Should the Green Jobs Czar have resigned?

Former Obama administration green jobs czar Van Jones showed incredibly poor judgement by becoming a “celebrity” signer of a 9/11 Truth petition. Either he sympathized with it, which suggests a disqualifying lack of discernment, or he didn’t read it, which displayed a disqualifying lack of attention to detail.

There are many legitimate critiques of 9/11 that someone can express without disqualifying themselves from positions of public responsibility. 9/11 conspiracy theories are not among them. They are best viewed in the same way as are Holocaust denial, intelligent design, alien abductions, birthers, deathers, and tenthers.

Seemingly legitimate petitions may not be worthy of our signatures. Some petitions are authored by ideologues and extremists whose agendas are not immediately obvious such as petitions that appear to be calling for peace in the Middle East at the same time as they call Israelis Nazis.

I declined to sign a petition to impeach George Bush. I had grown weary of my progressive colleagues viciously criticizing Democratic members of Congress for failing to do something that was utterly impossible.

I treasure our Constitutional right to petition government. However, signing every petition that is put before us devalues one’s signature and as Van Jones discovered risks serious consequences.