No Loony Lefty Left Behind

They loved him and left him - Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher excoriates the cut-and-run liberals who loved Green Czar Van Jones when he was up but abandoned him in his moment of trial. I especially like her "He wasn't any crazier than the rest of us" defense:

Now he's been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 -- that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11.

Good point!  Ms. Hamsher also criticizes her comrades on the left with a point we hear more often from the right:

"no coherent liberal critique was offered..."

Truer words.

As to her basic message, which is that Obama needs to govern more like a lefty - well, you go, girl!

NO TRUTH ABOUT TRUTHERS:  The NY Times tries to glide past the 'Truther' controversy in their follow-up coverage.

CAN'T SPELL 'CRAZY' WITHOUT C-Z-A-R:  “Democrats worry that Van Jones is only the first of Mr. Obama's so-called policy czars...that will be targeted by Republicans.”

We'll file that under "Ya think?"

Comments

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Dear Ms. Hamsher,

Pretty please with sugar on top, start advocating for policy you really want. Single Payer Health Care is a good start. I'll even wager that a greater percentage of Democrats support Single Payer than do think President Bush knew about in advance about the 9/11 attacks.

Draft Van Jones as the spokesman. The American people really need to know the real people that support the President's policies.

[Captain Hate]

"He wasn't any crazier than the rest of us"

Is this evidence by the defense in the court of public opinion?

[pagar]

In over seventy years, I have never heard a coherent liberal critique on any subject. Don't believe one can be done.

""no coherent liberal critique was offered..."

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Here is Maria Cardona, former spokesman for the DNC, opposite Kevin Madden, former spokesman for Romney for President, debating the Van Jones resignation. You should pay attention to Cardona spinning like crazy to defend the 31 Czars in the Obama Administration.

YouTube CNN Video

[Gmax]

Howie Yearhhhh Dean defended Van Jones saying, lots of us sign petitions on clipboards put in front of us without reading them.

Yeah Howie but fewer of us use our communist front organization to organize a march on our Senator's office to demand the same thing the petition was demanding, and do in January 2002, literally as the embers were about to die out on the 9/11 holocaust. The petition? Dated in 2004, so he had plenty of time to contemplate his views on 9/11.

Better position might be to claim he was just using any club handy to batter Bush. That one, I might believe.

[Gmax]

Whenever Jane Hamsher is quoted, I am always wondering " why dont they interviews the Poodles, poodles are smart."

[mulato]

Van Jones was tossed under the bus because both his parents were black.

Only Mullatos Need Apply.

[Neo]

I can still remember as a kid seeing a document that my father was to sign that read .. "Are you now or have you ever been a member of ..."

Did Van Jones violate the Smith Act (18 U.S.C.§ 2385) ?

Just asking.

[centralcal]

mulato: get lost.

Isn't today supposed to be the day that Obama will release a copy of his speech to school children?

Waiting. Waiting.

[Ranger]

"He wasn't any crazier than the rest of us"

Is this evidence by the defense in the court of public opinion?

Posted by: Captain Hate | September 07, 2009 at 10:04 AM

No, but it does explain why no one in the White House thought the fact he was a Thruther was an issue. My guess is that a lot more than 35% of the lower level staff that are active Truthers, or have been over the last few years.

The sad thing is, I don't think Jones ever really believed the Trutherism stuff. I think he simply exploited it to raise anger and motivate his "troopers." I think very few senior Dems actually believe the Truther stuff they were supporting by praising MM for his Truther movie. It was just a way to damage the Bush administration and keep a part of the base riled up.

But why they supported the Truthers doesnt really matter, as either way they are unfit for any federal office. If they believed it, then they are really wack jobs who should be no where near government power. And if they didn't, but still gave support for political reasons, then they are the most vile of political beings and have prove their unfitness to be trusted with political power.

[clarice]

"We'll file that under "Ya think?"
Done.
Along with a suggestion that Congress will have to demand some changes to defend the constitutional provisions re separation of power..Time to storm the winter palace (sorry ,Mel.)

Ranger--I agree. He's a pure demagogue.

[Ranger]

After reading that Jane Hamsher bit, I am really taken aback by just how shocked she is. The process she described is just the application of Chicago style politics to the national lefty elite. What did she think would happen when they put a Chicago politico in the White House?

I especially loved this bit:

Why are they not calling for the White House to release the details of those secret deals?

Because they are participating in those deals, instead of trying to destroy them. Well, that and funneling millions of dollars in pass-throughs to their consultant friends that they are supposed to be spending on the health care fight.

