Van Jones: surprisingly transparent

Former White House green jobs czar Van Jones has wiggled his way into the news of late and let's face it, it's not all that surprising.

Like many others fascinated with the Van Jones rags-to-riches/communist-to-progressive story, I tuned in to watch him speak at last weekend's Netroots Nation liberal activist conference where he introduced the left's newest talking point: conservatives are destroying the American Dream.  As sheer coincidence would have it, Jones' newest progressive grassroots campaign is all about -- you guessed it! -- saving the American Dream from eeeeevil Republicans.

Something curious from his Saturday remarks, however, as Jones' insistence that now is the time to debate Glenn Beck.  But why?

Why didn't Van demand a face-to-face confrontation with Glenn when his job at the White House was on the line?  And if Glenn is the "defamer" Jones now alleges, why doesn't he also sue the White House for wrongful termination?  Oh, that's right -- he resigned...

In any event -- why was there no call into the infamous red phone on the set of Glenn's Fox News program to "set the record straight" over a year ago?

Jones' recent firestorm of media attention is no coincidence.  He knows progressives are less than happy with the Obama administration and are reluctant to campaign for Obama with the same fervor they did in 2008.  So how does he plan to get progressives re-energized?

Enter Glenn Beck.  Jones knows the mere mention of Glenn's name is enough to throw many progressives into a collective frenzy and is using this to his advantage today.  Instead of trying to rally progressives behind Obama, he's going to try and rally them against Glenn.  Why else would he mention Glenn in nearly every interview he's doing these days while simultaneously plugging his new "Rebuild the Dream" initiative?

("Rebuild" is an interesting choice of words -- kind of reminiscent of "fundamental transformation," no?)

As soon as Jones issued the debate ultimatum to Glenn on Saturday, his motives were clear.  I'll go ahead and repeat the advice I tweeted out then: