The Christian Science Monitor reports that the same critics that successfully lobbied for the resignation of White House adviser Van Jones are now attacking Cass Sunstein, a prominent legal scholar and a professor at Harvard Law School. In January, the White House confirmed that Sunstein was in line to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which oversees privacy, information, and regulatory policy.
At the time, Sunstein was lauded by many conservatives, including the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.
But in recent weeks, the appointment has come under heavy fire. One of the most outspoken Sunstein opponents is Glenn Beck, who spearheaded the drive to oust Van Jones. Using his hit Fox News show as a platform, Beck has excoriated Sunstein for — among other perceived sins — leftist views on animal rights, hunting, gun control, and economic policy (video below).
As David Weigel of The Washington Independent notes, the push against Sunstein coincides with a general conservative attack on Obama’s appointment of a number of ‘czars’ — high-powered advisors directly appointed by the president. Here’s an excerpt from a July 30 Washington Post column by Republican Eric Cantor, the house whip:
To be sure, the appointment of a few special officers to play a constructive role in a given administration is nothing new. What is new is the elevation of so many czars, with so much authority on endless policy fronts. Vesting such broad authority in the hands of people not subjected to Senate confirmation and congressional oversight poses a grave threat to our system of checks and balances.
According to Beck and others, Sunstein’s appointment to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs qualifies him as a “czar,” and thus as a target. A new website, stopsunstein.com, argues that “President Barack Obama has nominated Cass Sunstein, a radical anti-hunting, anti-gun, animal rights law professor to be his ‘regulatory czar’.” The site, which selectively pulls from past Sunstein statements without offering any context, encourages readers to petition their senators to block Sunstein’s appointment.
But many have warned that conservatives are picking the wrong fight. Law professor and Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds, who identifies himself as a libertarian, says Sunstein should be approved.
“Do I think Sunstein will push a hunting ban? No. Do I think he’s sympathetic to hunting, particularly? No,” Reynolds told The Washington Independent. “But what Obama appointee is likely to be? As the Van Jones affair indicates, there are a lot of people worthy of more concern than Sunstein. If I were advising Republicans, I’d tell them to focus their attentions elsewhere.”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.
The apology did little to quell Republican criticism, however, and President Barack Obama's chief spokesman gave only tepid support to the adviser on Friday.
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.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Todd Eastham)