Van Jones Resigns; Glenn Beck Gloats; Keith Olbermann Digs

Whatever you do, please (please) don't call it the Glenn Beck Effect: Anthony "Van" Jones, a White House green jobs adviser, resigned this weekend after weeks of criticism by Glenn Beck and other conservative critics. Jones had reportedly signed a "9/11 Truth Statement" and criticized Republicans, which caused some to feel he was too partisan to serve in the White House.

He was also a founder of Color of Change, the organization leading the advertiser boycott against Glenn Beck's Fox News show, which may be why Beck attacked—dogged, really—Jones night after night. Dipping into the conspiratorial metaphors he loves so much, Beck put out a statement (here quoted by the New York Times' John Broder) that, "the administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness.” The commentator will probably say more on his show tonight: We're guessing there will be a cake, balloons, and maybe an Obama piñata as well. That is, unless he finds some more "communist" art to criticize.

The Jones resignation came over a slow three-day weekend, leading some critics to complain, "Most Major News Outlets Largely Ignore Van Jones Controversy" (despite thousands of a articles, blog posts, and comments listed on Google News). That narrative then morphed into "Media Playing Catch-Up on Van Jones Story." Not so coincidentally, those two posts come from Beck's own Fox News, which has a real investment in continuing this story to stoke controversy and drive ratings.

Also apparently playing catch-up is Beck's newish nemesis, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who spent part of the weekend crowdsourcing for dirt on Beck on the progressive website Daily Kos. (This comes via Politico's Michael Calderone.)

On Sunday, Olbermann asked Kos readers to send him "everything you find about Glenn Beck." This sort of open solicitation for intel is straight out of Beck's own playbook, as when he asked his Twitter followers last week to "FIND EVERYTHING YOU CAN ON CASS SUNSTEIN, MARK LLOYD, AND CAROL BROWNER." (Caps are his.) The results of Olbermann's search will probably appear on his show soon, ensuring whatever truce was once floated between Fox News and MSNBC will never be upheld.

So, what did Beck do to celebrate Labor Day and his presumed triumph in the resignation of a foe? Again, according to his Twitter feed, he "[w]as at the Statue of liberty & then at West Point last nite. America is waking 2 Honor, Courage & duty. Soon we will become post partisan."

Let's hope not! Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann—and, heck, Van Jones—would be out of a job if that happened. Oh, wait: One of those guys is already out of a job. Postpartisanship will have 2 wait.