I do not pay much attention to Beck. Not only do I dislike television, I have noticed that though Beck may get some unwelcome facts right, he connects the dots like a rank amateur.
However, when I read the New York press (excluding the trashy New York Post), I came away with the impression that Jones lost his environmental job for signing a 9/11truth.org petition for a new 9/11 investigation. Actually, such a deed implies that Jones had probably broken with the Communists, with whom he was affiliated as a young man.
However, Obama is a cautious guy, and it seems highly unlikely that he would have signed off on a White House adviser who had, not only a black radical, but a communist background.
The Washington Post, which told of Jones' radical past without citing his communism (the reporters may not have known or been absolutely sure), related an anonymous White House claim that Jones, the "green" environmental adviser, was merely a mid-level employee and, not requiring Senate confirmation, was not given a full background check.
Jones may have not required confirmation, but he was a nationally recognized green activist who one would think would have had considerable clout.
Obviously a person who makes an unwise choice in youth can easily turn out to be an upstanding citizen and courageous activist.
On the other hand, most Americans would expect that a person with a communist background would not be permitted daily access to the White House as an adviser. It makes sense to keep such persons away from sensitive positions.
So the question remains, how did a man with a communist background become a White House adviser?
Normally, the FBI does background checks on prospective employees. Additionally, the Secret Service, charged with safeguarding the president, would be expected to know about anything so easily checkable.
Now either the FBI and Secret Service failed to alert the White House staff, or someone decided to ignore what should have been bright red flags.
If the FBI did check, then one has to wonder what sort of people would quietly wave a communism suspect through. If the bureau didn't check, then one has to wonder how well the much vaunted remodeled security system is connecting dots.
Another possibility, which we mention for the record, is that the FBI passed information on Jones' communism to the Attorney General's office, but that Attorney General Eric Holder or a deputy put the file in an electronic drawer and telephoned the White House that everything in Jones' file seemed in order.
It is noteworthy that Congress has registered dissatisfaction with the FBI's truthfulness in the anthrax investigation. Though Congress is loath to criticize the bureau's 9/11 investigation, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if there's an anthrax attack coverup, there may well be a 9/11 attack coverup.
Here is a quote from the Washington Post:
Jones' "involvement with the now-defunct Bay Area radical group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which had Marxist roots, also emerged as an issue. And on Saturday, his advocacy on behalf of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of fatally shooting a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, threatened to further deepen the controversy. A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter, said Sunday that Jones's past was not studied as intensively as that of other advisers because of his relatively low rank."
The full Post story is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
A Wikipedia entry, which discusses Jones' past communism, is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jones
By the way, Obama's little feud with Fox News came not long after Jones' forced ouster. Yet, we need to point out that Beck's discussions of Marxist influence didn't include the fact that a group of Wall Street Journal reporters had publicly objected to Fox News owner Rupert Muroch's plan to purchase the paper because of Murdoch's reputed coziness with China reds.
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