re: #296 Charles

I’m not defending Van Jones against anything. I’m defending the unfashionable idea that accusations like that should be based on credible sources.

There’s plenty to criticize Van Jones about. But there is absolutely no credible evidence that he believes the US government plotted the 9/11 attacks.

Neither is there credible evidence that the vast majority of protesters at Tea Parties believe in these conspiracies. The masses at these tax protests are simply protesting Obama’s policies.

The guy who took the pictures from the Ohio Tea Party says there were 18,000 protesters gathered today. Is that an exaggeration? I have no idea. But it sounds like there were several thousand at least. What percentage of these protesters are truthers, paulians, etc? Again, I don’t know, but I would bet it was a very small percentage of the whole.

I don’t see the point of discrediting this huge movement against Obama’s policies because of the element of crazy that is also there. I would prefer that the crazies disappeared or disengaged so that we wouldn’t be distracted by them. But that isn’t likely to happen because the crazies live for demonstrations and public displays. There has probably never been a nut-free demonstration.

I think you are right to point out the hypocrisy of conservatives ganging up on Van Jones for his tangential (real or not) connections with truthers, while they are mum about truther connections within their own ranks.

I don’t agree with the idea that the current Tea Parties are to be avoided because of the taint of marginal political elements. Paulians may have started these protests and may be organizing many of them. But the growing alarm and dissatisfaction with Obama has changed these originally fringe Paulian events into something else that is mainstream and significant. The Paulians are still present but they aren’t the power behind the protests. The popular dissatisfaction with Washington is the fuel that’s powering the Tea Parties.

I have no problem whatsoever with the fact that you don’t promote the Tea Parties or that you wouldn’t be caught dead at one because of the cringe factor there, but I wish you didn’t spend all that much energy bagging (a pun!) on them.