Van Jones isn’t nearly as nutty or “anti-American” as most of the folks asking for his head

The Jones appointment is being criticized on the left as dubious and poorly vetted but hardly a threat to the nation. On the right it’s being treated with a hysteria that is as crazy as the craziest of the 9/11 “truthers.” “Truthers” are a fringe among liberals. But among the right, utterly crackpot, dishonest and insanely demagogic ranters have become legion, promoted, widely praised and even granted leadership roles.

Jones is not high on my radar – he’s a better appointment – not as crazy and likely more competent – than a couple of dozen aides to Bush. The hyper-platitudinous, Twilight Zone-inhabiting Christian Right was handed thousands of square feet of executive office space by Rove. As were disastrous cronies and hacks like Harriet Meiers, Al Gonzales and the notorious “Brownie.”

It’s okay in conservative circles to argue that FDR deliberately let Pearl Harbor get hit. It’s okay in conservative circles to argue that FDR deliberately sold out Eastern Europe to Stalin at the behest of his Red State Department. It’s okay, among the pundit class, to become a one-man “1939 Truth Commission” like Pat Buchanan, arguing that Hitler had no designs on greater Europe until he was provoked by…uh…Churchill, or something. It’s okay in right-blogosphere circles and on pundit lists to call for rounding up Americans on the basis of their ethnicity, like Michelle Malkin. But a guy who is assigned to develop strategies for Green Energy can’t ever have questioned whether Bush let 9/11 happen. It's a damned shame.

I’m inclined to defend Jones just because the people who are calling for his head are such outrageous, despicable scum. Reason enough. These creeps want an all-out partisan war. Fine.