h/t ThoughtProfiles's:
A juxtaposition of the past and current use of McCarthyism.
A must watch. They did an excellent job with this mash up. Maybe someone could get George Will to watch it.
Real Time's New Rules for Sept. 11, 2009. Bill wants everyone to get off the couch and get out there and protest. I hate to break this to him, but there is a movement out there by the left doing the same thing as the tea baggers. The media has just decided not to cover it and they don't have Fox's Griff Jenkins going along for the ride and Fox Noise promoting it night after night.
I do agree that more people taking to the streets would help. Maybe we can get Bill to agree to cover it so there's not a complete media blackout since he thinks it's so important. Perhaps he can have one of his "Real Time Real Reporters" ride along with the Reform Now bus.
(Warning... video not safe for work.)
Maher: The Democrats just never learn. Americans don’t really care which side of an issue you’re on as long as you don’t act like p#&$ies. When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was actually paying them a compliment. He was. He was talking about how they can get things done even when they’re the minority as opposed to the Democrats who can’t seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the Presidency and Bruce Springsteen.
You know I love Obama’s civility, his desire to work with his enemies… he’s positively Christ-like. In college he was probably the guy at the dorm parties who made sure the stoners shared their pot with the jocks.
But we don’t need that guy now. We need an asshole. Mr. President, there are some people who are never going to like you. That’s why they voted for the old guy and Carrie’s mom.
You’re not going to win them over. Stand up for the 70% of Americans who aren’t crazy.
And speaking of that 70%, when are we going to actually show up in all this? You know tomorrow Glenn Beck’s army of zombie retirees are descending on Washington. It’s the million moron march. Although they won’t get a million of them of course because many will be confused and drive to Washington State.
But they will make news because people who take to the streets always do. They’re at town hall meetings screaming at the Congressmen. We’re on the couch screaming at the T.V. You know especially in this age of Twitters and blogs and Snuggies, it’s a statement just to leave the house.
But leave the house we must because this is our last best shot for a long time to get the sort of serious health care reform that would make the United States the envy of several African nations.
John V. Santore at Media Matters makes a convincing case that what Glenn Beck is doing in attacking President Obama's appointees as "communists" and "Marxists" is simply a new form of McCarthyism.
Now, what do we do about it?
Step 1: Expose both Beck and his enablers for what they are: liars, smear artists, and political charlatans.
James Rucker of Color of Change has a superb post up about the nuances of dealing with hatemongers like Beck:
In the wake of Van’s resignation, some have wondered whether kicking the Beck hornet’s nest makes sense. I’ve got two thoughts in response. First, Beck and Fox trying to change the topic and counter-attacking with such force is probably a good indicator that we’re getting to them; if anything, now would be the time to go harder. Second, I believe we have no choice. Beck has promised to take his witch-hunt to others in the administration, and has set his sights on Cass Sunstein as his next target. He has no plans to stop, and neither should we.
But it’s not just “czar”-hunting that’s at stake here. The right wing media machine, of which Beck is now one of the leading members, is the single greatest force standing in the way of change. They have already helped derail the conversation on health care, elevating accusations of Obama’s alliance with the Third Reich to some semblance of credibility. And they will do the same to the upcoming debates over clean energy, immigration, and every progressive policy priority. We simply don’t have the luxury of ignoring them. We must challenge them head on, expose their distortions, take away their advertisers, and position their views where they belong: far outside the bounds of any rational political discourse.
Be sure to read the whole piece.
It's been patently self-evident that Van Jones was just the appetizer for the sharks at Fox, whose ultimate goal is to take down Obama himself.
Beck has been boasting that he took down Jones by simply using Jones' own words and repeating them.
Well, folks in glass houses ought to think carefully about the wisdom of throwing stones, if you know what I mean.
The catalog of Glenn Beck's toxic discourse is long and nasty. When it comes to giving advertisers something to think about, the well is deep and dark. No doubt a lot of it is going to be bubbling back up into public view soon.
Because nothing brings down the liars and crooks like the light of day, shining brightly under the rocks whence they crawl.
It was obvious when the Obama White House stood back and let Van Jones get run over by the right-wing bus that he just happened to be first in line.
These wingnuts are just getting warmed up. That was self-evident yesterday on Fox, when not just Glenn Beck, but Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly piled on as well. These guys are now headed straight for the rest of Obama's progressive appointees, and ultimately are after Obama himself.
Beck had on Michelle Malkin to help him line up the next row of victims, who appear primarily to be John Holdren and Valerie Jarrett. Hannity, too, clearly has Jarrett in his sights; he featured a clip from her chat at Netroots Nation, talking up the value of having someone like Van Jones in the administration.
