Van Jones decries 'lies and distortions,'quits as Obama's environmental advisor

Jones says he has become a distraction to the administration's healthcare agenda because of his videotaped insult of Republicans and his signature on a petition suggesting a 9/11 conspiracy.

 
By Peter Wallsten (L..A. Times)
Reporting from Washington - Responding to a firestorm that raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and websites, the White House today announced the resignation of a top environmental advisor who had made fiery remarks about Republicans and signed a petition questioning whether the U.S. government had any role in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.Van Jones, a prominent Oakland community activist, issued a statement decrying "lies and distortions" and a "smear campaign" that had been waged against him by the right.But despite his defiance, Jones had been forced to apologize in recent days for some of his past statements, including a speech shortly before his appointment posted on YouTube in which he used a vulgar term to describe Republicans.White House officials never rose to his defense, and took pains over the weekend to distance themselves from Jones' statements and decisions about his employment status.Obama senior advisor David Axelrod said today that Jones made his own decision to leave, but he commended him for the departure."The bottom line is that he showed his commitment to the cause of creating green jobs in this country by removing himself as an issue," Axelrod told NBC's "Meet the Press."The controversy began bubbling to the surface over the last week, as conservative talk show hosts such as Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity homed in on Jones as the latest example of a "radical" associate of Obama.It was a similar line of attack to that used by Republicans against Obama during last year's presidential campaign. But in accepting Jones' resignation over the weekend, White House officials in effect acknowledged that the president could ill afford such damage as he was already struggling to win congressional support for a healthcare overhaul.Already, polls have shown support for Obama and his healthcare agenda dropping among moderates and independents -- the very voters who the president has worked hardest to court and who are most likely to be turned off by a close advisor seen as an extreme liberal.Jones, even as he hit back against his critics, conceded that he had become a distraction."On the eve of historic fights for healthcare and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," he wrote in his resignation letter to the White House. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.""But I came here to fight for others, not for myself," Jones added. "I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past."White House officials hope the distraction will be cleared away now in time for Obama's prime-time speech to Congress Wednesday and a final push to sell skeptical lawmakers on an healthcare overhaul plan.But Jones was only the latest in a series of dust-ups that have proved harmful to the White House -- and a number of those episodes, such as the vetting failures that preceded the downfall of would-be Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Daschle as a key player in the health debate, fall in the category of unforced errors.Obama, for example, was thrown off course in July when he held a news conference to focus attention on healthcare but instead injected himself into the racially explosive fight over the arrest of a black Harvard professor. And last week, conservatives seized on a speech Obama is to deliver Tuesday to schoolchildren, accusing the president of using the address for political purposes.The Jones resignation could also raise further questions about how the White House vets its top officials, including its so-called issue czars such as Jones, who do not require Senate confirmation.Many of Jones' speeches, and his signature on the 911Truth.org website petition suggesting the Bush administration played a role in the attacks, could be found with simple Google searches. And conservative websites were circulating a C-SPAN video showing top Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett telling an audience, "We were so delighted to be able to recruit [Jones] into the White House.""We've been watching him . . . for as long as he's been active," she said, citing "all the creative ideas that he has."Conservatives such as Beck and some lawmakers have pointed to the proliferation of White House czars as a point of concern."We have about two dozen so-called czars -- the pay czar, the car czar, all these czars in the White House," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), speaking on "Fox News Sunday." "And that really is an affront to the Constitution, because the Constitution was set up to say that the president is the executive, but the people who manage the government -- the secretaries, the Cabinet members, of which I was one -- have to be approved by the Congress and have to report to the Congress."The only person Sunday to offer a defense of Jones was former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who has emerged as a titular leader of the country's liberal movement.Dean told "Fox News Sunday" that Jones was "brought down," and he called it a "loss for the country."He said that he had spoken with Jones, and that Jones should not be held responsible for signing the Sept. 11 petition."He was told by the people waving those clipboards around that he was signing something else," Dean said. "I think that's too bad."