Van Jones is out.

A White House environmental policy adviser who specialized in “green jobs” resigned on Sunday after an uproar over his previous affiliation with a September 11 conspiracy group.

Van Jones, special adviser on green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, apologized on Thursday after videotape surfaced of him using a crude epithet to describe Republicans and amid revelations he had signed a petition suggesting U.S. government involvement in the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

No mention of his other controversial positions and his desire for incremental restructuring of the entire American way of life. Still, gone is gone.

His face saving resignation used the old classic “distraction” rationale.

Jones said he was resigning to avoid being a distraction in the administration’s effort to pass healthcare reform and climate change legislation.

“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” Jones said in a resignation letter that was released to the media.

“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,” he wrote.

Of course by “smear campaign” he must mean “pointing out the truth about my past and my beliefs”.

There’s only one possible response to this news.

NEXT!

I figured out how President Obama is going to “create or save” a googleplex of jobs — He’s going to appoint them all as czars. Michelle Malkin pointed out the latest unaccountable appointee, Kenneth Feinberg, as “Pay Czar” — officially “Special Master of Compensation”.

Now as scary as that is, the Pay Czar is only the latest in a long line of these appointments.

We have:

• Af-Pak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) Czar – Richard Holbrooke
• Border Czar – Alan Bersin
• Car Czar- Steven Rattner
• Climate Czar – Todd Stern
• Cyber Security Czar
• Drug Czar – Gil Kerlikowske
• Economic Czar – Larry Summers
• Energy Czar – Carol Browner
• Faith-based Czar – Joshua DuBois
• Great Lakes Cleanup Czar – Cameron Davis
• Guantanamo Closure Czar – Daniel Fried
• Health Reform Czar – Nancy-Ann DeParle
• Infotech Czar – Vivek Kundra
• Iran/Persian Gulf & Southwest Asia Czar Czar – Dennis Ross
• Middle East Czar – George Mitchell
• Non-proliferation czar – Gary Samore
• Pay Czar – Kenneth Feinberg
• Regulatory Czar – Cass Sunstein
• Stimulus Accountability Czar – Earl Devaney
• Sudan Czar – J. Scott Gration
• TARP Czar – Herb Allison
• Terrorism Czar – John Brennan
• Urban Czar – Adolfo Carrion, Jr.
• Weapons of Mass Destruction Czar

I found most of this list at I Hate The Media, and some of the names at Salon.

At Michelle’s article linked above she has some suggestions for additional Czars. You can’t have too many, can you?

…Distinguished Overlord of Oxygen Intake (to limit individual human carbon emissions);

…Royal Captain of Calorie Consumption (to limit weight gain and end obesity);

…Exalted Diva of Diversity Broadcasting (to enforce the Fairness Doctrine and limit exposure to excessive, poisonous conservative opinion on the airwaves).

I have a few suggestions from my blogroll to help out.

Babes Czar – Wyatt
Tango Czar – Fausta
Jedi Czar – The Jawa Report
Czar of all Czars – Jack Bauer

Add your suggestions and/or nominees in the comments.

Fausta suggests (and I concur) Ace for Moron Czar. Thank you Czarina Fausta!

I’ve decided to bestow a few other honors:
Omelet Czar – Steveegg
Pirate Czar – William Teach (This is not his only award today.)