But really, this bus isn't just aimed at progressive appointees. It's directed ultimately at Obama himself. Beck made that clear in his segment with O'Reilly (who miraculously comes off as the voice of reason in all this), when he essentially admitted that the purpose of this whole campaign is to paint Obama as a closet Marxist who secretly wants to transform America into a communist state.
In other words, this is about delegitimizing the Obama presidency. That's been their purpose from Day One, and they appear to be right on schedule. With a helping hand from the Obama White House itself.
David Sirota on CNN's American Morning explaining why the White House throwing Van Jones under the bus was such a terrible idea. They've done nothing but show the right wing that they will cave if they decide to attack a progressive working in the White House.
ROBERTS: The president hired Van Jones to find more green jobs, putting more Americans back to work and helping the environment. Now, Jones is looking for a job himself. He has been under fire for some pointed comments about Republicans and a petition that he signed back in 2004 questioning what the Bush White House knew about 9/11. He has now resigned.
To talk more about that, let's bring in syndicated columnist David Sirota and David Frum, the editor of newmajority.com and former speech writer for the Bush White House.
David Sirota, let's start with you, because you wrote quite a scathing column that appeared on the newleft.org and as well on the huffingtonpost.com, saying you're absolutely outraged by the way the White House handled this.
SIROTA: Van Jones is a national hero for his work on green jobs. He's known as an expert on energy policy, on economic policy. He's somebody who made a mistake, who acknowledged that he made a mistake a long time ago, and he was tossed out by this White House.
And I think what we can learn from what happened is what this White House values and what this White House doesn't value. The White House stuck by Tim Geithner as Tim Geithner was involved, the treasury secretary, in a tax scandal. He's accepted gifts from the banking industry. The White House stood by him.
The White House has stood by other people, like Ben Bernanke, who has really been at the heart of our economic problems. And they're basically putting Van Jones out to pasture because of something Van Jones said was a mistake.
And I think what's going on here is that the White House is listening to the white right wing's political terrorists, people like Glenn Beck, people like conservative activists who have targeted Van Jones because Van Jones is an African-American with a progressive movement background working on behalf of social justice.
That's something, unfortunately, that is apparently, according to the right wing, not allowed in this country.
Rep. Mike Pence has been on the forefront of pushing this Van Jones scandal created by Glenn Beck (good to see he gets his walking papers from such an impeccable source, isn't it?), calling for his resignation and saying that Jones' "extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this Administration or the public debate."
But as Jeremy Scahill points out, Pence isn't bothered by the extremist views of Erik Prince of Blackwater/Xe, who has contributed thousands of dollars to Pence:
On Friday, Pence, who describes himself as “Christian, Conservative, Republican, in that order,” said Jones’s “extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.” Beyond the obvious here (the hate-filled rhetoric we see every day from racist, right-wing wackos, including those in public office), it is an interesting comment considering that Pence is an extremist right-wing evangelical Christian who has taken thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince. Prince has also donated to Pence’s Political Action Committee “Principles Exalt a Nation.” In December 2007, three months after Blackwater operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, Pence and his Republican Study Committee, which serves “the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives,” organized a gathering to welcome Prince to Washington. “Not only has Mr. Prince personally been targeted by partisan warfare repeatedly over the past months, but the use of contracting throughout the government has been under attack by this Congress,” Pence’s committee’s statement said. Should Pence resign for cavorting with and accepting campaign cash from a man who allegedly “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” in the words of a former employee?
I think it's time for the majority party to start acting like one. If Republican-controlled Congress could set aside time to debate condemning MoveOn.org for their Gen. "Betray Us" ad, then the Democratic-controlled Congress ought to be making sure that the double standard of IOKIYAR no longer stands.
The resignation of Van Jones was a "loss for the country," according to Gov. Howard Dean. "I think he was brought down," Dean told Fox News' Chris Wallace.
John Amato:
Howard Dean said he spoke to Van Jones and said...
Well, he was told by the people waving clip boards around that he was signing something else and I think that's too bad.
I would hope that these leftist extremists like Color of Change will think twice before they go after an upstanding company like FOX News because the lesson here is that somebody is going to pay a big price for doing it. In fact, it probably would pay to keep a close eye on the FOX gasbags from now on to get an idea of which groups or individuals have offended the network and get rid of them before anyone has a chance to make a public stink. It would save everyone a lot of time and trouble.
We have members in the Republican party like the Michelle Bachmann's that say and do insane things all day long, but they just get a pat on the back from the media and say thank you, may I have another.
The Washington Post actually let a little truth slip into their article about the FOX witch hunt.
But there's more to this story than just the usual Lani Guanier human sacrifice ritual:
Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck all but declared war on Jones after a group the adviser founded in 2005, ColorofChange.org, led an advertising boycott against Beck's show to protest his claim that Obama is a racist.
