Cease-And-Desist Letters Don't Keep Beck From Smearing Van Jones

Written by Terry Krepel

Published

Last week, an attorney for Van Jones sent a letter to Fox News requesting that the channel stop repeating “sensational and inflammatory” attacks on Jones. Among the examples cited was Glenn Beck calling Jones an “unrepentant communist” and a “radical revolutionary.” Jones' lawyer wrote that such a description is “demonstrably and unequivocally false,” adding: “Mr. Jones is not a member of any Communist Party or Marxist organization whatsoever, and has not expressed any support for any form of Communist or Marxist ideology for many years. In the same 2005 article in which he Mr. Jones discussed having had such notions as a young man, he also talked about his growth away from those views. ... Clearly these statements were calculated to, and do, injure Mr. Jones in his professional and community standing and lower him in the estimation of the American public. They are actionable as a matter of law.”

Either Beck never saw that letter or he doesn't care, because he repeated those exact same attacks on Jones on his June 27 radio show. Beck ranted that the person who runs the “Rebuild the Dream” initiative -- which Beck misidentified as “Restore the American Dream,” and although Beck didn't identify this person by name, it's Jones -- is “a communist, a communist revolutionary, unrepentant, never has denied it, a communist revolutionary.”

Does Beck think that because his radio show is a separate operation from his Fox News show, it's OK to push smears that have been identified as false and over which legal action has been threatened? Or is Beck simply so invested in smearing Jones that he sees no reason to stop now?

In the same segment, Beck falsely claimed that President Obama has “never, ever explained” his “civilian national security force” statement, which Beck has decided means the TSA. In fact, Obama did explain what he meant -- expansion of the Peace Corps, the Foreign Service, and volunteerism efforts. When did Obama do this? In the very same speech from which Beck plucked the “civilian national security force” statement.