Van Jones Somewhat Retracts Libertarian 'Bigots' Statement After Confronted by...Russia Today

The Blaze was the first to report on the stunning remarks made by Obama Czar Van Jones at an Occupy Rally over one week ago in Los Angeles.  At the time, he blasted Libertarians saying they hate, among other things, "brown folk." But everyone must, at times, answer for the things they say, and Jones is now retracting, sort of, his Libertarian criticism from his speech, “All In For The 99%”.

Here's the full quote from his earlier remarks: "They say they’re Patriots but they hate everybody in America who looks like us.  They say they love America but they hate the people, the brown folk, the gays, the lesbians, the people with piercings, ya know, ya’ll.”

Not surprisingly, that made Libertarians none-to-happy.  Mike Riggs, associate editor at Reason magazine, suggests Mr. Jones has perhaps a case of mistaken identity:

See, it’s Barack Obama who supports "traditional marriage”; Barack Obama who supports a drug war that sends an alarming number of black men to prison and destroys their employment prospects; Barack Obama who supports a foreign policy that kills children; Barack Obama who supports regulatory barriers that require the poorest of the poor to borrow their way into the workforce; Barack Obama who supports an immigration strategy that rips apart families and sees the children of undocumented workers put up for adoption.

So on Monday night, Alyona Minkovski of Russia Today's Alyona Show confronted Jones about his controversial comments.  He quickly walked them back.

“Well hey, listen, I think we have to start punching back an start fighting back. Here's the deal, if you can't take it, don't dish it out," he told Minkovski. He then hedged: "Now that statement I made was overly broad." But Minkovski didn't let Jones posture away so easily.

"But is that extremist?  Because you call people extremists who go after you for your political views," she sniped.

Jones, the Yale-educated attorney responded, "Well, well listen-- but that's, that's American politics. Ya know, I mean, you guys should know that.  American politics people-- we mix it up. I've never backed down from a fight over ideas. I'm tired ... of a certain section of people acting like they have having a monopoly on patriotism. They don't. ... And so now I'm saying, 'two can play that game if you want to.'"

He then admitted, “That statement was overly broad. ... I should have said the ‘so-called libertarians who identify themselves with with this sort of ultra-right wing camp.’ Because there are libertarians that don’t have those views.”

Perhaps feeling like he had lost some ground, Jones finished his argument with an accusation that some libertarians he met once did not like Dr. Martin Luther King because they wanted more segregation.

"I've met libertarians who say that Dr. Martin Luther King, Dr. King, is somebody they can't support because someone should have the right to exclude people in this country from being able to go into a restaurant, or go into a hotel, or go into a place of business solely based on the color of their skin." [Emphasis added]

It's almost like it puts him back at square one. Watch the interview below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N0Qz3-LkV-A#! expand=1]