OMG: Van Jones is a Truther! (oops: so is an Insight Magazine writer)

Amanda Carpenter of the Washington Times informs us that "Green jobs 'czar' signed 'truther' statement in 2004" (link), referring to Van Jones signing the statement here.

There are a couple problems detracting from the WashTimes' scoop:

1. One of the other signers is Kelly Patricia O'Meara who used to write for the now-defunct Insight on the News magazine, which was part of the Washington Times family of companies. In fact, their old URL (insightmag.com) redirects to the WashTimes' front page. One of her old articles is cached here. (Other signers discussed at [1]).

2. While the "Truthers" statement goes further then I'd like them to (they wanted an "inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur"), the fact remains that there are several problems with the official recounting of that day's events. That doesn't mean that Bush or Cheney "LIHOP" or "MIHOP", but obviously there was a good deal of incompetence involved. Those who use the childish label "Truthers" in order to silence debate are in effect saying that we've been told the complete truth about everything that happened and are in effect saying that we shouldn't look into any possible cases of incompetence.

Van Jones is an incredible liability for the Obama administration, but highlighting things like this instead of his many other issues is yet another example of Obama opponents mistakes.

[1] Others signing on include a self-avowed white separatist (Virginia Deane Abernethy), former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik, Philip Berg (thus allowing the children to chant "Birther" and "Truther" at the same time), those who probably have a special signing stamp for such petitions (Ed Asner, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans of Code Pink, Mark Crispin Miller, Ralph Nader, Howard Zinn, etc.), and Janeane Garofalo (formerly cute).

UPDATE: From this:

In a statement issued Thursday evening Jones said of "the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."

He did not explain how his name came to be on the petition.

Considering that the WashTimes has confirmed with 911truth.org that they verified the signatures of each of the celebrities listed, and considering that none of the more famous signers appear to have complained about their names being on the petition for five years, that seems more than a bit difficult to believe.

UPDATE 2: Gateway Pundit discovers (link) the page at Rense.com entitled "San Francisco March To Demand Congressional Inquiry Of 911" (link) which was apparently held on January 8th, 2002. Van Jones and Adam Gold from STORM (a group with which Jones was associated) are listed on the "Organizing Committee"; the page also notes "organizations listed for identification purposes only". Needless to say, the page wallows in playing the race card and everyone listed on the page is probably quite far-left. However, some of the questions they list would seem to demand an answer, such as "What is the relationship between Bin Laden, his family and the Bush family and the Carlyle Group?" Does asking a question like that make one a "Truther"? If so, sign me up.

Thu, 09/03/2009 - 14:30 · · Importance: 4