Kamer interviewed Logan on the flight to Cairo February 10, one day ahead of the brutal attack and sexual assault by a mob that’s left Logan hospitalized back home in the U.S..

At the time of the interview, Logan discussed safety, but remained confident and unafraid. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the situation we were caught in before, we are now arriving into again.”

The situation she was caught in before was the detention of Logan and her crew, which she described for the first time to Esquire:

We were accused of being Israeli spies. We were accused of being agents. We were accused of everything.” Not exactly turndown service. “I was violently, violently ill. I’d been ill for a few days — I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone at CBS.” So they gave you medical attention, this American ally? “Not at first, until I vomited so much that they did have a medic see me at this secret facility — they wouldn’t tell us where we were. Then I was begging for an IV, and at first they wouldn’t,” as in, wouldn’t give Lara Logan an IV, but then, “I vomited up everything that the medic gave me. I vomited all over the interrogation cell. I vomited all over this office they put me in after that, and so eventually they put me on an IV.” And now you know what it takes to get a hydration IV in the middle of a regime upheaval in Cairo, and that’s if you’re an American and a journalist.

First up, Andrew Breitbart jumped to Olbermann’s tongue in cheek defense:

Dave Weigel connected the story to the recent revelations about Fox News’ donations to Republican groups:

Our own Steve Krakauer refuted that argument:

The Huffington Post’s Danny Shea offered up some history:

Mother Jones’ Clara Jeffery is unimpressed with the news:

Same with Red Eye’s Andy Levy:

A few people, including RedState’s Caleb Howe made a connection, to Monday’s “Worst Persons” announcement:

Our own Frances Martel sees a conspiracy!:

While our own Tommy Christopher guesses at MSNBC’s motives:

Foster Kamer and Chris Lehmann looked to the future:

And finally, a guy who knows what it’s like to be taken off the air:

Meanwhile, Olbermann’s usually busy Twitter is still silent.

Foster Kamer at the Village Voice found Enright’s Facebook page, and noted Enright’s connection to Intersections International, a non-profit that promotes cross-cultural reconciliation and dialogue. This organization had recently issued a statement in support of Cordoba House, the “Ground Zero mosque.”  While Kamer believes this establishes a connection, the head of Intersections released a statement saying, “There is a person who fits the description of the alleged perpetrator who has worked with us as a volunteer, but until we get further confirmation of the details in this incident, we cannot comment.”

Meanwhile, Alex Pareene of Salon’s War Room blog has found two videos that Enright made. One is footage of a dialogue conducted by Intersection between a veteran and civilians, the other is a trailer for a documentary Enright was making about his friend entering the Marines and being deployed to Iraq.  This dovetails with the New York Post‘s report that Enright had ”recently returned from Afghanistan.”

No one yet, however, has posted the videos that Enright made two years ago called John’s Story, about a Vietnam veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, based on Larry Winter‘s book The Making and Un-making of a Marine.

John’s Story – Part 1

John’s Story – Part 2

Enright’s Facebook page also lists him as a supporter of Assemblyman Greg Ball, the maverick conservative Republican who represents his home district and is running a heated primary campaign for the New York State Senate.  While Ball is an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration (here’s a video of him talking about illegal immigration as he walks through Enright’s home town), he has never made a statement about the Cordoba House. Ball was unavailable for comment at press time.

The New York Post was probably the first to jump headfirst onto the sexy spy train. In their article on the capture they focused almost entirely on Chapman and her sexy, sexy exploits. The article, entitled “Spy Ring’s ‘Femme Fatale,’” describes Chapman as a “flame-haired, 007-worthy beauty.” Come on, Post, Chapman is hot, but is she really Ursula Andress level?

The more reputable news sources had to be subtler in their inclusion of the Chapman hook (at least for now). Check out this otherwise straight-forward CBS story. Nothing too sexy there, right? Except for the clear choice to have a sexy Chapman picture make up the thumbnail image for the accompanying video.

