Van Jones/ "Cool... But, Yes, Communist.".. (Marty Peretz resorts to McCarthyism)

[KoKo]

Cool... But, Yes, Communist
Marty Peretz, New Republic, September 10

He's tall, trim, with shaved head, a confident demeanor, wearing a dark turtleneck, kind 'a funny and Yale Law School. Cool. Co-o-o-l. Or maybe even wow!

He's Van Jones, and he resigned on Saturday as what the White House called its "czar" for the environment. There are actually many czars at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in this administration, and I wonder why the historical resonance of the word doesn't just give the Obama crowd the creeps. Unless, of course, they want to govern like czars ... and czarinas.

To be sure, Mr. Jones did not have an option even though Valerie Jarrett was his admiring pal. But my admired pal Rahm and his partner David Axelrod must have known from the get-go that Jones would have to move on. If they had seen a serious vetting of the professional agitator he wouldn't have been allowed to cross the threshold of the presidential palace.

Now, the get-go began with Glenn Beck. I am not embarrassed to confess that until this ideological donnybrook broke out I'd never ever even heard of Glenn Beck. You see, I don't watch FOX. But, then, I don't watch any television.

So I came in on the Jones saga in the second act or maybe even the third. To be absolutely truthful, TNR online was my introduction to the contretemps. And, let me say in retrospect and with all respect to my colleagues (Kate Sheppard, John McWhorter, and especially my friend Brad Plumer) they missed the point, virtually the whole point. Jon Chait did better. But even he dealt with Jones as a matter of sheer politics.

It isn't. If it's a matter of politics at all, it's a matter of the ethics of politics. The fact is that Jones is a communist, an identity (which like "fascist") carries deep and authentic historical and moral opprobrium. Today's communists want to ignore the mass murders, the gulags, the ideological strait jackets, the sheer viciousness of their (sometimes subliminal) heroes. But they are vicious enough themselves.
No, Jones is not a member of the party... if the party still exists today. Yet he does not wish America well, and all of his rhetoric points to a revolutionary.

more of the screed at........

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-spine/cool-yes-communist

[NWHarkness]

1. Does anyone still actually buy the New Republic?

I remember when it was a great magazine. It's sad to see what a miserable rag it's become.