Following Van Jones’ resignation Saturday night, Glenn Beck has released a statement vowing to go after “other radicals in the administration.”
What could be scarier than the nation’s clean energy and climate policy being affected by uber-wingnut Glenn Beck. In a January attack on Obama’s energy and environment adviser, Carol Browner, Beck said on his national radio show:
It’s just that almost everyone who does believe in global warming is a socialist. I mean, believes in manmade global warming that now can be fixed and reversed or whatever. And we’ve got the tools to fix it. Almost everybody who says, “I’ve got a plan to fix it” is a socialist.
Yes, “billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse” — but if you understand the science of human-caused climate change or want to do something to stop it, you’re a socialist. Klein was right, Beck and his buddies are “nihilists.”
Beck doesn’t belong on TV, well, except maybe on a show like “Cops,” getting hauled off to jail like any other incoherent babbler.
What follows is a Think Progress repost.
John Podesta, the President and CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, released this statement following the resignation of Van Jones:
Van Jones is an exceptional and inspired leader who has fought to bring economic and environmental justice to communities across our country.
He has chosen to resign because he believed he was serving as a distraction to the president’s agenda. I respect that decision.
Van was working to build a common ground agenda for all Americans, and I am confident he will continue that work. Unfortunately, his critics on the right could find no common ground with him.
Clearly, Van was the subject of a right-wing smear campaign shrouded in hypocrisy. Van’s chief tormentor Glenn Beck, who spent weeks engaged in vicious name-calling, retains his perch at Fox News after calling the president a racist who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Van has set a standard that Beck would never impose upon himself.
I look forward to working with Van to move our country towards a clean energy economy that empowers and lifts up all Americans.
The American people stood up and demanded answers. Instead of providing them, the Administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness. I continue to be amazed by the power of everyday Americans to initiate change in our government through honest questioning, and judging by the other radicals in the administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future.
David Weigel writes that Cass Sunstein is likely to be Beck’s next target.
