Stanford alumni blow the whistle on Valerie Jarrett
All is not lost in the Ivory Tower!
In September/October, Stanford Magazine ran a lavish softball profile of Valerie Jarrett (Stanford ’78) on her role as Barack Obama’s confidante (h/t – reader Ed R.):
Jarrett has been an ever-present figure throughout Obama’s improbable ascent and has become a star in her own right. She appears regularly on national television advocating the president’s position on an array of issues. She was profiled in July on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, and earlier in Vogue. She is that rare political appointee who becomes a public figure, known to millions despite working in what would typically be a behind-the-scenes role.
Political savvy, extraordinary personal skills and intense loyalty established Jarrett as a central member of Obama’s inner circle long before she arrived at the White House. She was co-manager of the presidential campaign, but more appropriately she was its guiding light—the person in every room who best knew the Illinois senator, and who held the most sway. Considered a candidate for Obama’s vacated Senate seat, Jarrett declined the opportunity. “I want her inside the White House,” Obama insisted. “She is family,” the president told the Times; “. . . she is someone I trust completely.”
The piece appeared in the wake of the Jarrett-engineered Van Jones debacle and the Obama/Jarrett/Chicago crony Olympics flop. Like the massive New York Times profile published earlier this year, the Stanford Magazine piece was mum on Jarrett’s hardball days and failed developer record as a slum lord.
But Stanford alumni made sure the magazine’s readership knew the rest of the story.
In the November/December issue of Stanford Magazine, letter-writers filled in the blanks left by the puff piece. Just speaking truth to power, Val!
When I saw the cover photograph of Valerie Jarrett, I was reminded of the school fight song referring to “Stanford Red.” I am quite dismayed that this radical leftist is featured (“I Want Her Inside the White House,” September/October). She is, as you might recall, the one who recruited the self-avowed communist, Van Jones, to be part of President Obama’s inner circle. [Jones was special advisor on green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality from March 2009 until his resignation in September.]
Some have also likened her to a slumlord, er, lady. According to the Boston Globe’s Binyamin Appelbaum on June 27, 2008, Grove Parc Plaza, a slum housing project in the very district that Obama represented for eight years, is 20 percent uninhabitable because of “unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale—a score so bad the buildings now face demolition. . . . Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.”
As Appelbaum reported, “Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the [federal] subsidies even as many of Obama’s constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.” Among those [profiting] was convicted felon, Antoin “Tony” Rezko. Need I go on?
I located this information with a few mouse clicks. You could have done so as well. How far left has the Farm become? Is this cover an indication? Valerie Jarrett has no business being lauded by our magazine, despite her connection with Stanford and the current administration. Shame!
Ward S. De Witt, ’62
Missoula, MontanaHow timely to see Valerie Jarrett on the cover. You have highlighted the woman who has just been exposed as one of the most vocal advocates for Van Jones, an avowed communist and public supporter of a cop-killing murderer [death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal], now exposed and removed from government.
What a great lesson: Valerie’s Stanford education did not provide her with a moral compass sufficient to recognize that Jones would be bad news in any administration. I’m left wondering if Jarrett, or Stanford, can recognize the immoral shamefulness of her actions?
As a senior mentor in India once told me, “An educated scoundrel is still a scoundrel.” How true it is.
Pete Holzmann, ’79
Black Forest, ColoradoYou cannot imagine my dismay to learn that the architect of the Van Jones debacle is a Stanford graduate.
Tom Flood, ’66
Danville, CaliforniaThe ill timing of the Valerie Jarrett cover story was really quite ironic. Far from being a canard of the right, the Van Jones affair is troubling on many levels. In his own words, Jones, a self-proclaimed communist, attributed his conversion to people he met during his incarceration: “I met all these radical people of color, I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. It was like ‘this is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.” In 1994, Jones was one of the founders of STORM. Among other things, he accused “white polluters and environmentalists” of deliberately poisoning people of color. There is much more, all of which can be easily sourced, but to the point of Jarrett, it was she who, last month, told conferees, “Ooh, Van Jones. We were so delighted to recruit him to the White House. We were watching him . . . for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland.”
Jarrett’s role in the circumvention of confirmation proceedings through the appointment of “czars” is profoundly disturbing. Sen. Robert Byrd, among others, has warned of the danger of these “czar” appointments. The concentration of power in the executive branch, coupled with the circumvention of the confirmation process, is a serious threat to our nation and our way of life.
I hope that this story doesn’t end with the glowing endorsement of the September/October STANFORD.
