Van Jones' Resignation: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen

By Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake. Posted September 6, 2009.

I first met Van Jones when he was honored last year by the Campaign for America's Future at their gala dinner.  He was being swarmed by all of the liberal institutional elite, who just could not be more full of praise for the impressive environmental leader and prison reform organizer.  Everybody wanted Van Jones on their board.  Everyone wanted him at their fundraisers.  Everyone wanted a piece of his formidable limelight.

Now he's been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 -- that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11.  Well, that and calling Republicans "assholes."  I'm pretty sure that if you search through the histories of every single liberal leader at the CAF dinner that night, they have publicly said that and worse.

So where are all the statements defending Van Jones by those who were willing to exploit him when it served their purpose?  Why aren't they standing up  and defending one of their own, who has done nothing that probably the majority of people in the Democratic party haven't done at one time or another?  Is he no longer "one of their own?"

Someone asked me over the weekend to be more explicit about what the term "veal pen" means:

The veal crate is a wooden restraining device that is the veal calf's permanent home. It is so small (22" x 54") that the calves cannot turn around or even lie down and stretch and is the ultimate in high-profit, confinement animal agriculture.(1) Designed to prevent movement (exercise), the crate does its job of atrophying the calves' muscles, thus producing tender "gourmet" veal.

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About 14 weeks after their birth, the calves are slaughtered. The quality of this "food," laden with chemicals, lacking in fiber and other nutrients, diseased and processed, is another matter. The real issue is the calves' experience. During their brief lives, they never see the sun or touch the Earth. They never see or taste the grass. Their anemic bodies crave proper sustenance. Their muscles ache for freedom and exercise. They long for maternal care. They are kept in darkness except to be fed two to three times a day for 20 minutes.

Soon after the election, the Administration began corralling the big liberal DC interest groups into a variety of organizations and communication networks through which they telegraphed their wishes -- into a virtual veal pen.  The 8:45 am morning call co-hosted by the "liberal" Center for American Progress, Unity 09, and Common Purpose are just a few of the overt ways that the White House controls its left flank and maintains discipline. 

My own experience with the Veal Pen came indirectly, when some of them had the temerity to launch a campaign against Blue Dogs.  They were rebuked and humiliated in front of their peers as a lesson to them all at a Common Purpose meeting, which is run by lobbyist Erik Smith.  White House communications director Ellen Moran attends.  It isn't an arms-length relationship between these groups and the administration.

A few weeks ago, Rahm Emanuel showed up at a Common Purpose meeting and called these liberal groups "fucking stupid" for going after Blue Dogs on health care and ordered them not to do so any more.  Since that time, to the best of my knowledge, none of them have. 

These organizations may kid themselves that they're doing no harm, but that's not true.  They are the institutional liberal validators who telegraph to liberals that there are problems, that things are happening that are not in their interest. 

When the White House met with bankers after the AIG scandal and they said they didn't want to be criticized for getting huge bonuses paid for by taxpayers, the White House complied and "cooled their rhetoric."  The President told the public that Timothy Geithner had been instructed to do everything in his power to claw back those bonuses, and the House passed a bill doing just that.  But it died in the Senate.

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Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake and the Huffington Post.

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