Van, van, is a used up man

Now that the Van Jones issue is completely over, I am getting around to commenting on it. There is something in the brazen way he lies about the issue that compels a certain admiration, the same way that I admire Alger Hiss for maintaining his lack of Communist ties until the day he died. Here is Jones's defense: "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me." [Translation: I should get away with my views because everyone should be focussed on the issues.] "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide." [Translation: they are telling the truth about my background, turning respectable Democrats against me.] "I have been inundated with calls -- from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.'" [Translation: a few left-wing nutjobs have asked me to stay.] In his "apology," Jones also stated, "In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago." [Translation: hey, I would never make those kinds of statements now that I have an important position, even though I still believe them.]

Probably the most blatant single lie concerned his signature of a "truther" petition in 2004, of which he said, "the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever." This is the kind of unbelievable statement you get from someone who has become famous by making outrageous statements. His radical views don't bother many Democrats; a large proportion of Democrats agree with the petition that Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. But no one could ever get elected to office running on that sort of platform, and no one can stay in office if he has views like that and they become known to the general public. This is because, thankfully, most citizens -- even Democrats -- are still sane. When someone like Jones gets in a public office behind the scenes and is then outed as a nutcase (a process that he refers to as "a vicious smear campaign"), his only recourse is to pretend that he is someone that he is not. We can at least be grateful that he has that much shame -- when people like him start flaunting their crazy views and getting away with it, our country will have taken one more step down the road to destruction.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science and Philosophy, Part I: Hume and Popper

I've been listening to a lecture series on philosophy recently, and, even though I haven't gotten past the Greeks yet, it has reminded me of a number of issues that trouble me about science. I want to take the opportunity to express my concerns here. Along the way, I will probably oversimplify philosophy a great deal -- not on purpose, but rather because I have only a simplistic understanding of it. I welcome responses to clear up my misconceptions. One of my issues with science is the famous idea of Karl Popper that it can never establish positive claims, only falsify wrong ones. The history of this goes back to David Hume, the 18th century Scottish sceptic. He shook up the philosophical world by claiming that science could never prove anything through induction -- that is, drawing conclusions about physical laws based on observations. The classic illustration is the sun's rising. Even though the sun has risen every day for our whole lives, and for countless human l
Read more

Country Music

I noticed a long time ago that there isn't much difference between the sound of country music and rock music nowadays. If I'm surfing my radio and I come to a station playing jazz, classical, or rap, I recognize it right away; but if I come to a country or rock station, I often can't tell which it is until the song is half over. Country songs often have screaming guitars that would fit equally well in a hard rock song, and only a minority have a recognizably country instrument such as a fiddle or a banjo. All the same, no one could listen to a country music station for more than a few minutes without realizing that it is definitely not a rock station. What are the differences? There are some stylistic differences. Country songs are more likely to have a boogey beat or certain western-sounding bass lines. They also tend to be more formulaic: if you can't predict how a country song ends, you probably don't listen to much country music. But those things aren'
Read more

What Are Pronouns For?

 Here's what I don't get about people defining their own pronouns (and I use "their" advisedly):  If I am talking to you, your pronoun is "you."  No one disputes that.  If I am talking about you to another person, the pronoun I use to reference you is none of your business.  I am in a conversation with someone else; you are not a party to it, and you are not entitled to impose rules on it.  Ideally, you will never know what we say -- but if you do find out, it doesn't matter because the pronouns I used were for my convenience, not for your feelings.  Heck, I may not even have met you, may not have any idea what you identify as or even what sex you really are (as sometimes happens when people have names like "Leslie" or "Ashley" that get used for both sexes, or foreign names that I am unfamiliar with).  So mind your business and there will be nothing to get offended about.
Read more