"The White House is listening to the right-wing's political terrorists, people like Glenn Beck."

So said syndicated columnist and Huffington Post contributor David Sirota Monday on CNN's "American Morning."

He also called Van Jones "a national hero" who was "originally targeted because he's an African-American man" (video embedded below the fold courtesy Breitbart with full transcript):

For six weeks, while virtually every mainstream media outlet ignored "green jobs czar" Van Jones, Fox News's Glenn Beck exposed the radical background of President Obama's environment adviser.

On Saturday, Jones resigned, and most of the same news outlets that ignored the shocking nature of this White House representative are coming to his defense predictably claiming that he was the victim of a right-wing smear campaign.

One so-called journalist is even asking his viewers to dig up dirt on Beck.

Somewhat bucking this disgraceful trend was Politico in its Monday article "Glenn Beck Up, Left Down and Jones Defiant":

<div style="float: right"><object width="250" height="202"><param name="movie" value="http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=Gd8zkU2GqG&amp;c1=0xCE4717&... name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=Gd8zkU2GqG&amp;c1=0xCE4717&... allowfullscreen="true" width="250" height="202"></embed></object></div>Instead of focusing on how the Obama administration found it appropriate to hire a man who added his name to a petition asserting the Bush administration deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur -- or the incompetence displayed in not knowing about it -- ABC and NBC on Sunday night painted Van Jones as a victim, “a target for conservatives,” while “the Republican Right” claimed “its first scalp in this administration.” [audio <a href="http://media.eyeblast.org/newsbusters/static/2009/09/2009-09-06-NBC-NN-H... target="_blank">available here</a>]<br /><br />With “Under Fire” on screen by a picture of Jones, as if he's the aggrieved party, World News anchor Dan Harris fretted that “at this crucial moment,” with President Obama planning to take up health care, “the White House is now dealing with a sudden overnight resignation of a controversial adviser.” Reporter Stephanie Sy stressed how <b>Jones' remarks on various topics “were all made before he joined the Obama administration, but made him an easy target for conservatives.”</b> She acknowledged Jones “in fact did describe himself as an aspiring communist revolutionary in his youth,” but, she highlighted, <b>“he said he is the victim of a 'vicious smear campaign of lies and distortion.'”</b> Sy featured Howard Dean lamenting Jones will no longer be able “to help this country,” before she concluded: <b>“Democrats worry that Van Jones is only the first of Mr. Obama's so-called policy czars...that will be targeted by Republicans.”</b><br /><br />Inadvertently, presumably, NBC anchor Lester Holt <b>conceded the mainstream media's malfeasance: “I don't think most Americans had heard of him before this.”</b> Holt then asked John Harwood: <b>“Can the Republican Right claim its first scalp in this administration?”</b> Harwood pointed to how Obama “lost” Tom Dashle, and proceeded to agree that “yes, it is a victory for the Republican Right,” though he insisted “Jones was not an especially important figure within the administration. His job wasn't that big.” <br />

It took Van Jones' resignation, around midnight Saturday night on a holiday weekend, for ABC and NBC to mention him for the first time in Sunday morning news shows which broached, but failed to quote, the insidious “911truth” petition he signed, while ABC's George Stephanopoulos, seemingly trying to rationalize ABC's spiking of the subject, came aboard Good Morning America to dismiss the matter as “a summer squall.” Stephanopoulos was impressed by how the White House handled it: “The fact they got it out of the way before the end of the Labor Day weekend, before his spokespeople like Robert Gibbs, who's appearing on This Week come on this morning, I think will contain any kind of damage.”

That, and a compliant news media. As Bill Kristol observed on Fox News Sunday: “The mainstream media did not cover this story.”

Mike Viqueira reported on NBC's Today: “Van Jones, that's the President's 'green gobs' czar, has resigned overnight after it became known that before joining the administration he signed a petition put forward by those who believe that the government had a hand in 9/11.” Later, Viqueira relayed how “Jones says he is the victim of a 'vicious smear campaign' from the right, but he says he's resigning because he doesn't want to draw attention from the fights to come this fall over health care and energy and climate change legislation.”

Van Jones, Obama environmental adviser and "green jobs" czar, resigned late Saturday night, the culmination of days of controversy (ignored by the mainstream media) after the Gateway Pundit blog dug up evidence of Van Jones being a "Truther." He signed a  911Truth.org petition in 2004 questioning whether the Bush administration "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen." And the New York Times does its first story on the matter -- the day after Van Jones resigned his administration post.Last month, the New York Times jumped on the conservative fringe of "Birthers" who question Obama's Hawaiian birthplace and thus his presidential eligibility, deriding the conspiracy theory as false and demanding prominent Republicans denounce the idea. Yet the Times maintained strict silence on the Van Jones controversy as it bubbled away for several days in the photosphere, with only the Washington Times and Fox News Channel willing to treat as a news story the fact that an influential member of the Obama administration thinks the government may have let 9-11 happen -- a far more incendiary charge than the question of Obama's birthplace.