Thomas A. Keiser
Wexford, Pennsylvania
Yes,the truth is out there — and it’s getting harder for the White House media police to bottle it all up.
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Categories: Valerie Jarrett
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These letter-writers better increase their life insurance benefits or buy shoes with cement-repellent.
Don’t you know all of those letter-writers are just right-wing extremists. /sarc
‘Stick or roll-on?
If they haven’t killed some of us web commentators yet, I think the letter writers are safe..
By the way, my website is back.. I couldn’t stand what this administration is doing any longer..
http://www.danleereport.net
Michelle:
Thank you for having the “Malkins” you do!
I appreciate your committed diligence in exposing, with FACTS, these rotten people!
God Bless you and your family (and keep up the good work)!
So much for those alumini endorsements …
Maybe the 0bamanation will give them a bail-out. /sarc
This woman needs to be flogged.
These are the people that BHO has underestimated…the real Americans who will not stand quietly by while he dismantles our beloved country. I applaud their honesty.
On November 15th, 2009 at 11:28 pm, Mark Harvey said:
This woman needs to be flogged.
I dunno. Pressed, burned at the stake,
ducking, garroting, et al, might be more fitting.
I often wonder what the value of education is if you learn the wrong things. People laugh when I ask that, but in all seriousness, we have centuries of history to guide us, but we continue to screw things up in ways that have already been done before.
Ever notice how it’s always the Ivy-Leaguers that are screwing everything up?
Pilloried, perhaps?
Given the now demonstrated insane leanings of this administration most recently shown by the audacity of asking another branch of government to delay investigations of the ‘crime scene’ known as Fort Hood so that the administration can sanitize it I will suggest Ms Jarrett be punished in a sharia consistent way. Clothed in a burqa, buried in sand up to her neck and stoned.
An education is invaluable. However, our schools have been engaged in indoctrination, and that isn’t so great.
I say she needs to be keel-hauled off the USS Ronald Reagan!
Not cool to take only that fragment of the sentence.
Though I see your point.
Only Obo Mao could take something that Serenity’s Reevers rejected as too disgusting and call it family.
Another instance of POTUS/FLOTUS child abuse.
I didn’t intend to misrepresent your thought – just making the point that they don’t really “educate” at all anymore, in the sense that an education is supposed to expand your mental horizons, while modern schools concentrate on restricting them to politically correct thought.
alas, Stanford made mush of my blessed Trojans that said good job alums for letters.
OFF TOPIC:
Irma obama is going to take over the subways now!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402459_pf.html
We should have a guessing game as to what he will nationalize in 2010.
Exposing the members of Team Obama for what they are is an imperative. His radical cast of characters is going to be his legacy. Never in our history has an American President surrounded himself with a more America hating group of Traitors and Treacherous types.
From Van Jones to Jarrett, his more than casual relationship with Bill Ayres and his destructive agenda for the Nation should set the tone for the 2010 elections.
I am not Party affiliated as neither Party seems to fit my values or represent my views or America’s best interests. However, the current regime was emplaced by the most ill-informed and ignorant 53% of American Voters ever and there lies the shame. The Media has yet to portray Team Obama and his agenda for What it is or his collection of characters for Who they are.
As long as Republicans are the “Loyal Opposition” and Bi-Partisan buffoons I do not see them as anything less than those that are “sleeping with the enemy” with few exceptions. The Republicans need to clean house and do it very soon at Community, State and National levels. The Fate of the Nation is in their hands at this point.
Oh my-such hostility towards Valerie Jarrett-oh my. I bet it is just because she is an accomplished women, Iranian, Marxist and con artist. I just bet if she wasn’t an accomplished women, Iranian, Marxist and con artist you would not be picking on her so. Oh yes the accomplishments of this accomplished women might be bad accomplishments but don’t you understand how hard it is to have good accomplishments while being Marxist and con artist?
You are just so judgmental. Besides burning at the stake is a violation of the EPA rules.
AZ,
rope pony tree is green.
eco friendly
The drapes are open and Glorious sunlight is illuminating the truth.
Maybe Stanford will wake up when alumni donations dry up. That’s one thing that usually gets the college administration’s attention.
Not in my neighborhood
Fantastic. We have experience patient dumpers wanting to create our health care system. And we have a slum lord wanting to develop the rest of the country.
I guess you should support her if you want to see all of America look like the projects she ‘managed’ in Chicago.
Why is it that the Democrats look at failure as a reason to promote?