Fox News used a similar tactic. This afternoon Megyn Kelly presented a very thorough report on the entire story. The video (which you can watch below) is a great sum up of everything that’s happened. However, someone in the control booth thought it would be a good idea to focus on a photo of Chapman’s steely gaze for 35 seconds while Kelly read off the details of the case.

Of course, we aren’t the first to pick up on the inevitable Chapman trend. The Village Voice’s Foster Kamer came up with a sure-fire traffic boon by seeking out Chapman’s Facebook profile and posting some of her sexier photos (it really puts the Time Square bomber’s profile to shame). Go ahead, click on through.

And check out the FNC segment here:

The commonly held theory right now is that Rainbow got uneasy hiring someone (Dobkin) who would mock his own advertisers and that ended the deal. Our source tells us that the Times fiasco was only 10% of the problem. While Dobkin was “no angel,” had the problems been entirely with him, our source says that Rainbow could have merely purchased Gothamist and handed Dobkin his walking papers. Instead,our source claims that the dissolution of the deal was further fall out from James Dolan’s apoplectic rage over Kamer’s joke that Dobkin would soon have Dolan’s “cock in his mouth” once the Gothamist/Rainbow deal went through.

In the timeline our source gave us, Dolan had never even heard of the deal until Kamer’s article. The talks with Gothamist had been overseen by Evan Shapiro, president of IFC tv and the Sundance Channel, who wanted to increase their online presence. However, once Dolan read Kamer’s piece, he was so furious that he wanted to destroy everything related to it, including the deal. Our source even claims that all Rainbow employees involved with the deal were afraid for their jobs even though neither they, nor Gothamist, had anything to do with the joke and that Dobkin and Shapiro had to literally meet in disguise when Shapiro shared the bad news.

We also hear that Gothamist folks and Kamer are still on good terms. In fact, a source close to Gothamist (and this might just be spin) are glad that the deal fell apart now because, had something ended it a few months later, the legal fees in the eventual lawsuit would have cost much more. Gawker also theorizes that, while Dobkin lost the money from the deal, this might be better for Gothamist in the long run.

So to recap, if this is really the way this went down, Kamer’s one little “cock in the mouth” comment has cost a whopping $7 million. While Kamer has publicly stated that he feels terrible about all of it (especially the $1M he cost his actual employers) knowing that you are the guy that cracked $7 million dick jokes has to make you feel pretty well endowed.

A month ago, Kamer left his job as the weekend editor of Gawker to set up shop at the Village Voice. During his third week, he wrote a piece about the potential acquisition of the blog Gothamist by Rainbow Media entitled “Gothamist Sells Out to Cablevision, James Dolan Presumably Excited to Ruin Another News Outlet.” In it, Kamer quoted a tweet by Gothamist owner Jake Dobkin in which he criticized a New York Times profile of Lockhart Steele as being a “blowjob.” Kamer followed up that story with this line:

“Which raises the question: Wonder how Dobkin’s gonna feel with Jimmy Dolan’s cock in his mouth?”

Soon after, Dolan got wind of that comment and he did not like it. At all.

The Village Voice began receiving a number of emails from Dolan’s people. Soon after that, they noticed that the Independent Film Center, which is owned by Rainbow Media, had pulled an ad from the Voice. The ad was worth about $2000 a month which was unfortunate but not enough to keep Kamer from writing a tongue in cheek post about it. Then, however, the stuff really hit the fan.

Here’s how Kamer describes the fallout in a post about the situation today:

“That same post has now resulted in all Madison Square Garden Entertainment advertising being pulled from the Village Voice.

Furthermore, LiveNation — one of America’s biggest concert promoters — has now pulled all of its advertising from all Village Voice Media properties at the behest of James Dolan, whose MSG Entertainment employs the services of Live Nation/Ticketmaster in their ticketing and promotions operations.

