Van Jones quits, Media finds lessons for all of us

President Obama's special advisor on Green Jobs (popularly called the "Green Jobs Czar" by liberal groups) resigned on Saturday and the resignation was announced by the White House just after midnight Sunday morning. The somewhat predictable media response is instructive:

What's the astounding lesson the Two Toms on Meet the Press thinks we should take from this resignation (since the print media and major networks failed to report the developing story)? You can’t trust the Internet. Watch the video. And remember that the information from the internet which led to the resignation consisted of (1) a petition Jones signed but said he did not understand, (2) YouTube videos of Jones speaking in public and (3) excerpts from friendly interviews in the print media plus excerpts of published material Jones had written himself.

Allahpundit:

You have to see it to believe it. The singular lesson of the past week, after big media failed to uncover Jones’s Truther past and then actively suppressed it when it broke online, is that they can’t be trusted to chase stories that are inconvenient to The One . . . And yet here they are . . . warning the public that only a fool would play in the “open sewer” that is the Internet, where lies and smears and video clips that the networks won’t show of Obama administration officials calling Republicans “assholes” flow insidiously onward. Plenty of viewers will believe them, too: Remember, for many, their first taste of the Van Jones story came this morning, and no sooner did they hear about it than a trusted figure like Tom Brokaw appeared to dismiss it as a smear campaign. You couldn’t script a more Orwellian ending. Friedman actually goes so far as to call this a cautionary tale about how everyone’s a potential target in the age of mass media. . . . Quoth Jonah Goldberg: “What a tragedy that fewer people will support cop-killers and anti-American conspiracy groups because of poor Van Jones' chilling effect on the culture.” (Emphasis mine)

Mickey Kaus: "Amazingly, many New York Times print readers still don't know why Van Jones resigned!"

Jennifer Rubin:

Unfortunately for the White House, this turn of events seems to confirm many of the criticisms, even those from sympathetic Democrats who want Obama to succeed with his liberal agenda. There are at least a couple of problems that we have seen before.

First, there is apparently no one outside the ultra-liberal bubble who can spot a mistake and understand how those not part of the netroot fan base might take offense. . . . Maybe there is a brave soul trying to save the White House from itself, but if there is, no one is listening. And that gets it into trouble again and again.

Second, because the mainstream media doesn’t report or underreports ”bad” news ( i.e., news that isn’t helpful to Obama), the administration operates under the misconception that bad news is just Glenn Beck ranting or a “fake” news story. The White House then goes to spin mode, attacks the messengers (e.g., conservative news outlets), imagines “real” Americans couldn’t possibly care, and allows the issue to fester. The result is to elevate the conservative outlets that did the reporting and to further erode the credibility of the “friendly” nonnews media. As Politico’s headline aptly put it: “Glenn Beck up, left down, Jones defiant.”

Jones isn’t the biggest story going on . . . But unless the White House deals with the judgment, personnel, and execution problems that the Jones fiasco highlights, the president will have a hard time regaining his footing and dealing with all these, and other, pressing issues.

Andrew Breitbart on the MSM Reaction:

Much of America has started to realize that not only was Mr. Obama not vetted before he became president, he and his fellow unvetted cohorts continue to be given a pass by the Fourth Estate.

Two more stories demonstrate how the Democrat-Media Complex, the natural alliance of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, is more concerned with trying to figure out how to destroy Glenn Beck - "he's nuts!" - than to follow his methodical, accurate reporting. This dynamic - used against all potent critics and off-the-reservation journalists - shows that not only is the media ignoring all the negative things coming out about the Obama administration, it is acting like President Richard Nixon's henchmen, making life difficult for its whistleblowers.

One of the stories is that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a massive radical organization, is poised to receive billions from the Obama "stimulus."

ACORN's voting division is currently under investigation in multiple states for fraud. And its housing division exists to fulfill an unclear mandate that has been accused of using funds to pay for political protests. If the alternative media digs further and finds out ACORN is guilty as charged, and as corrupt as its ample critics say it is, the onus is those who didn't question when the Obama team decided to allocate billions to expand the group's reach.

