Unhappy Labor Day

Jones: who had his back?

As if high unemployment, an economically depressed state and a shrunken stock market didn’t turn your Labor Day weekend into a downer, look no further than Saturday night’s resignation of Green Jobs icon Van Jones from President Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality.

Van is one of the most charismatic and outspoken speakers I’ve ever seen.  He has seized on the idea to transform the American civil rights movement into a green jobs movement through his extraordinary work at the Ella Baker Center and Green for All.  His reward for this leadership was an appointment to CEQ to be the administration’s public voice on its green jobs push.  Van’s efforts on environmental protection and job creation should be celebrated on Labor Day. And I’m disappointed that the Obama administration didn’t appear to have Van’s back during the successful barrage from the right for events that occurred long before his appointment.