In toto, a mediocre dick joke about a media acquisition has now cost this company upwards of $1M in yearly advertising revenue.”

Now, was Kamer’s joke crude? Yes. Was it a million dollars worth of crude? Not really.

In today’s post, Kamer answers the first question everyone must be having while reading this. No, he isn’t getting fired. This is probably because you can’t fire someone for giving you exactly what you hired him for (well, you can but you probably shouldn’t). Kamer has always been known for his fearless, profane, and (occasionally) downright cruel posts. It’s what makes him great. In fact, the post today is classic Kamer as he follows up the lowdown of what happened by gleefully dishing on Dolan’s past legal troubles and asking readers to send him any dirt on the man they may have. We can only hope that this leads to a series of hilarious pay back pieces.

One thing we want to know is, is there anyone who signs off on Kamer’s posts before they get published and did he get off as easily for this whole episode?

So, what did we learn from this story? First off, we’ve learned that the people in charge of the Village Voice are the most lenient bosses ever. Secondly, we’ve learned that you should probably watch it when you make fun of someone who gives tons of money to your employers. And finally, we’ve learned that if you have to say something mean about someone like that, make sure it’s not James Dolan. That man has completely raised the bar for getting revenge against Foster Kamer. Hell, after Kamer posted this tweet, we were just gonna TP his house or something.

Congratulations to Mediaite TV Editor Steve Krakauer on being profiled in this week’s New York Times Thursday Styles section as a rising blogger, even though we raised a wee brow at the notion that Steve’s reporting on ratings, personalities, trends and news on the TV beat counted as “gossip” any more than, say, MediaDecoder does. Steve was featured along with the Village Voice’s Foster Kamer, Media Takeout’s Fred Mwangaguhunga, Crushable’s Erin Carlson, Gawker’s Maureen O’Connor (whose shoes beat out Foster’s jaunty bag, it must be said), Fashionologie’s Tommye Fitzpatrick, The Gloss’ Lilit Marcus, Curbed’s Sara Polsky and Dealbreaker’s Bess Levin.

Read all about Steve here — but we’ve got some exclusive material you didn’t see in the article. Featured bloggers were sent a questionnaire by reporter Alex Williams, and we have exclusively obtained part of Steve’s to share with you here.

************

Age: 25

Hometown: Westfield, NJ

Educational background (including major): Syracuse University, Broadcast Journalism major

Personal journalistic hero/model/inspiration: Woodward and Bernstein? But really, Cal Ripken Jr.

Current blog traffic (and, rate of traffic increase, if it applies): Approximately one million unique visitors and more than four million page views per month. (Ed: Steve cited Feb numbers here; our March numbers improved on this rather significantly.)

Number of posts a week: 35-40

Biggest scoop/hit (describe, including measure of impact): We were the first blog to notice and write about the NBC Cafeteria Black History Month “fried chicken” menu. The post translated to a lot of page views, but bigger was the impact – that night Wanda Sykes was joking about it on Jay Leno, and it was covered throughout TV news. (See here.)

Personal favorite line/phrase in any recent post of yours: Headline to the John Mayer/Playboy interview post: “John Mayer’s Penis Is A Racist Wonderland”

Biggest rival in blog world: Oh we’re all about the love at Mediaite! Well we enjoy some friendly competition with Gawker, the Huffington Post and more.

First blog other than your own you check every morning (feel free to elaborate): Well of course there’s the rest of the Abrams Media family – Geekosystem, Styleite (launching Monday!) – and right now, keeping an eye on Twitter is the best way to stay up on the day’s biggest stories.

Favorite sparring partner (subject you’ve written about and gotten into a tangle with; please describe): For whatever reason, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann has taken to bashing Mediaite a few times on his prime time show. We can take it though. (See here and here.)

How do you stay sane/decompress after 12/16/whatever-hour days (or whatever) staring at a computer: Although I write about TV for a living, I wish I could say I did something other than watch TV to decompress. Instead, there’s a lot of bad TV I watch (and occasionally write about) like Jersey Shore and Real World, go to the gym, and grab the occasional drink or six.

