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Van Jones, special adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in President Obama’s administration has resigned. Since March 2009 Van Jones worked for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In this role he actively championed climate and environmentally friendly initiatives that would benefit the workforce. A passionate, but controversial figure who fought to save the environment while at the same time reduce poverty, he came under intense scrutiny in July for past comments, actions, and associations. His resignation not only is a setback for Obama’s push to Green America, but also signals an intensifying plan of attack by some in the media on Obama’s administration – embolden by this success they are now going after his other advisers using the same tactics.

Van Jones will be truly missed by those pushing for real environmental and social change in America. His best selling book The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems delivers a compelling argument examining how the pursuit of clean energy could create more jobs. In this book he writes about how we can save the environment while reducing poverty.

According to Van Jones,“You can think of a green-collar job as a blue-collar job that’s been upgraded, or up-skilled, to better respect the environment.” For example, we can train electricians to install solar panels and train plumbers to work with solar hot water. An important point in all this is that this training would be made available to all people, especially people who traditionally couldn’t afford such training. Van Jones sees the Green movement as an opportunity to lift “millions of people out of poverty.”

This view that ties environmental improvements with benefiting the lives of people has become known as eco-capitalism. In 2007 Van Jones founded Green For All. This Non-governmental Organization (NGO) has successfully been creating Green Collar jobs for people in poverty and was a major player in getting the Green Jobs Act of 2007 passed (it’s officially called Title X in the 2007 Energy Bill). Here was a person who could get things done.

While President Obama has promised that a Green revolution would create more jobs, Van Jones was put into position to actually make it become a reality. He had the knowledge, experience, and connections to make it happen. With him now gone it’s not clear who will take over that role. There is now a vacuum of leadership and inspiration that will be very difficult to fill. President Obama’s critics have scored a true victory.

Why did Van Jones resign? What did he do and say? There are three things that the media attacked him for.

First, before joining the Obama administration Van Jones called the congressional Republicans “a—holes.”

This was a thoughtless remark from a very intelligent man. Van Jones is passionate about many things, but making inflammatory statements is not a way to sow political bi-partisanship. This will not help gain support on issues. This was his only real mistake. He recently apologized for  the comment:

“In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago. If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize.”

Second, in 2004 he signed a “911 truth” petition calling for a congressional investigation into whether the US government allowed the September 11, 2001 attacks to occur. Obviously this is a very painful and touchy subject for America. However, it could be argued that the secrecy of the Bush administration fostered in many people a deep distrust of the government at the time. Some of the events surrounding 911 still remain hidden. Yes, it might be difficult to believe that our government would of allowed such an event to take place, but is it wrong to want to have a deeper, independent, more clarifying investigation? Van Jones now claims that at the time he didn’t fully understand the petition he signed, not having fully reviewed it and now disowns his signing of it.

Last, the media went after him for his past association with the Marxist group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM). This group fought for the protection of women and people of color. Specifically, Van Jones took an active role in protesting police brutality.

STORM gained notoriety for fighting against California’s proposition 187. This proposition, which ended up passing, denied welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. STORM also participated in the 1999 anti-World Trade Protest in Seattle, Washington. Because of his past association with this group Van Jones is being branded in the media as a communist. Sadly, guilty by association has become a political tactic used by all sides of the media political spectrum. Instead of examining the positive merits of this group and what they fought for, they are seen as “bad” because they were revolutionary (non-violent) and Marxist. Instead of seeing this younger Van Jones as an idealistic man who could rise from a revolutionary past to become someone who approached change more democratically, he will always be seen as a communist revolutionary. In America that still gets you fired. More than anything else this is probably why President Obama distanced himself from Van Jones and allowed him to resign. Still hurting from the media attack on his association with the radical Bill Ayers, Obama didn’t want to get dragged into the same mud puddle again.

The Fox news host Glenn Beck led the attack against Van Jones. Already, energized by his success, he and others are investigating other advisers in the Obama administration. The media is now going after Cass Sunstein, head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Apparently he supports animal rights. Once they take him out they will not stop.

President Barack Obama needs to start standing up for the people working for him. If not, there will be a loss of confidence and moral. Not only will the Green revolution suffer, but progressive ideals will continue to flounder in the land of make believe. We already lost one inspired leader in Van Jones, we can’t afford to lose others.