Van Jones resigns.  After what he claims was a “vicious smear campaign”, consisting primarily of his own past statements, associations, and, well, the truth.  Thanks primarily to Beck and his relentless questions.

This shows a couple of things.  One, once the mainstream press picked up on the Van Jones story, we find out that what Beck said was dead on, and we find out people take this sort of thing seriously.

It also shows associations do matter.  Our president has associations with some very troubling people who believe very troubling things, and have planned for years to get to a position where they can implement some of their very troubling policies.  Van Jones getting to this level in the Administration should, if nothing else, tell you President Obama is willing to put very radical people in positions of power, and that maybe his ‘mainstream’ campaigning wasn’t ‘mainstream’ at all.

It also shows a lack of conviction, which in President Obama’s case, is not a suprise.  He threw Rev. Wright under the bus, and he distanced himself from Bill Ayers (although not as much as you might think).  Now he’s dumping Van Jones.  Shows me he’s more concerned with elections than his beliefs (which, frankly, may turn out to be a very good thing).  Thing is, Obama ain’t no Bill Clinton.  This stuff is going to stick.  He can play the ‘first Black President’ card for a while, but I don’t think the electorate is going to forget this stuff, and I’m pretty sure there’s more to find.