Ultimate career goal: To be the next Conan O’Brien (so…unemployed?). No, I would love to have a role in getting young people excited about news, politics and current events.

I also love that song about a shorty fire burning on the dance floor. Am I alone in this secret love for cheesy Aughts-Pop? I refused to believe it — so I pried it out of a few of your favorite media people, or even some people you don’t much care for. I also asked them who their favorite villain of 2009 was, and what we should blame on the a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. Turns out, maybe also this list.

****************************************
“I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas. The only lyrics I know from this song are “Mazel tov!” Why? In the name of Yahweh, WHY!?!?!”
— Baratunde Thurston, Comedian & Vigilante Pundit

“If I had shame I would be totally embarrassed to love Kelly Clarkson’s “Already Gone” — but I love it openly and without guilt!!”
— Corynne Steindler, Senior Reporter/Editor, HollywoodLife.com (@corynnes)

“”For Your Entertainment” by Adam Lambert, not really embarrassed to love, but maybe it’s a little embarrassing how much I love it?” – Meghan McCain, Contributor, The Daily Beast (@McCainBLogette)

“I love “Party in the USA,” fyi – you’re not alone!” – Kate Lee, ICM Agent to the Blog-Stars and Beyond

“”She Wolf” by Shakira. It was more the video than the song itself. Yikes.” – Willie Geist, host of “Way Too Early” on MSNBC (@williegeist11)

“Was that song about being able to see your halo from 2009? If not, then the Glee version of it, fer sure.” - Drew Grant, Writer, FishbowlNY & Columnist for Street Carnage

“Everything from that fake-alternapoprock genre (3OH3!’s “Don’t Trust Me,” Boys Like Girls’ “Love Drunk” etc.)” – Danny Shea, Media Editor, Huffington post

“Bad Romance – GAGA!” – Gary Vaynerchuck, Winelibrary.com impresario and author of “Crush It!”

““Fireflies” by Owl City.  I typically don’t like music made on anything that won’t make a sound unless it’s plugged into a computer, but this was one happy little tune in a year of otherwise abject despondency.” - John Roberts, CNN “American Morning” co-anchor

“Glenn Beck’s version of “Revolution.”" – Patrick Gavin, Politico

“It’s every Taylor Swift song from ’09.  Also, “Big Ego” by Beyonce and Kanye…” – Matt Lewis, Politics Daily

“I am not ashamed to love Miley’s “Party In The U.S.A.” or the entirety of Taylor Swift’s Fearless album, but maybe I should be.” - Verena von Pfetten, Sr. Editor, Lifestyle and Entertainment , Air America Media

“‘Stronger,’ by Kanye West. Yes, I know it’s from 2007, but this year every radio station DJ would play it before or after Taylor Swift, chuckling, ‘See? I got them together now!’” – Rob Kutner, Writer, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (@ApocalypseHow)

“I hate to admit it, but I actually downloaded Kris Allen’s remake of The Frays remake of Kanye West’s ‘Heartless.’” – Roy Sekoff, Editor, The Huffington Post

‘Ha, “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha although I’ve transcended the embarrassment! Ooh, that “Tonight’s Gonna be a Good NIght” song is pretty great.” - Katie Baker, Mediaite columnist and Awl contributor

“Cobra Starship feat. Leighton Meester, ‘Good Girls Go Bad’” – Caroline McCarthy, The Social Columnist, CNET

“The theme song from Thomas the Tank Engine (not new, but new to me…and VERY catchy, trust me).” John Berman, ABC News Correspondent, who has 3-year-old twin boys.

