Charles I like and respect you but the parsing of the statement is consistent with pols ducking an embarrassing revelation. I think Zombie is spot on concerning this.

In his previous capacity and in the radical circles that he ran with Trutherism is not an odd thing.

I understand that you don’t trust the Truthers as a source and that is logical and I also understand that you don’t trust and care for Jones’ critics such as Beck but your absolutest position on this doesn’t seem logical.

For example I believe Ron Paul is a nut and his absolutest position on the wars is foolish, but that doesn’t mean his statements on excessive government spending are wrong, it just that his solutions are extreme and nuts. The idea that “Ron Paul is a nut” and “the government spends too much money” are not mutually exclusive.

The BNP for example is a bunch of racists and you have been right to go after them, but that doesn’t mean that Radical Islam is not a threat, it just means that their solution is almost as bad as the problem. The statements: “BNP are a bunch of racists” and “Radical Islam is a danger to civilized society” are not mutually exclusive.

Likewise the statements: “Glenn Beck is not an example of excellence in broadcasting”, “9/11 Truthers are not to be trusted”, and ” Van Jones is at best a “former” truther.” are not mutually exclusive either.

I suspect that Jones is as trustworthy a source as the truthers.

Remember the phrase “anti-anti-communists.” as Jay Nordlinger put it:

During the Cold War, we used to speak of anti-anti-Communists. These were people (on the left) who were not exactly pro-Communist. But they so hated the anti-Communists, they were … well, anti-anti-Communists — the best, the fairest name for them.

Today, there are anti-anti-Islamofascists. They are not on the Islamofascist side in the War on Terror. But they hate those who are fighting, or attempting to fight, the Islamofascists more than they could ever hate the Islamofascists. They are anti-anti-Islamofascists.

The similarities between yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists and today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists would make a very good essay — perhaps by David Pryce-Jones or Norman Podhoretz. Of course, many of today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists were yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists — I mean, the same people, in the flesh.

And it’s all embodied in a publication such as The New York Review of Books.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. You may have legitimate beefs with Jones critics but as Zombie notes his past profile and his weasel answers fit both the profile for a truthers and for a pol trying to duck an issue to save his job.

If you want to give him the benefit of the doubt that’s fine, but his opponents not being clean doesn’t make him trustworthy.