see great results.
I do have faith on my president, there is not skeletons in his closet.
Posted by: Richard | Sep 6, 2009 9:19:06 AM
I say let him keep screwing up, then we can with the authority of the constitution take back the government
Obama, you ran on the premis of change, show us
fire all the czars and put into law that they shall never be appointed again (since there is no provision for the appointment of them in the constitution anyway)
Posted by: victor | Sep 5, 2009 8:02:22 PM
Shame on you again ABC, your head is always in the sand. Obama and most of his associations have been shaded with so many un-American dealings. Don't you ever want to mprove your ratings?
Posted by: Jon | Sep 5, 2009 7:42:24 PM
You cannot change just because you have a new job title. It makes a person wonder if this administration cares about what people think. It's like they're saying, you can all just go sit on your thumbs because your opinions don't matter. Makes you wonder what they have up their sleeves and it makes me suspicious as hell. Scary times we're living in. Previous administrations would and have fired people for far less dangerous pasts than Van Jones'. This one seems to have their own agenda. Am I the only one who wonders what's going on behind closed doors?
Posted by: Elizabeth McKenzie | Sep 5, 2009 3:24:08 PM
Why aren't other networks other than fox talking more about this story. I know fox is biased towards the right, but this story deserves more time.
Does anyone really believe that the Obama administration didn't know about Jones' history??? He has many other czars and advisors with questionable pasts as well....It's time to demand answers!!!
Posted by: Will | Sep 5, 2009 12:48:25 PM
Obama, you and pelosi have set the democrat party back 50 years. You have seemed to forgot this is america. We don't go for any commie agenda's. You want to pedal that BS I think there hiring in Cuba and Venezuela. Don't forget to take the leftist spin doctors in the media with you.
Posted by: spawn44 | Sep 5, 2009 12:44:18 PM
" tell them what they want to hear, then you can do whatever you want."
- the american people are being " played "
van jones WILL NOT quit and..
obama WILL NOT fire him
Posted by: el | Sep 5, 2009 12:39:58 PM
I think this kind of people is danger for our nation ,WAKE UP PEOPLE,and what about the others Czar?. is better verify the background belong to they.
Glen beck advise about the this czar and put the video how they express about the revolution in Venezuela for example Mark Lloyd,this is serious situation and this man is czar for the FCC .
Posted by: Yoly | Sep 5, 2009 12:01:24 PM
Little Green Footballs is NOT a conservative website and Jake Tapper knows this.
Johnson - who describes himself as "pretty much center-left before 9/11"
Go there and you will see nothing but the bashing of conservatives.
-nutjobs like Bobby Jindal
Posted by: Father Vallan | Sep 5, 2009 3:48:20 AM
Hey, Communism has only killed (a little) over ONE HUNDRED MILLION humans beings.
Let's give it another shot!
Posted by: Joseph | Sep 5, 2009 1:34:16 AM
Danita - I mean JulieTerra, your well thoughtout, researched explanations have convinced me that you are the only one who really knows what is going on. Everyone else- forget about written statements, videos, and public records regarding Van Jones. JulieTerra has spoken, and we all know that what she says is the TRUTH! Why believe our lyin' eyes and ears when we have JT to inform us?
Posted by: Lily | Sep 5, 2009 1:24:53 AM
Tapper is a great guy. He finds all the bad stuff.
Posted by: george | Sep 4, 2009 11:01:20 PM
Wake up America!!!!!! The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men (and women) to do nothing!!!!!! We can NOT sit and complain while this racist, perverted, socialist group of ex dope smoking 19602 radicals tears down the greatest country on earth. Go to a Tea party! Hold a sign or American Flag! Write endless letters to your representatives!!! In the end.... what will you say when your Grandchildren ask you what you did to rescue this nation from evil? Hopefully you wont be explaining yourself to them from a reeducation camp. Our country needs you!!!!! Be heard!!!! Do NOT give in to this twilight e zone circus that is ruling our great country! God Bless America!!!!
Posted by: Morrow Mountain | Sep 4, 2009 10:22:53 PM
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