Republicans celebrate the ouster of Van Jones

The White House was smothering the odour of disarray last night as conservatives celebrated the ouster of a key adviser on green policy who had stood accused of making crude remarks about Republicans and allegedly supporting claims that 9/11 might have been abetted by the Bush administration.

Van Jones resigned from his position as President Barack Obama’s Green Jobs Czar after being hounded for days both by conservative pundits like Fox television’s Glenn Beck and some Republican leaders in Congress. The embarrassing demise of Mr Jones comes at a delicate moment just as members of Congress are returning to Washington after the summer recess and Mr Obama is honing a crucial speech on reviving his troubled health care reform effort that he will deliver on Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening in prime time.

Aides to the president were striving last night to focus attention precisely back on the health care campaign. “I think we are going to have major reform this year,” David Axelrod, top political counsellor to the president, insisted on NBC’s current affairs magazine, ‘Meet the Press. “The American people want us to do it and I think we are going to get it done.”

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said President Obama would give a forthright address to Congress setting down more clearly than ever before the minimum that he expects from a reform deal. Democrats have voiced concern that Mr Obama has hitherto stayed too aloof from negotiations on a bill. “People will leave that speech knowing where he stands,” Mr Gibbs promised.

As much as anything, Mr Obama will be trying to regain the initiative in Washington after a dismal few weeks being battered by conservative talking heads and seeing his vision of health care reform characterised by his opponents as a kind of socialist, big-government take-over. Even Democrat loyalists are fretting that he has lost his footing. His approval ratings have also been sliding fast.

Even plans to pipe a talk by the president to schoolchildren as they return to class tomorrow have been slammed as a devilish scheme to indoctrinate them with his leftist views. Among those condemning it is Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party. “As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology,” he said.

Also building over the last several days was the campaign to drive Mr Jones out of the White House. His sins including using the word “asshole” to describe Republicans in general at a policy meeting last winter and in 2004 putting his signature to a petition asking for a congressional inquiry into allegations that the administration of George Bush knew the 9/11 attacks were coming. He issued two apologies and has claimed that he did not know that was the thrust of the petition when he signed it. Stepping down, Mr Jones said he had been the victim of a “vicious smear campaign”.

Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic Party, said the adviser had been unfairly targeted. “I think he was brought down,” Mr Dean said. “I think it’s a loss for the country.”