PRESIDENT BARACK Obama’s White House suffered a small embarrassment yesterday, two days before Congress resumes session, when an adviser on environmental issues was forced to resign following protests by Republicans.
Van Jones was a civil rights activist in California before becoming an expert on environmental issues. He joined Mr Obama’s team in March, with a mandate to develop “green jobs”.
Republicans criticised Mr Jones for having signed a petition by the 911truth.org group calling for a congressional inquiry as to whether the Bush administration knew the September 11th, 2001 attacks were going to take place.
They also objected to his co-founding ColorofChange.org, a group that boycotts the Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck. Mr Beck has accused President Obama of racism against white people.
Videotape of Mr Jones referring to “a**hole republicans” at a policy meeting before his White House appointment was the final blow.
On September 4th, the chairman of the House Republican conference, Mike Pence of Indiana, said Jones’s “extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate. Van Jones should resign his position, and if he is unwilling to do so, the president should demand his resignation.”
Asked whether the White House ordered Mr Jones to resign, presidential adviser David Axelrod told NBC’s Meet the Press, “Absolutely not. This was Van Jones’s own decision.”
“The agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual. The president thanks Van Jones for his service,” the White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told ABC’s This Week.
“On the eve of historic fights for healthcare and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” Mr Jones wrote in his resignation letter to Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House council on environmental quality.
“I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.” Ms Sutley called Mr Jones “a strong voice for creating jobs that improve energy efficiency and use renewable resources.”