Op-Ed: Should Van Jones be serving as an adviser to President Obama?

Van Jones, President Obama's "green jobs czar," has been facing increased scrutiny in recent days over several things related to his past.

A video from February of this year circulating on YouTube.com, shows Jones answering a question in Berkley, California about Republicans and their ability to pass legislation without 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. “Well, the answer to that is, they're assholes," said Jones. After the video clip began making news, Van Jones issued a statement saying that “I apologize for the offensive words I chose to use during that speech. They do not reflect the views of this administration, which has made every effort to work in a bipartisan fashion, and they do not reflect the experience I have had since I joined the administration." In addition to that, Jones signed a petition in 2004 to then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to launch an investigation into the Bush Administration because "people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war." This petition also suggests that the Bush Administration was involved in the attacks. Following the Rodney King verdict in 1993, Jones began to associate with radicals and identified his views as being communist. "I met all these young radical people of color - I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of... I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary...I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th...By August, I was a communist," said Jones in a 2005 interview with the East Bay Express. Jones than joined a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) that described itself as being dedicated to Leninist ideas. He led efforts to protest the San Fransisco Police Department and said that the police are "killing black people." Finally, after joining the environmental movement in the late 1990's and early 2000's, blaming "white polluters and the white environmentalists for steering poison" to minority neighborhoods and communities. Van Jones has since been praised by former Vice President Al Gore, actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and was named as Time Magazines 100 Most Influential People. Now, Van Jones serves as one of President Obama's czars and advising Mr. Obama on green jobs. By researching this man and reading of his record, I am quite disturbed. I am bothered by the fact that he is advising President Obama and I am bothered at the fact that so little of his background is being investigated. This man has been attacked by the right, especially Glenn Beck, in recent weeks, but I decided to do research and I discovered that all of these things are completely true. "In this environment, I think the Obama administration should be very careful of its dealings with anybody who can be labeled communist accurately," said Christopher C. Hull, an adjunct government professor at Georgetown University who runs the public affairs firm Issue Management. "That's just going to play to the political sensibility that those on the right have that the Obama administration is socialist, literally socialist. ... It is unwise to bring in people who actually do label themselves socialist or communist." I think declaring yourself a "communist," using race as a weapon involving the environment, calling all Republicans "assholes," and firmly believing that the previous administration was involved in a terrorist attack that killed 3,000 citizens on our own soil should disqualify a person from being a government adviser. Whether you are comfortable with what he says or not, I cannot see someone saying that his opinions are normal or not radical. Now, think of this person on advising President Obama, the most powerful man in the world. Not only does this cause alarm, but it begs me to question the president's judgement. Why would the president listen to a person like this and who else is the president listening to? Now, I understand that Van Jones is engaged in a battle of sorts with Glenn Beck, but this is beyond that. The facts are there on this issue and it is disturbing. It is time for Van Jones to step down as an adviser to Mr. Obama or for Mr. Obama to fire him. The radical and racist views of this man should not be further permeated throughout the White House any longer. Here is a link to the YouTube clip of Jones calling Republicans "assholes"