How does she think Barry's friends in Chicago got so rich "fighting poverty" in Chicago?

[larry]

Clarice, excellent article. I know it's a serious subject, but your term, "red green czar", has put an image in my head of a frog in a blender.

[PeterUK]

"Ranger--I agree. He's a pure demagogue."

Yes,a dem a gogo chancer.

[DrJ]

View of the Van Jones resignation from the SF Bay area here.

[Jim Ryan]

Hmm. Is this like a Trotsky vs. Stalin squabble over morals?

[Captain Hate]

LOL @ Hamsher; I don't suppose she'd be interested in LUN

[clarice]

Thanks, larry.

[Jim Ryan]

Heh.

[Gmax]

Dr. J Thanks for the laugh. Medea Benjamin quoted as saying Van Jones was "swiftboated". I nearly snorted my coffee up my nose!!!

No word if Medea understood the petition that was thrust in front of her on a clipboard. Hey it could happen, Howie Dean says it happens a lot. Lets ask her.

[matt]

Wonderful, DrJ!

"one of the few liberal voices in Obama's ear"...."he was swift boated".....there are no arguments, only assertations, about Jones' Marxist affiliations, though.

I love the quote "Willie Brown's Police Commission is killing black people" when he chaired the Hate Whitey Foundation back in the 90's.

Power to the people, man.....By the way, Oakland is ground zero for the ebonics movement as well, if you recall. The home or radical Marxist black separatism. Oh no, he's just misunderstood....

[pagar]

In case there is some confusion in your mind as to whom the leftists refer to when they say:

http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2009/09/when-will-this-white-house-learn-you-cannot-negotiate-with-terrorists/

[Captain Hate]

I think what DrJ linked is beyond even Iowahawk's ability to parody. Yeesh, I feel like I need another shower.

[Jim Ryan]

THEY'RE SMEARING ME WITH THINGS I HAPPEN TO HAVE DONE AND SAID IN THE PAST!! CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW LOW AND DIRTY CONSERVATIVES CAN BE!!

[Paul Zrimsek]

Why aren't they standing up and defending one of their own, who has done nothing that probably the majority of people in the Democratic party haven't done at one time or another?

I don't think even I'd go so far as to suggest that most Democrats have called themselves communists at one time or another.

"Take arson: Which of us can honestly say that at some time he hasn't burnt down some great public building? I know I have." --Monty Python

[clarice]

Ah--a ray of sunshine (otherwise known as Rasmussen):
"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13 (see trends). Sixty percent (60%) now believe the President is at least as ethical as most politicians.

On health care reform, 83% say that proof of citizenship should be required before anyone can receive government subsidies.

Just 13% of Americans consider Labor Day one of the nation’s most important holidays. Most view it primarily as the unofficial end of summer.

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-one percent (51%) disapprove."

[Jim Ryan]

beyond even Iowahawk's ability to parody

The Onion could send it up.

After the resignation, many of Smith's supporters were shell-shocked. Bill Smarmy, an area man, said, "I still can't believe it. Okay, so he axe-murdered some nuns. But to smear him with that is just... it's just unconscionable."

While the murders, embezzlement conviction and sex-slave ring were enough to sink Smith, followers such as Mary Maples stood tall. "We're standing by him. The GOP smear machine is at it again, but we're not backing down. Listing facts about what what someone did and said is a dirty old GOP trick and it's not going to work this time."

"The least the GOP could have done is make up fake stuff out of whole cloth, like Kennedy did to Bork. But this...this is just ridiculous," area man Phil Peters said.

[Porchlight]

But this...this is just ridiculous," area man Phil Peters said.

LOL - excellent, Jim.

Area man! My brother was an area man once, when he was 12 and a car knocked him off his bike (he was okay). My parents still have the clipping from the local newspaper.

[Extraneus]

From pagar's link, more creepy, fascist-looking imagery.

What kind of people are swayed, rather than repulsed, by this sort of thing?

[Jim Ryan]

Onion always uses that. "Area Man Fellated," etc.

[clarice]

Illiterates. Leave public education in their hands for another generation, and--like any other Third World country--people will vote for symbols, not names.

[Jim Ryan]

That poster?

Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.
-Rousseau

[Extraneus]

I forgot to mention that the image appeared under the heading "Cuz Americans Deserve Betta".

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

Finally, a lefty that gets "swiftboated". Which actually means telling the truth about someone's actions when that person would rather you didn't bring it up.