“1st choice – “Party in the USA” because that’s how I roll… Kidding! Runner up: Scarlett Johannson & Pete York “The Realtor.’” – Leslie Sanchez, CNN Commentator

“The Glee Cast! I sing their songs at the top of my lungs and actually think I sound okay.” - Jill Chappell, CNN Producer

“Soulja Boy — Turn My Swag On.  Perfect hype music for a night out or facing down a series of impossible deadlines.” – Jenna Wortham, New York Time tech writer

“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, so I’m proud to admit that I loved almost everything the Beelzebubs sang on ‘The Sing-Off,’ especially ‘Magical Mystery Tour.’” - Tommy Christopher, Mediaite columnist

“The mashup of Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open” and Biggie’s “Juicy.” If you don’t know, now you know, Jesus.” – Foster Kamer, Gawker Weekend Editor

“Tik Tok, Ke$ha. Duh.” – Jonathan Wald, former CNBC macher and Big Man on Twitter

“I don’t think I have a song from 2009 that I’m embarrassed to love, so I’ll have to go with my two longtime guilty pleasures: Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” and Bryan Adams “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.” And really, does it get more embarrassing than that? (Answer: No. No it doesn’t.) But obviously I’m totally embarrassed for anyone who loves any Black Eyed Peas song, or even for anyone who can listen to an entire BEP song without wanting to chop off body parts. (Their own or other people’s.)” – Andy Levy, “Red Eye” half-time anchor

‘”Empire state of mind”. There was no other song that permeated the city’s nightlife more this year, than that song. So much so that it became passe and annoying to anyone with standards by August. However, I still get tingles and ‘inspired” by it even after its over stayed its welcome.” – Seth Herzog, Comedian

“I have no idea how to answer these, except to say that I’ve been listening to a lot of Tom Waits lately, so I’ll go with his sentimental “House Where Nobody Lives” — a nice holiday song about love and family.” – Howard Fineman, Senior Washington Correspondent, Newsweek & MSNBC analyst

While nearly every other media outlet was dealing with the absurdity of an underwear bomber, the clever headline writers at the NY Post went for the joke and hit a home run. Kudos NY Post!

Update - It appears that Gawker Weekend Editor Foster Kamer made the same exact joke over the weekend! So, maybe the editors are smart and clever, or perhaps they just read Gawker over the weekend for ideas.

Let’s rewind a bit for those still reading that are not apart of the New York City clusterstock, or as we like to call them here at Mediaite, birthers. Not “teabaggers” — that’s rude. Kidding, commenters, Fox News rocks.

Anyway! This crew — who go by the group moniker Young Manhattanite and boast a high Tumblarity — are headed by shadowy patriarch Andrew Krucoff, who reigns over a stable of ball-busters, including a Giants-loving Mediaite contributor. And today, they’re guest-starring ex-Idolator (don’t click, it’s bad now!) editor Maura Johnston. Talk about a kid’s blogging heroes.

So far today at the Gawker Media jock-stop they’ve already announced No Tiger Saturday and made a “swollen-and-tingling” joke about Lee Corso. But those Winter Olympics jokes are too easy. And isn’t that called double-dipping?

It’s going to be a long weekend! But it will also be worth a read because it’s funny. At least punny. Good luck “getting it,” though, if you’re not a city-dwelling heathen (or Jewish!). Redundant? Play ball.

After six years of successfully, improbably preserved anonymity, British sex blogger and former prostitute Belle de Jour has revealed her true identity: she’s Brooke Magnanti, a cancer researcher with a Ph.D. in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science.

The British media sometimes tends towards alarmism on issues that even vaguely smack of sexual morality (see: that one photo of the drunk girl with her underwear around her ankles). How is it taking the news? 