Brian Williams, the ball is in your court. . . .

Moving toward the Left - Marc Ambinder:

He was a classic policy entrepreneur, and arguably, the type of person that liberals and progressives want as a presidential adviser. But he was -- and can be -- more influential outside of government than inside of it.

For the same reasons, triumphalism over Jones's exit is misplaced. Jones was many things, but he wasn't the fascist that reactionaries insisted on calling him. And he was never terribly powerful. In fact, his departure makes it easier for the administration to press ahead with its Green Jobs initiative -- no longer do opponents have Van Jones to kick around anymore. That Jones was even the target of vitriol is more evidence of paranoia . . .

For Progressive Blogger Jane Hamsher, the Van Jones incident triggered exasperation both at the administration and at liberal institutions which allow the administration to control their messages:

I first met Van Jones when he was honored last year by the Campaign for America's Future at their gala dinner. He was being swarmed by all of the liberal institutional elite, who just could not be more full of praise for the impressive environmental leader and prison reform organizer. Everybody wanted Van Jones on their board. Everyone wanted him at their fundraisers. Everyone wanted a piece of his formidable limelight.

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. Well, that and calling Republicans "a--holes." I'm pretty sure that if you search through the histories of every single liberal leader at the CAF dinner that night, they have publicly said that and worse.

So where are all the statements defending Van Jones by those who were willing to exploit him when it served their purpose?

Wow.

Daily Kos takes their usual militant approach:

. . . Van Jones defeats Glenn Beck.

The big news of the night is that Van Jones, the President's advisor on green jobs and the economy, has resigned under pressure from far-right brownshirts. On the surface this disappointing, to say the least. . . But after weeks of battling rightist slander and disinformation, Jones has resigned.

This could be bad - for Glenn Beck his Holy Trollers.

The near-term downside to this is that the residents of the Beck Asylum for Paranoid Thumb Suckers are going to be celebrating triumphantly for a while. That will be annoying but bearable. Beck himself will feel emboldened and anxious to take aim at a new target. . .

But Beck and his ilk may rue the day they set Jones free. As a private citizen he will not be constrained by diplomacy and the political fear of controversy. He will be able to speak with conviction and take aim at the real villains in our midst. The organization he co-founded, Color of Change, was largely responsible for Beck losing 57 advertisers (so far). And, let's face, Beck's obsession with Jones was driven by vengeance for that association, even though Jones has not been affiliated with the group for over two years. Clearly Beck is afraid of Jones, hence the incessant coverage. But Beck has made a serious strategic error, because Jones is a far bigger threat to Beck outside of government than inside of it.

The effectiveness of the advertiser boycott can now be expanded upon by an unfettered Jones, who can bring his skill, experience, and passion to a new field of battle. . . .

If Glenn Beck is proud that he was able to demonize an honest and patriotic man like Van Jones, he may soon discover that he is not immune from the hardball tactics he employed to tarnish this man's reputation.

Ace: No, Glenn Beck Didn't Rape Anyone."
Jim Treacher: "Who invented the video camera? Who invented Youtube? Who developed the English language? Let's put the blame where it belongs."

Keith Olberman wants you to send him all the dirt you can find on Glenn Beck and his bosses.

The astounding disproportion between the facts -- who Van Jones is and what got him in trouble -- and the Left's perception tells you a lot about what's gone wrong in Hopeville. For all the recent uproar about Joseph Farah and "Birthers," it is the Democratic Party which suffers most from the influence of its extremist supporters.

Jane Hamsher, Alan Colmes, and Keith Olbermann apparently live inside an echo chamber where a man who was a leader of a Marxist outfit like STORM, and who subsequently signed a 9/11 Truther petition, is not legitimately controversial . . . . Does anyone seriously expect an avowed "Birther" to get a White House job in the next Republican administration?

Whoops. Olberman calls off the Kossacks.
Old-fashioned lefty David Corn on the value of the Truther movement.