Defending Van Jones Would Be a Bad Idea

Barack Obama is not a communist. And because Barack Obama is not a communist, he's obligated to defend an advisor who was prepared to use his office as a means of incrementally implimenting communism.

If one applies their critical thinking skills to Paul Jay's interview with Democrat Donna Edwards on The Real News network, this is a theme that quickly emerges.

In the video, Jay and Edwards commiserate over Barack Obama's failure to defend Van Jones, his Green Jobs csar who recently resigned after a media campaign by FOX News personality Glenn Beck.

"I think that it demonstrates that the opponents to President Obama and to the kind of change he promised to deliver for the American people are relentless," Edwards complained. "The fact that they went after Van Jones is just another demonstration of that."

"This administration, and as we as progressives, can't be sidelined and sidetracked by people who are attacking folks in the administration for things they said before they were appointed into their offices," Edwards continued. "I think it's actually been a real shame."

For her own part, Edwards blames evil corporations.

"The reality that the corporate interests were so opposed to what he's trying to do around energy and the President's agenda around energy reform, that's why they went after him," Edwards explained. "They would have found any reason to go after Van Jones or after anyone else because they don't like the President's energy agenda."

Of course it doesn't help Edwards one bit that Jones very much was the architect of his own discredit.

No one held a gun to Van Jones' head and forced him to gush about the green movement as an incrementalist agenda toward communism.

In her own way, Edwards is right to note similarities between how individuals like Glenn Beck (and there are, no doubt, some strains of lunacy within his own comments about Jones) and others went after Obama and how they went after Jones.

The problem for Edwards is that, as it regards Jones, they were very much accurate.

Despite what individuals like Glenn Beck have to say about him, Barack Obama is far from a political radical or a communist. So for Obama to pull out all the stops from someone who has described himself as both a political radical and a communist (with a potential 9/11 "truth"er thrown in to boot) would probably be about the most foolish thing he could do. He would, in fact, be playing directly into the hands of people like Sean Hannity.

This is all aside from the fact that Van Jones clearly hasn't been entirely earnest with his intentions in regard to the Green Jobs program.

Perhaps Van Jones is the hill that Donna Edwards would like to die on, but Barack Obama is not obligated to charge off into that particular battle.