Van Jones Resigns

White House Adviser Van Jones

White House Adviser Van Jones has finally called it a day and has resigned amid controversy over past activism. It has been reporter by New York Times.

“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight Sunday. “They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”

He continued: “I have been inundated with calls — from across the political spectrum — urging me to ‘stay and fight.’ But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”

Jones issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition that questioned whether Bush administration officials “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war” and the other for using a crude term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the administration.

On FOX News Sunday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich declined to criticize Jones directly, though Alexander did question why the Obama administration had appointed so many issue czars.

“I don’t think he’s the issue,” Alexander said. “I think the czars are the issue.”