[Captain Hate]

What kind of people are swayed, rather than repulsed, by this sort of thing?

Cultists

[PeterUK]

Extraneus,
I like the poster,looks like the front cover of a Sci-Fi book. The "Mother" ship hovering in the clouds.

[clarice]

BTW, per BRO--the Canadians have finally held the Free Speech restrictions which were used against Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn are unconstitutional.

[clarice]

**per NRO**

[Porchlight]

Onion always uses that. "Area Man Fellated," etc.

Yeah, that's part of what made your parody so good. I admit I stopped reading the Onion when they moved their HQ to NYC. I thought they were better when they were Midwestern and made fun of coastal prejudices.

[Jim Ryan]

Yeah, I haven't read them since, either. Actually, as I recall, it was "Area Bassist Fellated".

[Extraneus]

Yeah, Peter, I like how the rays of light emanate from the mother ship as the white drones gaze up in its direction. The drones stand not just astride the U.S., but beyond. Far beyond, one imagines.

Millions of people look at it and think, "Man, how I luv being one of those white drones."

[PD]

Howie Yearhhhh Dean defended Van Jones saying, lots of us sign petitions on clipboards put in front of us without reading them.

Sorta like members of Congress and voting for bills.

[PD]

Extraneus, I look at that poster:

I AM
...

and think of Exodus 3:14.

Perhaps they're trying to insinuate the equivalence of God and Obama.

[PeterUK]

"Perhaps they're trying to insinuate the equivalence of God and Obama."

How dare you denigrate The Once like that,you polytheist!

[Stephanie "the Ice Pick"]

They just reported on the local news that Ludacris was working with Nissan and was giving away 20 cars that were turned in under the cash for clunkers program.... I thought all cars under that program were required to be killed and made non functionable...

How many cash for clunkers are being rerouted to "the underpriveleged? (O supporters)" This stinks to high heaven of another redistribution of wealth. Instead of giving "the underpriveleged" $4500 from the government in cash to buy a car (direct redistribution), they took in older cars and are giving them away... tax free (under the table redistribution).

Which brings me to a question I have had... how much of that ACORN and other money is being directly funneled to "the underpriveleged" (O supporters) in the form of large amounts of cash to improve their standard of living... does anyone audit these entities to see the actual expenditures themselves and not some line item on a form in bulk... I'd like to know how some of the folks I've seen lately out and about at the mall with bags full of goodies are still spending like there's no tomorrow... if they are spending chunks of our change funneled to them through these organizations...

[PD]

PUK,

Would that there would be just one His Obama-ness.

[Janet]

yeah PD, that's what I was thinking. Very creepy.

[Gmax]

If I was any good at photoshop I would take the poster and strike through the Organizing mumbo jumbo and insert "Second" to follow the Christian themed billboards popping up all around the area with local sports heros professing their faith.

[PeterUK]

One good thing about this "Second Coming" will be the "Second Going".

[PD]

mulato/mullato: Learn to spell your key incendiary word consistently, you'll look like less of a dolt.

[matt]

on another note, Michael Moore just premiered his anti-capitalist "documentary" in Venice, and Oliver Stone will premiere his "documentary" on Hugo Chavez tonight.

I wonder if Ogabe has had his personal showings of each yet?

The good news is that the vast majority of us will see these scumbags for who they are and be repulsed. All we need are Danny Glover and Sean Penn to come out for Ogabe now.....throw in an Affleck, 2 Baldwins, and a Clooney, and we'll have this week's Pick 6!

[PeterUK]

You say "mulato" and I say "mullato",let's call the whole thing off".

[Jack is Back!]

What kind of people are swayed, rather than repulsed, by this sort of thing?

These kind of people. LUN

[bgates]

saying Van Jones was "swiftboated"

In the strictest sense: conservatives only loosely affiliated with the Republican party disseminated recordings of his statements, upon hearing which a majority of the public decided they didn't want him in the White House.

[Jim Ryan]

Tom, the O kiddie speech is out.

[Buford Gooch]

Gmax | September 07, 2009 at 10:23 AM

Yeah, I always think "Jane Hamster". Poodles are definitely smarter.

[PD]

Okay, the speech isn't bad (but I wonder what kind of "extra" material will accompany it). I did note that it seems to treat our worth in terms of what kind of paying job we have, and doesn't mention the huge value of the contribution made by people such as stay-at-home moms.

[PeterUK]

Jim,
Is that for real? If so it is a paen of praise to the Once and Only First Person Singular.

