Among the rational classes, it has been assumed that the reason Van Jones had to resign from his job in the White House was that he had signed a "Truther" petition. "Trutherism" is a conspiracy theory that supposes that the United States was behind the 9/11 attacks.
But in his opinion piece in the July 26 New York Times "Shirley Sherrod and Me," he states that he did not sign the petition.
Last year I, too, resigned from an administration job, after I uttered some ill-chosen words about the Republican Party and was accused — falsely — of signing my name to a petition being passed around by 9/11 conspiracy theorists....
In my case, the media rushed to judgment so quickly that I was never able to make clear that the group put my name on its Web site without my permission. The group finally admitted that it never had my signature, but by then it was too late.
Assuming that his name was added to the petition "without [his] permission," this issue dissolves and the Van Jones case and the Shirley Sherrod case turn out to have more in common than even Van Jones lays out in his NYT piece.
First, let me note that Fox which of course first drummed up this "scandal" found several other unforgivable sins in Jones' past, which are more important to them than the truther petition. The other crimes drudged up by Glenn Beck, Fox's Grand Inquisitor, include:
Accusation 1: Van Jones used a "vulgarity" to describe Republicans. (Oh, my!)
Accusation 2: Van Jones a redistributionist, according to Beck, who relies upon his own ignorance and savagely truncated clips to make his points, has Van Jones saying, "Give them the wealth." Problem is, the "Them" Van Jones is referring to are Native Americans. He is saying to let "them" have certain resources that are theirs by treaty. I doubt if Beck knows the first thing about Indian treaties.
Accusation 3: Lastly, according to Beck, Van Jones is a communist. Assuming that the petition, the "vulgarity," and the "redistributionist" arguments have been neutered, that is all that is left. That Van Jones is a communist is the last standing argument Fox has going, but here we find a situation that is hauntingly similar to the Shirley Sherrod narrative.
Following the Rodney King riots, Van Jones, in anger and and frustration, briefly flirted with communism. However, soon, as with Shirley Sherrod, he was able to shed his anger and determined to work within "the system" to bring about positive change. From this emerged his work on renewable energy. He was in fact a leader of the Green Jobs movement, which landed him his job in the White House.
Now Beck, being Beck, finds this 'conversion' unconvincing ("once a commie, always a commie") but - as the Shirley Sherrod story reminds us - people are capable of change and of turning anger into a renewed devotion to positive change in the world. Both Shirley Sherrod and Van Jones underwent such personal transformations.
(I should add that Beck has also accused Van Jones of several other things so ridiculous they aren't worth going into. For instance, Van Jones is not a "convicted felon." Media Matters and Rachel Maddow on her July 21 show have dealt with these).
In summary, if what Van Jones says about the petition is true, it seems he is every bit as much an innocent victim as ACORN and his life story is similar to that of Shirley Sherrod. And like Sherrod, he deserves an apology and his job back. Last I heard, it's still open.