This is yet another example of Fox News annihilation strategy against anyone who criticizes them. And it works.
It's kind of ironic that they constantly accuse Obama of being a "Chicago" politician when it Roger Ailes who adheres to the classic dictum from The Untouchables:
Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!
Murdoch and Ailes have made it quite clear that if you mess with Fox they will unleash the crazies. They're taking Van Jones' scalp to send that message. He won't be the last. It's not a coincidence that the Washington Post put this surprisingly insightful paragraph far down in the story. In fact, I'm a bit surprised they let it slip through at all.
A lot of us have feared from the get-go that, when it comes to dealing with the viciousness, mendacity and absolute ruthlessness of the wingnuts running the Republican Party, President Obama is bringing a Smurf doll to a street fight, trying to beat shivs and guns with lollipops.
Those fears were fully realized last night:
Van Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, resigned Saturday, following weeks of pressure from the right and a flurry of revelations about his past statements.
"I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today," Jones said in a statement dated Sept 5 released around midnight on Sept 6.
"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me.They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide," he continued. "I have been inundated with calls -- from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.' But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future."
White House officials had offered tepid support last week Jones after he issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition that questioned whether Bush administration officials "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
So this is what we can expect from Obama: When the right gets into full-froth rabid attack-dog mode, he folds. He'll even throw one of his best friends and most loyal liberal allies under the bus.
Best of all, he's just handed the most rabid of the haters who are undermining his agenda -- namely, Glenn Beck and the rest of the Fox crew -- their biggest scalp yet. The crowing that will follow is just the start.
They certainly won't be satisfied with this. Hell, this is just the appetizer. Beck has already made clear that Valerie Jarrett is the next one in his sights.
If President Obama and Rahm Emanuel think that letting the Fox crew drive out his appointees is going to help him win his legislative battles -- this was clearly the product of a White House more intent on trying to get its health-care reform package passed than dealing with the larger, more pervasive problem that threatens not just health-care reform but all of his initiatives -- he is sadly and badly mistaken.
Indeed, this whole fustercluck is an ill omen for health-care reform as well. It sure looks like Van Jones is just a precursor for the eventual fate of a public option, isn't it?
Well, Obama and Co. may get a white feather for their complete and utter lack of spine on this, but the rest of us don't have to take this lying down.
It's time for all-out political war with these wingnuts. Just boycotting Glenn Beck isn't going to be enough; sure, Jones' old organization, Color of Change, may have convinced 57 advertisers to drop out of supporting Beck, but all they did was shift their advertising dollars to other Fox programs. Rupert Murdoch still got their money, and thus eventually so did Beck.
If progressives want to have any hope of enacting their agenda, they have to do something about Fox News and its advertisers. And we obviously are going to have to do it without any help from this weak-kneed White House.
September 03, 2009 News Corp
(Heather): News Hounds has a nice run down of this segment for anyone that would rather listen to fingernails on a chalkboard than the sound of Sean Hannity's voice.
Unrepentant Bigot Hannity In No Position To Be Complaining About Van Jones "Racism":
Hannity began the segment by trumpeting the “new and disturbing information” about Jones that, according to Hannity shows "he is not fit for office.” Apparently, the new and disturbing information was that Jones had signed a letter by the “infamous 9/11 Trust organization” asking for an “immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.” Hannity forgot to mention that the letter was very lengthy and called for investigations into many other aspects of 9/11. Jones now says he did not carefully review the letter before signing it and has issued a statement saying that the letter “certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.” He has also apologized for calling Republicans "assholes" in a remark made before he joined the Obama administration. But of course, while an apology from Duane "Dog" Chapman for his n-word rant was enough to garner a full hour of image rehab from Hannity, the apology from Jones was barely considered.
Hannity continued, “The fact that the president would not only allow but appoint a man who harbors these conspiratorial beliefs to serve the United States should provoke not only concern but outrage among all Americans.”
Really? Then where’s the concern and outrage for the birther conspiracy theorists which Hannity not only did not condemn but promoted and legitimized on his show?
News Hounds has much more on this segment and I encourage everyone to go read the entire post.
UPDATE: Wow, Little Green Footballs says: Truther Document 'Signatories' Say They Were Misled
In other words, the Truthers lied about the real intent of their document in order to get people to sign it.
Imagine my surprise.
On Monday Van Jones was named Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at CEQ (Council for Enviromental Quality). Jones is the founder of Green For All and the author of the 2008 New York Times best-seller, The Green Collar Economy.
In the clip above, Van Jones lays out the historical context and present day significance of the environmental movement for African Americans, a group he sees could singularly benefit from Barack Obama's proposed and ambitious Green Revolution. With unemployment among black youth (16-24) running well over 30% now the need is certainly there. Jones was addressing the 2009 State of the Black Union.
