Stand by Your Van? SF Chronicle Politics Writer Notes Toxic Effect of Van Jones

As noted by John Stephenson of NewsBusters, much of the media has been ignoring the enormous Van Jones controversy. However, Joe Garofoli, the politics writer and blogger for Jones' hometown newspaper, the liberal San Francisco Chronicle, has just written about the toxic effect of Van Jones and who is standing by their Van and who isn't in his Politics blog:

The Bay Area's Van Jones -- the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality -- just finished apologizing for calling Republicans "a-holes" when he got something else to start explaining: How his signature got on a 2004 petition asking for an immediate "inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur." Van said he didn't carefully review the petition before signing it "certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."

Van Jones doesn't review the petitions he signs? Did he also not read the philosphy of communism to which he professed a belief in during the 1990s?

Bad sign: When asked if Jones still enjoys the confidence of the President Friday, White House flak Robert Gibbs said "he continues to work in this administration."

While Jones' lefty past gets a shrug in many parts of liberal SF, it doesn't in much of the rest of the country. A quick gander at the list of signatures with Jones reveal an All-Star cast of Bay Area lefties: Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange co-founder Kevin Danaher, Smith and Hawken founder Paul Hawken, Daniel Ellsberg and musician Michael Franti. But Jones didn't work for the White House then.