Yeah, I'm Still Pretty Pissed About Van Jones

And this says why, pretty damned well:

It’s both typical and relevant that there were never any specific accusations leveled at Jones. As usual, the complaints weren’t about any definable offense against the law or public morals that he might have committed in the past, or that he might be liable to commit in the position of Green Jobs Czar. His three offenses of signing lawful and even conscionable 9/11 petitions, of being at one time a self-made communist (or really, of admitting it without regret), and of calling Republicans “assholes” were — to misapply a very specific term only slightly — ‘thoughtcrimes,’ or abstract breaches of an ideal conformity of belief and speech that’s defined not by what real people find genuinely offensive, but by the things that people imagine would offend others, especially others whose opinions are weighted by authority or power. More simply, it’s a conformity defined by the things for which a passive-aggressor can successfully claim offense.

Stripped of emotional ballast and pleadings, the accusations against Jones were simply that certain things he said and did looked suspicious, not of anything in particular, but of secret plotting in league with Obama, that superlatively suspicion-provoking man whose plots are continually being revealed, yet somehow never diminish in variety. The charge was that Jones seemed like the kind of person who would plot secretly against America somehow — or rather, “How can we be sure that Jones is not the kind of person who would somehow plot secretly against America?”

That, believe it or not, is just part of Note 2, following a Shorter Byron York. Gavin M. is the man.

There are lots of laughs above and below that (do not miss the Pringles cans), but I like when the funny people at Sadly, No! get righteous, too.

[Added] When you click Publish on Blogger these days, you often see ads. I guess "thoughtcrimes" made the Google think I would be interested in …

Sadly, …