Bored to death, except for one thing
The NYT covers a story on one of the 31 White House Czars, who apparently resigned his job at the request of a “lynch mob“:
Van Jones resigned as the White House’s environmental jobs “czar” on Saturday, after weeks of controversy over his past comments…it was not until recently that some of Mr. Jones’s past actions received broad airing, including his derogatory statements about Republicans in February and his signature on a 2004 letter suggesting that former President George W. Bush might have knowingly allowed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to occur in order to use them as a “pre-text to war.”…
Mr. Jones’s involvement in the 1990s with a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement had prompted recent accusations by conservative critics that he associated with Communists. The group, according to a post-mortem written by some of its founders, was an anti-capitalist, antiwar organization committed to achieving “solidarity among all oppressed peoples” with “direct militant action.”…
Mr. Jones apologized on Wednesday for derogatory words he directed at Republican opponents of Mr. Obama’s Congressional agenda during a lecture in February, calling his remarks “inappropriate”
We understand that it’s a lot more fun to point out the failings of the other team rather than your own. We know the jolly good fun that the Times has when the shoe is on the other foot. But it is at least a little interesting that the piece excerpted above is the first article that appeared in the Times about the “weeks of controversy” that the NYT previously passed without comment.
Frankly, we don’t care about Jones and we’re bored with Obama. The guy went from being something of an enigma to almost completely predictable in record time. The most interesting element of the Obama administration is the fascinating engagement and polarization of the American electorate. 28% strongly approve of Obama and 41% strongly disapprove of his actions. That means that about 70% of likely voters seem to be really engaged by political issues — and in a non-election year. Which other first year of a President’s term has been characterized by such division and engagement?