The most terrifying thing about obama and the dems is the absolute evil of the msm. The depths to which the media goes to ignore and distort realty is the core of all our problems here in our once great country.
Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm
Barak Hussein Obama,
He came from overseas,
To bring our nation to its knees,
Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm
Our affirmative action administration bringing SDS members as advisers. SWEET! This group of spoiled, entitled elites who have earned nothing without cheating, are nothing more than domestic taliban. I can wait for this woman to get thrown under the bus.
Stanford administration is scratching it’s collective head wondering how it was possible that no one prevented all of these racists from matriculating in the first place? Hey, it’s what they get for not being careful…
If the Republicans would target Jarrett with a relentless campaign outlining her history and her communist and socialist upbringing it would start to unravel the Obama anti-America circle of power hungry czars and their dictator agenda.
Hate to say this but I am not impressed by this post. These are published views of conservative Stanford allumni. None of them revealed anything new about Jarrett, and their opinions are about as newsworthy as the comments made on any blog. Making a big deal over their comments is no different than pretending that comments made on Puff Ho are “news”.
If republicans had a spine, they wouldn’t be a politician.
Best quote of the day.
I am amazed they printed these letters against the Dear Leader’s bestest friend, Val.
No doubt the authors of the letters will be labeled “racist.” The liberal whiners/Obama defenders will not bother to examine the slumlord issues of Chicago constituents with Rezko-Jarret sewage in their sinks.
The Van Jones issue should have proven truth to power to many who voted for Obammy, as a man is known by the company he keeps.
Call be brain-washed but I have a bias toward the term ‘Lady’ associating it with women who have high moral standards.
How about “Slum Lordette”?
If we were talking Podunk University then I’d agree with ya.
ah huh.
How about “Slum Lordette”? Damn it-now you have my evil little brain working overtime rearranging the letters coming up with vulgar plays on “Slum Lordette”.
Thanks Danceswithdachshunds -it’s fun.
John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I hope we will be set free from this sorry excuse of a President!
I also was hoping the letters had a little more meat to them, like maybe from someone who actually KNEW VAL at college?
Same with Obamao… nobody seems to remember him… I think it’s becasue douches like this spend their entire time hanging out with like-minded douches and marxist profs,rarely go to class, etc. etc. etc.
this is precisely why obama and his chicago thugs were pressing for the olympics in chicago. they would have had the slums they own torn down and replaced with new olympic village apartments and stores, at gubmint expense of course, and all the chicago gubmint mafia would get rich.
Lawyers call cross-examination the “great engine of truth”. That’s what I also call the Internet. Fantastic job cutting right through to the heart of this particular matter, and the broader truth that liberals don’t give a s**t about the powerless; rather libs want the poor to keep them in power, and keep them rich. It’s the only use that the poor have to liberals.
True, but they’ll still try!
I was more thinking like putting her in a public stock and letting all those right wing extremists pelt her with pebbles all day long….won’t kill her but would probably drive her completely insane then we can just put her in a rubber room never to be heard from again…
Apparently for this administration, being an educated scoundrel is less of a critique and more of a job qualification -
I think she has already driven there herself…a long long time ago.
A Stanford grad is a radical leftist and a slumlord?
Ha!!!
Go Bears
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HI VICKISOUP–Don’t use the ineffective “increased life insurance” option–you have to be dead to collect on it! And the “cement overshoes repellent” seems likely to fail also.
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Here in Texas we use more effective “life preservers”. They come in many fine selections of bullet weights, buckshot sizes, and calibers! Don’t mess with Texas.
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John Bibb
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Barack Obama?>Valerie Jarret?>Van Jones?
Weasels of a feather flock together or, Weasel is as weasels does.
Of course, Stanford is not in the Ivy League (even though some people refer to Stanford as “The Harvard of the West.”), but I agree with the thought.
BTW – Stanford 55, USC 21 (sic!!!)
One nice thing about Stanford, with only 6200 undergraduates on campus, and actual tough courses to take, Stanford dominates college sports. Really!
Sad part: I graduated in 1965, just after I voted for Goldwater, and then things started to go down hill – FAST!
Back a long time ago, I laughed when my sister-in-law started singing the praises of Rodham-Clinton. She accused me of being scared by powerful, smart women, and I laughed even harder. When she started denigrating then-Governor Sarah Palin, I accused her of being scared by powerful, smart women. That’s when the invective started. I waited until she ran down and accused her of hypocrisy. Then the invective was aimed at me.
I love my family.
ECS
Gee, Elm Creek Smith, your family sounds exactly like my family – Happy Thanksgiving!