The (British) Times published India Knight‘s fascinating exclusive yesterday, which reveals, among other tidbits, that Magnanti really did work as a prostitute for 14 months, that her all-woman team of colleagues at the hospital where she works have known for a month and been supportive, but that she still has to tell her mother, and that “an ex-boyfriend with a big mouth” played a role in her decision to out herself now. It also tells her account of how she became a prostitute:

“I was looking at this cheque. It wasn’t even the total of my rent; it was a quarter of it or something, some stupidly low amount like £120. I thought, ‘But once I deposit this cheque, I’ll still need money for next month.’ And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t borrow this money knowing that I couldn’t pay it back and that I’d need more pretty much straightaway. And that was when I started to think: what can I do that I can start doing straightaway, that doesn’t require a great deal of training or investment to get started, that’s cash in hand and that leaves me spare time to do my work in?”

I don’t know that prostitution would necessarily be one’s first choice, I say. Starbucks? Waitressing? Bar work? Bunking down on a friend’s floor? Yeah, you could work behind a bar. But how many hours would you have to do just to pay your rent? I couldn’t even get an overdraft at that point, though of course once I started depositing so much cash they offered me a mortgage, about three months later! And I wasn’t prepared to borrow from friends or family. To be honest, the writing-up of a thesis takes up so much of your time and so much of your energy.”

(Update: she told her mother, who she says is “fully supportive” and “‘not one to judge.’”)

As (Mediaite site designer) Rex Sorgatz points out, Belle de Jour’s blog never became quite the phenomenon in the US that it is in the UK, and so the response to the news thus far has come primarily from British outlets. The zingiest stateside one-liner, by the way, has to be Foster Kamer‘s headline, ”Anonymous Call Girl Author Belle de Jour Outed as ‘Slutty Scientist’ Costume Incarnate.”

The traditional outlets beat the tabloids to the punch on this one, so most of what’s come out so far has been fact-based, restrained, and, if not entirely sex-positive, sex neutral. India Knight had been a critic of Belle de Jour for glamorizing prostitution, but while her exclusive doesn’t let Magnanti off the hook, she strikes a balance. The BBC largely reports through quotes from the Times piece and press statements; The Guardian takes the interesting tack of responding with a sympathetic column by an outed sex blogger, Zoe Margolis.

Once they play catch-up, the British tabloid response of the next few days (months?) should be something. Already, the “ex-boyfriend with a big mouth” seems poised to make a comeback; apparently, he is an Army officer about to be deployed to Afghanistan, and wants Magnanti back. The Sun has already eagerly coined “net tart.” The restraint and lack of judgment displayed both in the first round of media reports and by the people in Magnanti’s life really are remarkable, but when the tabloids enter the picture, odds are things will get a lot muddier.

(h/t Fimoculous)

Well, that has changed, for the moment: Gawker is testing out not one but TWO women on its night shift: Amrita Rajan and “Azaria Jagger,” whom Gawker editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder tells me is pseudonymously bylined. He said he has not yet made a permanent hire.

A quick look-see at their stuff shows that they are fitting in nicely — I particularly like this from Amrita and this from Azaria. Back in the summer, Gawker also briefly tried out Awl contributor and blogosphere darling Natasha Vargas-Cooper, whose work can be found here; also, the pseudonymously bylined Phyllis Nefler of “Altarcations” fame is a chick, and one we love dearly but we’re protecting her identity because that seems to be important to her.

Who knows if a lady will actually make it to the masthead? We think it would be a good idea (I’m sure you’re surprised.) In the meantime, be overwhelmed by Gawker’s new femininity via Amrita here and Azaria here.

Image via Gawker, in a hat-tip to Weekend Editor Foster Kamer, who is all man.

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

In a matter of hours, the largely unsubstantiated rumor spread virally across social networks like Twitter and Tumblr, automatically lending cultural capital to the claim. Then, probably afraid to lose out on a huge traffic yielding story, the news began appearing elsewhere. Popular Israeli publication YNet News picked up the report, as did the NY Daily News and websites like The Raw Story and Examiner.com, each without any additional reporting to corroborate the astonishing claim. The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg addressed the news on his blog, but called it “immaterial” in the face of anti-Semitism, while Gawker’s Foster Kamer used the dubious possibility as a launching pad for a tour de force, expletive-riddled rant about nukes and genitals.

