Van Jones Targeted Because He's Black Says Huffington Post Columnist

If you believe Huffington Post contributor David Sirota there are only two types of people in the world, those who agree with everything President Obama says and does, and those who are racist.

Sirota is a "racer" someone who uses race as the political excuse for just about everything, and takes it to an extent which goes beyond any sense of reality.

Other famous racers are Janine Garafolo, who said that the people participating in the April Tea Parties were doing so because they objected to a African American President, and embattled Congressman Charlie Rangel who blames protests against Obamacare on racism:

"Some Americans have not gotten over the fact that Obama is president of the United States. They go to sleep wondering, 'How did this happen?' " Rangel 

Appearing on CNN's American Morning today, David Sirota said Van Jones was "a national hero" who was "originally targeted because he's an African-American man" (video below)

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: 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.


DAVID SIROTA, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: 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.

Sirota has a warped sense of timing, The quotes and videos which were used to explain Van Jones to people were mostly between  2004-2009, in a political lifetime that is not a long time ago.

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.

SOMETHING?  Sorry Mr. Sorota, it was a whole load of somethings, with each passing day there was a new revelation about Van Jones.

And what I think what's going on here is that the White House is listening to the 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.

Oh I get it a bunch of racists lead by a terrorist racist.  That doesn't fly, all Beck did is show people what Jones said, uncut in all of its splendor. As far as the terrorism charge, the only terrorist I have ever seen on Beck's show have been pictures of the POTUS' buddy, Bill Ayers.

Sirota's next move was to back up Van Jones' Lie about not knowing what he was signing (even though the petition's organizers have said that Jones is lying).

SIROTA: Well, John, look, he said it was a mistake. And, you know, I think his name was lent to something that he clearly wasn't fully aware of. He said it was a mistake. I don't think anybody -- nobody's debating whether he said it was a mistake or not.

Sirota starts to lose it and resorts to the progressive version of " OH YEAH?" ...BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH..

My point here is that what are the standards, right? You have a Bush administration, for instance, that lied us into war. Nobody was fired at all for that. Thousands of people have died because of that.

You have an economic team that has conflicts of interest with the financial industry that it's regulating. Nobody has said a thing about this.

That didn't work so Sirota goes back to the Race card.

What happened here was that Van Jones was originally targeted because he's an African-American man who worked on behalf of social justice issues. Remember, he was targeted by the right wing, but the Glenn Becks of this world right before this 9/11 issue ever came out. He was targeted because of that. (Source for transcript Newsbusters)

Van Jones was not targeted because he was an African American. Van Jones was targeted because he is just a few fries short of a happy meal. For God's sake, the 9/11 truther petition wasn't his only nutty stance, how about the one where he said white environmentalists where dumping waste in rivers to pollute African American towns. Sure he wrote a book and went to Yale, but Van Jones has a very tentative hold on reality and judging by his comments this morning, David Sirota's grasp may be just as tentative.