Obama: His "Green Jobs Czar"

First, what do we know about appointed "Czars"?

Yes: they do not require Congressional approval.

He has 'super aides' for healthcare, the economy, energy and urban issues, with more to come -- prompting some lawmakers and groups to worry that he may be concentrating power and bypassing Congress.

What do we know about many positions in the Obama Administration?

Yes: the bulk of his top appointments still remain unfulfilled. Only 43% are staffed.

One of Mr Obama's appointments includes the "Green Jobs Czar," who is a man named Van Jones.

His "official" title is Special Advisor on Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Mr Jones is apparently a "self-proclaimed Communist."



Check out the melanin count on Mr Jones and Mr Obama. Any recurring themes, might you suggest?

In his own words:

Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’” Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. “I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.” In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.”

Further:

In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia.

Mr Jones founded this organization.

Kathy Shaidle writes:

Like a character out of The Big Chill, Van Jones seems to have evolved from radical activist to Establishment insider. Perhaps only a left-wing administration incapable of recognizing irony would put a self-described communist in charge of creating jobs.

Enough for you?

Enough for me.

BZ