Following Van Jones’ resignation Saturday night, Glenn Beck has released a statement vowing to go after “other radicals in the administration.”
What could be scarier than the nation’s clean energy and climate policy being affected by uber-wingnut Glenn Beck. In a January attack on Obama’s energy and environment adviser, Carol Browner, Beck said on his national radio show:
It’s just that almost everyone who does believe in global warming is a socialist. I mean, believes in manmade global warming that now can be fixed and reversed or whatever. And we’ve got the tools to fix it. Almost everybody who says, “I’ve got a plan to fix it” is a socialist.
Yes, “billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse” — but if you understand the science of human-caused climate change or want to do something to stop it, you’re a socialist. Klein was right, Beck and his buddies are “nihilists.”
Beck doesn’t belong on TV, well, except maybe on a show like “Cops,” getting hauled off to jail like any other incoherent babbler.
What follows is a Think Progress repost.
John Podesta, the President and CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, released this statement following the resignation of Van Jones:
He has chosen to resign because he believed he was serving as a distraction to the president’s agenda. I respect that decision.
Van was working to build a common ground agenda for all Americans, and I am confident he will continue that work. Unfortunately, his critics on the right could find no common ground with him.
Clearly, Van was the subject of a right-wing smear campaign shrouded in hypocrisy. Van’s chief tormentor Glenn Beck, who spent weeks engaged in vicious name-calling, retains his perch at Fox News after calling the president a racist who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Van has set a standard that Beck would never impose upon himself.
I look forward to working with Van to move our country towards a clean energy economy that empowers and lifts up all Americans.
Update: Glenn Beck released a statement, pledging to go after “other radicals in the administration”:
The American people stood up and demanded answers. Instead of providing them, the Administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness. I continue to be amazed by the power of everyday Americans to initiate change in our government through honest questioning, and judging by the other radicals in the administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future.
David Weigel writes that Cass Sunstein is likely to be Beck’s next target.