Posted by
RME KRNL on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 4:54:43 AM
I've long questioned not only Obama's inexperience but also his lack of judgment (and veracity) because of some of his questionable associations. One or two radical associations (e.g., Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright) might just have been "guilt by association," as Obama, et al., claimed back during the campaign. But several, and continuing, conscious choices reveal a pattern of deliberate and intentional behavior to associate with and advance radicals.
And creating a job for and handpicking Van Jones to serve in the White House as a special advisor (AKA "czar") is just one of the latest examples.
After not reporting on the Van Jones controversy at all, until it was all but over and Jones had finally resigned -- around midnight, on a weekend night, and still claiming that he had been unfairly smeared (albeit with his own words, acts, lies and off-the-wall, un-American and/or racist conspiracy theories), the liberal MSM, ever in cahoots with this White House, and Obama's "frat boy" mouthpiece Robert Gibbs are now trying to spin it that the flap over Jones was no big deal because his was such a low level position and he really didn't have that much influence.
But, wait a minute. The White House created a specific post just for Van Jones. It didn't simply recruit him to fill an already existing post. It didn't simply look at something it had to get done and then select Jones as the most qualified to do it. Instead, it created a job tailored to Jones and his background. We don't know how much Jones was paid, how large a staff he had, how much they were being paid, or whether that staff still exists (and is still being paid) now that Jones himself is gone, but, according to a Washington Post interview with Jones himself, he had about $80 billion of taxpayer money to "play with" in creating "green jobs," some of which it now seems went to prison inmates, no less. (Now, THAT'S the kind of accountable management of my tax dollars I want to see from one of my -- uh, Obama's -- specially appointed special advisors!)
Well, pardon the heck out of me, Mr. and Ms. Lamestream Media, but having a job created especially for me, in the White House, and giving me "responsibility" for spending $80 billion would make me think that I was pretty damn important.
(By the way, is that $80 billion perhaps -- hopefully -- the same $80 billion in TARP money an Obama administration bean counter told a Congressional committee back in January or February had simply "disappeared" -- POOF! -- now you see it, now you don't -- and couldn't be accounted for? No? Jones' $80 billion was to come out of the $787 billion so-called stimulus plan for which the Van Jones co-founded Appollo Alliance helped dictate the legislative language to members of Congress, you say? Well, maybe that other $80 billion of TARP money will turn up sometime, but I'm not going to hold my breath. After all, to this profligate president and his Democrat handmaidens in this 111th Congress, $80 billion is just a rounding error.)
And at least one of the people, if not the main person, responsible for recruiting Van Jones to work in the White House was Obama's right hand woman, Valerie Jarrett, someone indeed very important and very high up in the Obama White House hierarchy. She's even been shown on video on TV saying how they had followed Jones' work for some time and how pleased they were to have gotten Jones to work in the White House. In fact, Jarrett overruled objections about Jones' background raised by the White House Counsel’s Office and insisted Jones be put in his post anyway. So much for whatever little "vetting" Jones got. It seems Jarrett has been a cheerleader of Jones for a while, as has Michelle Obama, also reported to be a big Van Jones "fan."
These things from a woman whose Vogue profile revealed her disclaiming much of any power or influence at all. It was all, "No, no, no, I'm not really in charge of anything." Jarrett claims to give the Obamas "their own perspective," whatever that means.
(I would think two Ivy League educated people, like the Obamas, for example, would be capable of forming their own perspectives, but maybe I'm mistaken and that's not what "Ivy League educated people" are educated to do. In fact, with the Obama administration and its involvement of one kind or another with a seemingly ever growing list of other "Ivy League educated people" from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc., I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that I've previously given those prestigious institutions too much credit for being the hallowed halls strode by only really, really smart people anyway. Privileged either by birth, money or government mandated access, maybe. Smart, not so much.)
Anyway, Jarrett reportedly went on to say, “I am a sounding board. I know him well. I know them both well. So I kind of know what makes them who they are. And I don't have a portfolio, so I can come in really only looking at it from their perspective. I have never been through a campaign before on a national level. I'm not a pollster, I'm not a strategist. I'm freed up from all of that.”
Hmmm. Well, pardon the heck out of me for possibly being rude, there, Valerie, but if you're "freed up from all of that" and a lot of "all of that" sounds like experience and qualifications to serve in the White House in the first place, that makes it sound like you don't really have any qualifications for being in the White House, except that you know the Obamas really, really well. And if you're not really in charge of anything, are not this or that, have never done this or that, and are "freed up from all of that," what the hell is the American taxpayer paying you for? Oh, yeah, I guess for things like the recruitment and vetting (or not) of someone like Van Jones.
So, someone who has never done this or that, doesn't have this or that portfolio or experience, isn't really responsible for this or that, gets to pick someone for a White House position, with salary and staff, insist they not be properly vetted, brag about getting them to work with the president, but when they are revealed to be racist, radical, irresponsible and irrational, it's no big deal because they and their White House position weren't all that important to begin with? Huh?
And now, Dear Reader, you know the reason for my exclamation and interrogatory in the title of this article.
The blind leading the blind? The inmates running the asylum? Or is it just that the crooks, cronies and incompetents are covering for each other? You be the judge.
Me? I'm just askin' - just sayin'.