[PeterUK]

PD,
It is an appalling speech,tantamount to verbal onanism!

[Jim Ryan]

There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

You know, O, we knew that by observing your behavior. Problem is, you never bucked up during late adolescence. You chose the salve of megalomania and revolution. Why fit in when you can choose to fit everyone else into you?

[PD]

I stick by my assessment. He's telling them to work hard, not to give up, not to sass their teachers. Those are all good things.

[PD]

I would, of course, like some kid to raise his hand afterward and ask, "Mr. President, what have you worked hard at yourself?"

[PeterUK]

PD,
Whilst all the time talking about his favourite subject,Barrack Hussein Obama.

[Captain Hate]

It is an appalling speech,tantamount to verbal onanism!

Nobody does it better than the O; if you eliminated all the self-references it *might* be at a level that wouldn't tax the younger students' attention span.

[Original MikeS]

I know I'm more naive than the average JOMer. I can't help but think that the most distasteful think about Van Jones was not mild profanity or the "truther" petition that he claims he didn't agree with. I know he has made comments about a white conspiracy to ship pollution to minority areas.

The thing that bothered me the most was his professed anti-capitalism and radicalism. He claimed he was a communist yet the press ignore his statement and claims Republicans accuse him of that because of his association with STORM.

During Obama's campaign, he wouldn't even admit to being a Liberal and now he disavows the core beliefs of Jones.

It seems that all of Obama's ex-associates share these same core beliefs. Anti-capitalist, anti-American exceptionalism, anti-white, redistribution of wealth, etc., are the chief commonality among Ayers, Wright, Dohrn, Soros, Van Jones et al.

[Jim Ryan]

Don't you have to accomplish great things before your personal story should inspire youngsters? Take that factor out and it's the same old "study hard, kids" snoozer these kids hear all the time.

[bishop]

Peter, I picked up this panic before the awesome 'reign of terror' ofDavid Cameron, ensues, have they lost it entirely, in the LUN

[PeterUK]

Jim,
Well,"Hi kids. Look a little dope never hurt anyone,look at me. As for study,shoot, wing it kids like I did,just refuse to release your academic record and shout "Racism" like me. OK so you're white, claim 1/148 part Lakota Sioux heritage and the teachers will be respecting you,as they did me. What you gotta do is get politically connected like I did,the rest is easy".

[Ranger]

Capt. Ed over at Hot Air took a tip from a commentor there and did a little word counting:

Update II: I’ve run the speech through a word frequency counter and found the following results:

56 iterations of “I”
19 iterations of “school”
10 iterations of “education”
8 iterations of “responsibility”
7 iterations of “country”
5 iterations each of “parents”, “teachers”
3 iterations of “nation”

In other words, Barack Obama referenced himself more than school, education, responsibility, country/nation, parents, and teachers combined. And to think that people accused Obama of self-promotion!

[Jim Ryan]

OMS, Krauthammer's take:

And I'm not even disturbed that this guy's a communist. It's not the first time we've had a communist in the U.S. government. And anyway, with the death of communism, it's a kind of a pathetic intellectual anachronism to remain a communist.

However, the stuff that we learned this afternoon is devastating. Here is a man who signed on to a petition demanding several investigations of collaboration of the Bush administration with the worst massacre of Americans ever committed on American soil.

Now, that is beyond extremism and radicalism. That's psychotic paranoia. It's a malignant kind of politics.

I think both the communism and the trutherism are mental illnesses. Both are equally disturbing.

The communists killed 100 million. This is the most evil force in history. The trutherism is a complete collapse of the intellect. Which is worse in the WH? It's a toss-up.

[PeterUK]

bishop,
It's the Guardian. its inmates are all frightened of having to get a job.
The Guardian is a small circulation paper subsidized by government job adverts,the sales of the Manchester Evening News,and ,deliciously ,Auto Trader.'kin great isn't it?

[bishop]

Have my expectations fallen so far, that I think it's a good speech

[Jim Ryan]

Peter, heh!

[Jim Ryan]

Yes, PUK, what about bishop's link? What's going on over there?

[Jim Ryan]

Got it.

[PeterUK]

Ranger.
Don't forget "me and my".

[laura]

The speech is standard when I was a youngster I walked 8 miles uphill in a snowstorm to get to school stuff only with the O's exotic touch, Communist mentors, Indonesian madrassas and Hawaiian elite private schools. It's the classic American pull yourself up by the bootstraps tale.

