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Sunday, September 6, 2009

L'Affaire Van Jones is Histoire

I made the classic blogger's mistake of getting a full night's sleep last night, rather than checking the internet every hour.

When I awoke, every single blog I know had a post about how Van Jones had resigned sometime just before or after the stroke of midnight. Clearly, by waiting into the early hours of a Sunday morning, the White House had intended to deprive me of the opportunity to break this story with a link by Drudge.

But I have a point to make here. The mainstream media finally is covering this story. Not as news, but as history. The unfortunate and misguided exposure of Van Jones' love affair with 9/11 Truthers and various and sundry pejoratives.

That's what happens when one ignores a hot story for ideological purposes. The MSM is treating the Van Jones Affair as just another historical example of the vast right-wing conspiracy, without the slightest note that the MSM was dragged kicking and screaming into covering the story when Jones' resignation made it impossible to ignore.

NBC's headline pushes the ideological bent:
Obama Aide Van Jones Resigns After GOP Attacks
The rest of the MSM is hardly any better, portraying Jones as a political martyr in the Green cause. But of course, the historians at the NY Times say it best:
In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics, Van Jones resigned as the White House’s environmental jobs “czar” on Saturday.

Controversy over Mr. Jones’s past comments and affiliations has slowly escalated over several weeks, erupting on Friday with calls for his resignation.
Yes controversy did erupt over the course of weeks. And the first NY Times news article on the subject was ... well there were no hard news articles, just a mention of the Van Jones Affair in various NY Times' blogs starting two days ago.

If one were to read only the MSM, the Van Jones Affair would have no more relevance to the Obama administration's agenda than, say, the Wallis Simpson Affair. A historical blip, that's all, revealing conservative society's inability to understand love.

And the left-wing blogosphere reaction? How dare those dastardly wingnut blogs write about a 9/11 Truther loving, crackhead-calling, asshole-labeling, race-baiting official in the White House. There are more important things about which to blog, like
Jenna Bush got a job, so the meritocracy is dead!
Now the MSM can get back covering how Obama is going to save the world and change our lives forever if only the damn winguts would get out of the way.

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Related Posts:
Maybe The Van Jones Vetters Didn't See These Problems As A Problem
Glenn Beck's Revenge
Van Jones Sends Thrill Up MSNBC's Leg
Life Is Not Fair, And Neither Is Drudge

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2 comments:

  1. I made the same mistake. I went to sleep. Who knew!? Of course, we should not have been surprised that this resignation came in the dead of night on a holiday weekend.

    I guess sleep is overrated.

    Thanks for the Blog of the Day spot! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Imagine how many of these media blackouts must have taken place before the rise of alternative media. I say that because I don't think this behavior is anything new - they're just getting caught today. There's no telling what they've hidden from us over the years, but I've got a pretty good guess on who it benefited.

    ReplyDelete