OPINION:
Van Jones, the former Green czar for Barack Obama, had a brief moment in the sunshine of punditry truth-telling, when he praised President Donald Trump’s joint session of Congress reach-out to widowed Carryn Owens and her deceased Navy SEAL husband, Ryan — but he blinked, and the moment’s passed.
Now it’s back to the same old radical ridiculousness that made Jones a favorite of the left, hated by the right.
You want the good news first, or bad?
Right. Good. In after-speech commentary on Trump’s address to both houses of Congress, Jones gave the CNN audience his somewhat shocking view of the president’s tribute to Ryan Owens, paid directly to his widow, Carryn, who was seated next to Ivanka Trump, tears streaming down her cheeks: “[It was] one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics, period.”
In fact, it was so emotional and riveting, the two-minute tribute-slash-standing ovation marked the moment Trump “became president of the United States,” and quite possibly, a leading contender in the next White House election, Jones said.
That was then.
Now?
Just this week, Jones once again took to CNN, only with a different take on Trump.
“There’s a danger that we all start to become like Trump, that we normalize Trump emotionally,” he said, on his “The Messy Truth” televised show. “There’s a danger that we all become fear-based and fear-driven and that we give in 100 percent to this us-against-them hysteria.”
That’s quite a switch, wouldn’t you say?
Also this week, Jones tried to downplay his previous fawning of Trump, while acknowledging he’d taken plenty of hits from his left-leaning friends for daring to ever praise the president.
“That wasn’t just a compliment,” Jones says now, of his commendation of Trump’s joint session speech. “That was a warning.”
A warning, he says, to the Democrats to get off their butts and fight back against all things Trump.
You know what? Jones was easier to take when he wasn’t being so duplicitous. After all, if you’re a left-wing nut, go forth and be a left-wing nut. But be free and open about it — don’t deny and hide. Don’t disguise.
But then again, this is the guy who once called Republicans a-holes, as noted in a widely watched video that surfaced after his appointment to Obama’s White House.
This is the guy who was tied to advocacy for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal.
And this is the guy whose politics and visions are so radical, he’s been labeled an avowed communist by more than once source.
So the praise of Trump? Meaningless. A momentary lapse in calculated political judgment brought on by a sudden, emotion-charged glimpse of what it means to experience truth — gone now, like a puff of smoke in the breeze. The real Jones is back, and all his anti-Trump ducks have been reassembled in their rightful rows.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.