Having said that it is pretty typical of speeches given by any adult of any standing to school age children, they are pretty much always self-laudatory. That is why those speakers are brought in. "I did this, you can too" The formula is tried and tested.

[PeterUK]

Jim.What is going on? As I said it is the Pravda of the liberal parasite classes the Guardian. They are frightened witless that the gravy train is at the end of the track,through the buffers,across the station entrance hall,over the side walk and into oblivion.
Think Guardian,think Obama.

[glasater]

Is anyone listening to Zero's speech on Fox right now in Cincinnati?

Positively nauseating! He lies and that crowd eats it up.

[Ranger]

PUK,

Since you asked.

Me: 78

My: 12

[glasater]

Zero is sounding more like a communist than Van Jones.

[Ranger]

For those counting, that is 136 instances of I, Me, and My in an aproximately 2,500 word text.

[glasater]

He is definitely speaking like a very desperate man.

[Captain Hate]

Any choice quotes, glasater? Thanks for enduring it so I don't have to.

btw, I think that the original text of the Once's school speech before people got nervous about it, will be as difficult to gain access to as his birth certificate and college transcripts.

[Ignatz]

--And I'm not even disturbed that this guy's a communist. It's not the first time we've had a communist in the U.S. government. And anyway, with the death of communism, it's a kind of a pathetic intellectual anachronism to remain a communist.--

Does that reasoning apply to Nazis?
Krauthammer needs an intellectual enema.

[Original MikeS]

I want to criticize Van Jones' accomplishments in green stuff. My understanding is that his "big idea" is to re-insulate homes and offices in some cases using ex-cons to perform the actual work.

Re-insulating or adding more insulation to buildings that were insulated after about the mid 1970 is probably the worst "green" investment you could make It is a terribly ineffective way to spend money. By that I mean the investment will NEVER pay for itself. The concept is unsustainable without a constant infusion of government money.

What I'm trying to say is, "The idea sucks!"

[PD]

I'm sorry, but no, Obama's speech to the schoolchildren is not all about him. Yes, there are bits that are about him. But if you're gonna tell a kid, "look, you're going to face difficulties, but you can get through them," then I think it not unreasonable to appeal to your own experience of facing and getting through difficulties.

I don't think anyone here would accuse me of being an Obama lover, but I found the speech pretty benign.

That said, I will be surprised if the WH doesn't try to make hay of last week's furor over it to say, "Look, all these right wing accusations of indoctrination were completely baseless." (And down the memory hole will go any reference to the accompanying lesson plans.)

[PD]

My understanding is that his "big idea" is to re-insulate homes and offices in some cases using ex-cons to perform the actual work.

I can't see any problem with the idea of having ex-cons into your home. What could go wrong?

[PeterUK]

Obama would have been better off getting a script writer.This one would be free,he's dead.

OBAMANDIAS of UStopia

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Obamandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

"A man's got to know his limitations".

[Porchlight]

And down the memory hole will go any reference to the accompanying lesson plans.

Right. Also the possibility that this could be a fallback, plan B speech, written only after the uproar. Based on the original lesson plans, which don't make a lot of sense in the context of this speech, that's my view anyway.

[PD]

PUK, heh.

Where the comparison breaks down, of course, is that Ozymandias had some actual works to look on.

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough.

Does this mean Obama thinks Van Jones is unAmerican?

[bishop]

How could Krauthammer make such an elemental
mistake, Marxist was around for nearly a quarter century before it took power in Russia. Karl's Michael Moore like analysis
was based on observation of industrial capitalist regimes like the UK and probably
the US. Ir was only after the failure of the Narodnya Volya or "Peoples Will and the
accomodation of the SR's that a feudal nation like Czarist Russia seemed a fitting
venue for Marxism. Van Jones's clapttrap is more dangerous not less

[PeterUK]

"The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough."

This is a direct political jab at Sarah Palin. Send for Narciso.

[Sue The Skinny Bastard]

Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

But when you do, expect one of my minions to treat you like a racist, terrorist, winger, mob and meanie.

[Captain Hate]

"A man's got to know his limitations".

Maybe he should read that poem about caves, apes and figs. That would inspire the children to realize that anybody can aspire to be Preznit.

[bishop]

You rang, well "now for something completely
different," this statement from some 'not get all wobbly' on Afghanistan.

[PeterUK]

PD,
In this case it will be a huge pair of ears.

[Captain Hate]

LOL; "two vast and headless ears of stone"

[rse]

"Don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it. I do that every day."

That's why he needs all those czars!