Van Jones is in the house! And this is his decade.

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The three big lies … yeah, this does sound like pretty much three of the biggest most insidious lies in our current discourse, check it out:

Remember Van Jones? I knew him before you did, probably.   A few years ago he was a young rising star in California progressive circles, making a convincing, compelling connection between our growing environmental catastrophes, the continuing grinding injustice of racism and poverty – particularly in the inordinate pollution foisted on black and brown neighborhoods, and the constant need for NEW JOBS.  The brand-new hopey-changey President Barack Obama named Van as his “green jobs czar.”

A little earlier, Van had helped to start the racial-justice group “Color of Change” – which, as notorious ex-FOX nutjob Glenn Beck began to make more and more outrageous racially-charged statements against the President, launched a boycott on Beck.  Which Van, being busy in the administration, had nothing to do with.  But still, this made Van a target of Glenn’s madcap wrath.  And this is probably when you first heard of him.  Doing a little research on Van’s past, Glenn raised the alarum that:

• Van was a self-avowed Marxist and Communist (actually he had flirted with that a decade earlier, in his early twenties – really, what sensitive intellectual DIDN’T in their youth?)
• Van had once signed a “TRUTHER” petition – actually, one that demanded a fuller investigation of how 9-11 happened, after the pathetic, hole-filled inquiry the official Commission conducted.
• Van once, on video, called (some) Republicans a bunch of “assholes” – something I myself try to avoid doing, nearly every day.

So, Van ended up leaving the Obama administration, to avoid giving the new hopey-changers undue embarrassment and distraction.  After all, we know that at least since Clinton days, the “throw the black progressive under the bus” button is right up there handily next to the steering wheel.  (Unlike Republican administrations who will go to the mat for self-evident lightning-rod clowns like Alberto Gonzales and John Bolton.)   But I KNEW we would hear from Van again soon – he is just too brilliant, to be a light “hidden under a basket.”

As Glenn Beck’s increasingly mortifying FOX show (which I will miss) ground to a close this month, Van was asked for comment;  denying that he was celebrating (while conspicuously unable to stop grinning from ear to ear) he declared the show’s demise to be a “triumph of capitalism,” and of the fundamental decency of the American people.  A few days later, he issued a cease-and-desist letter to FOX to stop making such absurd claims about him.

Then he popped up on Countdown With Keith Olbermann last week.  YES, RIGHTIES.  Countdown With Keith Olbermann. You can’t keep our best people down for more than a few months. Describing his feud with Beck and FOX, he trenchantly remarked that “I’m a Christian and I believe in turning the other cheek, but the human body only has four cheeks, and I’ve already turned them all.”  A way with words – suck on that, righties!  We’re going to see a lot more of this cat for many years to come – he is the black progressive leader that we all sort of hoped Obama would be.  More from his new “Rebuild the Dream” launch………