Van Jones Tells Roland Martin He's Called 'The Green Jack Kemp'

The whitewash-the-green-czar tour continued, as Van Jones found another comfortable powder-puff interview with another black leftist, this time with CNN analyst Roland Martin. On Martin's Sunday show Washington Watch on the black entertainment channel TV One, Jones declared "I'm called the green Jack Kemp, because I'm so passionate about the entrepreneurial agenda here."

He means green jobs, which he said would flow once Team Obama imposed a "carbon cap." He also claimed these policies were not liberal.

Roland Martin wasn't as gooey as PBS's Tavis Smiley, but he was more a friend than a journalist, completely avoiding any specifics on what Jones said about 9/11 being a government conspiracy and other radical views. Martin began the show by touting Jones, "forced out as White House green jobs czar by a right-wing campaign, looks forward to what we need to do to build a green economy."

After two vague questions on his resignation, most of the segment focused on Jones selling his usual "green jobs" message, which helps rehabilitate his image.

ROLAND MARTIN: 2009, a huge year for you in the White House. Some folks call you the green jobs czar. All of a sudden you came under heavy attack –

VAN JONES: Yes.

MARTIN; –by conservatives and resigned that particular position.

JONES: Yes, sir.

MARTIN: Looking back on that, what do you make of the criticism? Did you believe you were being unfairly targeted, being attacked? Did you get enough support inside?

Jones again said he chose to resign, but unlike the Smiley interview, he didn’t try to claim he never signed the 9-11 truther petition (possibly because Martin never brought it up).

JONES: There were things I had said, done, and thought in my past that were being put forward as if they were still my positions and my views, and to go through the process of trying to clarify and clean up – some things were just outright fabrications – but to try to deal with all of that about Van Jones’ past, when the president of the United States was trying to move forward for the first time in however many years a true health-care agenda. To me I didn’t want to be a distraction.

Like Smiley, Martin then asked vaguely whether an activist can advance an agenda inside the government, or whether it was wiser to stay outside to make change happen. Video here.

It would have been foolish to expect  Jesse Jackson's Broadcaster of the Year to ask any tough questions of his fellow black leftist.