On current events.
Van Jones and the MSM:
Byron York has a good post on the MSM reaction to this guy.
From a Nexis search a few moments ago:
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 09/5/09 UPDATE: The New York Times, ABC and NBC hold the line
After the Jones controversy reached a boiling point on Friday, the Washington Post published a story, “White House Says Little on Embattled Jones,” on page A-3 of its Saturday edition. But the New York Times remained silent on the story.
Likewise, on Friday night the “CBS Evening News” reported the Jones matter, but ABC’s “World News” and “NBC Nightly News” again failed to report the story.
This guy is a virtual one man Youtube circus. Think back to the Bush years; at least then the Administration was was made up of grown ups instead buffoons like Van Jones and Joe Biden.
MSM coddling has actually hurt the Dems because it has made them sloppy. They’ve been allowed to float along in the ideological bubble not realizing how poorly the articles they blithely accept as normal within their insular little group (like Truther flirtation) play when exposed to the rest of the nation. When you are a minority party you can get away with this but once you take the reins of government it’s going to be exposed. And then the shock hits.
The left spent the last eight years competing with each other to come up with ever more outrageous rhetoric and accusations against the hated Bush. Fire didn’t melt steel, America was now a dictatorship, etc. And they got away with it because the silliest stuff – the stuff that makes them look bad now – was ignored or soft played by what would eventually become the “State-Run Media”. Now these guys who shot their mouths off are getting jobs in government and their whacked-out pronuncements come rattling back to them like the chains draped over Marley’s ghost.
They only real defense they can come up with was that they didn’t really believe what they were saying at the time. Van Jones may have signed the Truther petition but he didn’t really believe any of what was in it. That’s pretty lame, but it’s probably also true – which is maybe even sadder. Looking pathetic doesn’t help you govern.
On Obama’s Speech To Schoolkids:
The right’s probably making too much over Obama’s school speech but the Beast would like to know how the idea is playing with the rest of the nation. We’ve seen a couple point bump for Obama in the last week and the Beast believes it came mostly because Obama was on vacation and not making speeches. His Portsmouth outing hurt him because it was a fakey love-fest so blatant even he was embarrassed and had to solicit opposing views at the end (“He WINKED at me!”). His prime time health care news conference collapsed because of statements he made on Henry Gates. It’s just one un-forced error after another. Now we’re in for even more cowbell – more empty platitudes and a political street littered with strawman corpses. How is even more blandiosity going to help a man who – as Peggy Noonan described “has become political elevator music”?
On those who blame all Obama’s problems on the right wing nutcases:
Robert Stacey McCain combines the Van Jones controversy with its inevitable left wing race-card pushback:
Welcome to the Obama Nation, where all criticism is subject to the accusation of raaaaacism. If Obama throws Jones under the bus, the Leader’s minions will depict it as a sop to right-wing hatemongers, and Jones will walk away with a platinum Victimhood Card, immediately redeemable for a six-figure book contract.
At the start of the year Conservatives were completely out of power, disheartened and in retreat and lefties were justifiably crowing that the movement was dead – which, by all accounts it was. Suddenly this collapsed ethos is responsible for all the majority’s woes. All of them. Okay, let’s accept the premise – now we have to ask ourselves what changed? How does a hapless, collapsed, discredited and marginalized political movement manage to bring the geniuses who run the government with control of the executive office and big majorities in both houses of Congress to the brink of political ruin, in just nine months?
Something must have changed – any ideas what? here’s one idea:
Cassius:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
The Conservative Citizen 
Great post, Beast. Van Jones is obviously an embarrassment to political discourse. As his story leakes out from the right-wing blogs into the MSM, he will obviously have to go. Otherwise, his continued presence as one of the mysterious “czars” would make him a ready-made political ad for Republicans.
Looks like Van couldn’t take the heat.
Aw shucks – he was the gift that kept on giving. Well, one more under the bus. Must be an awfully big bus!