Van Jones
Gone. Unsurprising, really. Was Van Jones a truther? Well, he signed the petition, and I don’t think he can point to any public statement where he repudiated the truthers until recently… and then very weakly. He says he was the victim of a “vicious smear campaign.” Sure, I’ll grant that. So? He’s a politician and a lawyer, after all.
See the quotation and his repudiation of the truthers in the USA Today.
Is what he said really a big deal?
At times like this I like to quote the late Richard Mitchell, of The Underground Grammarian. In his essay “Less Than Words Can Say” he offers us the passage below, which I quote in full. The italics are his, the bold emphasis is mine.
Not many years ago, it was a popular sport to collect and publish silly mistakes made by schoolchildren in their compositions. Many books of these so-called boners were printed for the delectation of grown-ups who laughed and chuckled. “Heh, heh, ain’t they cute.” Sometimes venturesome publishers went even further and printed collections of idiocies from the notes that schoolchildren brought from home. These were usually pathetic examples from barely literate people, but we chuckled and laughed some more. Now, like desperate drillers looking for new pockets of gas, we publish collections of the pomposities and malapropisms of politicians and bureaucrats. Again we chuckle and laugh. We don’t find them quite as cute as those cunning kids, but still we laugh. It makes us feel superior. And because we feel superior we forgive; and we’re willing to believe that a member of the city council, say, or a senator, shouldn’t be judged too harshly merely by the inanity of his words. We’ll still reelect him. After all, anybody can make a mistake. We make this mistake because it does not occur to us that there is no other way to judge the work of a mind except through its words, and we pay attention only long enough to be amused. In fact, however, those silly little mistakes always mean something important.
You can find an archive of Mitchell’s writings at The Underground Grammarian.
On Meet the Press today (September 6, 2009) David Gregory was interviewing David Axelrod, the President’s Senior Adviser. It isn’t on Hulu yet, so I’ll include a link to the YouTube clip. It will probably be taken down soon. Here’s the part of the exchange I find interesting, with me inserted.
Gregory: Do you find it, what he [Van Jones] said, objectionable?
Me: [Yelling at the TV] Just say yes! Just say yes!
Axelrod: Well I haven’t read all of, of his comments either, David. Again, I’m focused on how we get health security for all Americans, how do we get this economy moving in the right direction. We’ve pulled back from the abyss of a potential collapse, and now we have to build for the future and get people back to work. I think those are the things we should be focused on, and that’s what I am focused on.
Me: [Groan]
See the segment on YouTube.
Why is this hard? If Van Jones said that he had been interested in what the 9/11 truth movement had to say, but after he found out he realized that they were nuts, he might be okay. (There are still his comments about Republicans, of course, but that’s a different, also toxic, matter.) So I have almost the same reaction to Axelrod’s inability to reject Van Jones’ comments as I do with, say, John McCain’s inability to reject President Bush’s policies.
Okay, so is this really a big deal? Does believing that government officials may have been complicit in 9/11 really mean you are unfit to hold office? Our elected officials believe a great many surprising, wrong, and even downright idiotic things, but we elect them anyway. Perhaps he was merely a victim of picking an unpopular thing to support.
I don’t think it is just a matter of an unpopular choice. First, let me say that our government has done some terrible things and covered them up. If you need a short list, email me or, better still, consult the historians. Isn’t it possible that members of the Bush administration were actively complicit in the 9/11 attacks? Of course not.
First, the explanation given is simple, direct, and easily understood. Religious extremists hijacked planes and flew them into buildings. We know where they trained to fly, how the got in the country, etc. The trail is really clear, the story hangs together, and it makes sense. In fact, even the engineering makes sense. We know why the buildings, even building 7, collapsed. All the evidence (and there is a lot of it) supports the story we all know; none of it supports the truthers’ many versions. The truthers are in the same situation as the birthers.
The other story is that members of the administration let it happen. I don’t buy this, either. Bush did not surround himself with the kind of people who passed at the chance to be heroes. Plus, how did they find out? From the CIA? The NSA? The FBI? In all three cases the intel would have triggered law enforcement actions, such as investigations and the creation of files. Maybe folks should have known, but sadly it seems they did not.
So we’re back to whether or not it matters. And I say yes, it does. This administration has an ambitious agenda (whether you agree with it or not) and needs public support to accomplish any of these things and even to just accomplish the business of running the country. We’re engaged in two wars started as a result of 9/11, and going through upheavals on who specifically broke the law on interrogations. Adding someone who thinks, absent any evidence, that the former administration assisted in these attacks is toxic.
So, exit Van Jones, for now. He was one of the co-founders of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and will remain actively engaged in political life, I’m sure. With only minor apologies to Fitzgerald, there are plenty of second acts in American lives.
