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PrintSeptember 8, 2009
Obama's problems with the far left
This Wall Street Journal editorial hits the nail on the head when it comes to why President Obama is in danger from his own left wing and offers an explanation for why the president is relying on so many czars to consolidate his power in the White House.
Basically, Jones was apparently one of many sops the president has tossed to the far left in the form of appointing "movement progressives" whose radical views can be hidden because they don't need senate confirmation.
Our guess is that Mr. Jones landed in the White House precisely because his job didn't require Senate confirmation, which would have subjected him to more scrutiny. This is also no doubt a reason that Mr. Obama has consolidated so much of his Administration's governing authority inside the White House under various "czars." Mr. Jones was poised to play a prominent role in disbursing tens of billions of dollars of stimulus money. It was the ideal perch from which he could keep funding the left-wing networks from which he sprang, this time with taxpayer money.
This helps explain why the political left is so upset about Mr. Jones's resignation. Listen to David Sirota, another left-wing think-tank denizen and activist, who wrote the following Sunday on the Huffington Post Web site:
"Finally, the Jones announcement will inevitably create a chilling effect on the aspirations of other movement progressives. Van is a fantastic person who has done fantastic work. He's kept his advocacy real and didn't compromise his principles. And so when he was appointed to a high-level White House job, it seemed to validate that you could, in fact, keep it real and also advance in American politics and government. That is to say, his story seemed to prove that an outsider could also succeed on the inside-and that outside advocacy doesn't automatically prohibit you from one day working on the inside."
That "outside advocacy" - translation; far left ideology - was never meant to be discovered. With the press running interference, Jones was praised for all the "good work" he was doing for the environmental cause while they ignored his conspiracy mongering, his desire to destroy our economic system, and his associations with some rather frightening wackos.
The way Jones was sold to America was quite simply, dishonest. But this is an admitted tactic of liberals who know their agenda wouldn't get anywhere unless they hide it behind moderate sounding rhetoric. Several liberals have actually had the courage to come out and say that the public option is really a waystation on the road to a single payer system. But that kind of honesty is usually lacking elsewhere in the movement as the left's ideas to redistribute wealth, hamstring the free market, and control ever more of American society from Washington is deliberately downplayed by using soothing bromides and appeals to "fairness" or "compassion."
So far, the American people have failed to see through this con game. But perhaps, as the Journal points out, the Van Jones fiasco will help the scales drop from their eyes.
