American Morning
Presidential adviser quits amid 9/11 controversy
WASHINGTON (CNN) - The resignation of Obama administration figure Van Jones, following controversies over a petition he had signed and his comments about Republicans, did not come at the request of the president, the White House senior adviser said Sunday.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/POLITICS/09/06/obama.adviser.resigns/art.van.jones.gi.jpg caption="Van Jones attends the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, in August."]
"Absolutely not - this was Van Jones' own decision," David Axelrod told NBC's "Meet the Press" when asked if the president had ordered the resignation.
The chairman of the House Republican Conference, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, had called for Jones to resign or be fired.
"I think Van Jones did the right thing," Pence said Sunday about the resignation. "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration."
Jones has frequently been dubbed a "green-jobs czar" for the administration.
"The president should suspend any future appointment of so called czars while the administration and the Congress carefully examines the background and qualifications of the more than 30 individuals who've been appointed to these czar positions," said Pence, speaking to reporters. "And the Congress ought to initiate a thorough inquiry into the constitutionality of this practice which has spanned Republican and Democrat administrations."
In a statement Saturday night, the White House said Jones was giving up his post at the Council on Environmental Quality, where he helped coordinate government agencies focused on delivering millions of green jobs to the ailing U.S. economy.
A soldier's sacrifice
Two of the biggest challenges of the Obama administration intersect in our story, “A soldier’s sacrifice.”
Back in July, Army Specialist Greg Missman was killed in Afghanistan when his convoy was hit by an IED. The explosion cut short what was Missman’s second stint in the Army. He had left the military 11 years ago but came back for one reason: health insurance.
Last year, Missman lost his job as a computer consultant. And Missman’s father Jim says his son was worried about providing health insurance for his family. Specialist Missman had a four-year-old son, Jack.
Health care reform debate hits the road
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/02/acosta.rally.art.jpg caption="A crowd in the thousands attends an Organizing for America rally on health insurance reform in Columbus, Ohio on September 1, 2009. "]
It's not an election year but two different bus tours are hitting the road, all part of this make or break push on health care reform.
On the "make" side – Democrats are touring in support of reform under the label, "Organizing for America." And on the "break" side – the "Tea Party Express."
Our Jim Acosta is tracking the battle of the bus tours.
We are riding on the Organizing for America Health Insurance Reform Now bus. That's a mouthful. But it's the old Obama campaign's effort to drum up support for health care reform.
The OFA bus (which is technically owned by the DNC but run by former campaign staffers) is hitting cities coast to coast over the next week for a series of campaign style rallies.
Ridge: Terror alert never used to manipulate public
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/01/ridge.tom.cnn.art.jpg caption="Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says he was not second-guessing his colleagues."]
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge became the very first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security after the attacks of 9/11. And in his new book, "Test of our Times: America Under Siege… And How We Can Be Safe Again," he opens up about the Bush White House.
The book is generating a lot of heat these days over implications that politics may have played a role in a proposal to raise the terror alert level before the 2004 presidential election.
Tom Ridge joined John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.
John Roberts: The particular area in the book that's generating a lot of controversy, a lot of conversation, is the part where you talk about in the days after Bin Laden released that videotape, just before the election of 2004, I guess it was five days before, you wrote of that – and this was the discussion of whether or not to raise the terror alert level – you say, “Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Rumsfeld. There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’” Walk us through your thought process when you wrote the book. Why did you even raise the issue of is this about politics or security?
Tom Ridge: Obviously, I'm musing in the book. I'm not speculating about my colleagues' motives, but this is a dramatic weekend. It is a weekend before a national election. This is the only time I really discuss a process that we used throughout my entire time as secretary when we decided…
Roberts: But why did you think it might be about politics?
Ridge: Well, at that time, as the individual who is responsible for the overseeing if we went up in the general threat level, I'm just saying in there, we were universally opposed to raising it in the department. And I'm kind of musing and scratching my head and I've got two people whose opinions I respect immensely, I’m not second guessing them, but I just say in the book, “Is it politics?” Perhaps the sentence should have been in a paragraph later – we wouldn’t be having a conversation. But I just want to make it very clear, I'm not second-guessing my colleagues, because I worked with them every single day.
The quieter side to Ted Kennedy
Every week, Senator Kennedy used to read to a student at a DC elementary school as part of the mentoring program, “Everybody Wins.” CNN's Jim Acosta visits one school, where he talked to the little girl Senator Kennedy mentored before his illness. Her mother was there as well and credits Kennedy for her child’s improved reading.
Presidential prophecy: 'And the last shall be first'
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/27/kennedy.old.pic.art.jpg]
On the weekend of his presidential inauguration in 1961, John Kennedy gave Ted, the last born of the Kennedy siblings, an engraved cigarette box.
It read, "And the last shall be first." That was almost 50 years ago. Neither of them knew then in just what ways that prophecy might turn out to be true.
Time.com reports full story
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