According to the Telegraph, Ahmadinejad’s family changed their surname after converting to Islam in the 1950s. Then came the psychoanalysis: “By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society,” said Ali Nourizadeh, from the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies.

To follow, of course, was the buzzkill. Yesterday the Guardian, a rival UK publication, reported the denial “Ahmadinejad has no Jewish roots,” in which a professor of Jewish history unequivocally refutes the claims about the meaning of the name-change and the Persian Jewish definition of the word sabour. “There is no such meaning for the word ‘sabour’ in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian. Also, the name Sabourjian is not a well-known Jewish name,” he said.

Due to the shocking magnitude of the story, one would have expected intense skepticism about the possibility of an online hoax, but in this case, it seems not as if the Telegraph was seeking to sneak one by their readers, but rather that the inflammatory charge was highly debatable, leaving a large ethical question for those websites who chose to aggregate the news.

It was all too good to be true, really — a cosmic joke of impossible proportion or an explanative case of self-loathing too psychologically neat and tidy. It’s not unlike the oft-circulated rumor that Adolf Hitler‘s grandmother was Jewish. But of course that, too, is false.

So: After being at the center of a swirling, awkward controversy, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality Van Jones resigned last night at virtually the stroke of midnight, in a letter blaming a “vicious smear campaign” for his decision to step down.

Wrote Jones: “”On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”

But it wasn’t a lie that Jones’ signature appeared on a 2004 petition calling for an investigation into “evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.” Oy. Thursday evening Jones issued a statement awkwardly saying of the petition: “I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.” An administration source told Jake Tapper he did not carefully review the language in the petition before agreeing to add his name (Tapper also points out that other signatories protested the use of their names on the petition, claiming misrepresentation).

But no matter: Tapper called that a “tipping point” noting the non-endorsement endorsement of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday.  As Mike Viquiera said this morning on MSNBC, the writing was on the wall: Exit Van Jones.

The big winner in all this: Glenn Beck, who started and stirred the activism against Jones, launching into overdrive after Jones agitated against Beck through his organization, “Color of Change,” resulting in numerous advertisers dropping out of Beck’s program for his “Obama is a racist” comment. Beck kicked off the scrutiny into Jones’ background as part of the ‘public service’ of examining the “czars” in the Obama Administration…and just happened to start off with Jones. (Cue the sinister music: “Who is Obama’s Green Czar Van Jones? THE KILLER IS HIDING IN THE CLOSET!!!!).

The other big winner: The right-wing smear machine, which went into overdrive on Jones and “raised questions” based on non-shadowy, publicly-available information and took those “questions” to the legit media. Alex Pareene at Gawker is required reading on this front (“This is how a smear becomes a meme“). I watched the Glenn Beck video below and didn’t see much that was so crazy – basically a  young change-seeking radical learning becoming less radicalized as he aged and learned how to work within the establishment – makes perfect sense.  He rose within that establishment and became a real player, with a New Yorker profile just this year about how awesome  he was. Nobel Prize winner & former Vice President Al Gore told the New Yorker: “I love Van Jones. I love his work. I love his heart and his commitment and his intellect. I love his mission. He has wisely picked a part of this set of interwoven challenges that should have been addressed much more forcefully by me and others long ago.” As Pareene says, “the only special interest he’s beholden to is poor people.”

But – he signed that damned petition – and after bashing crazy fringey conspiracy groups, the White House did not love having their already-beleaguered guy suddenly outed as a Truther. Again: Oy. Did he know what he was signing? Howard Dean doesn’t think so, and said so on Fox News Sunday today, but what does it matter? He’s gone, so instead of having to fulminate about how dangerous he was Newt Gingrich could just make some mild comment and leave it at that. David Axelrod claimed on Meet The Press that the decision to step down was Jones’; well, whatever, look at Gibbs from Friday and decide for yourself.

Upshot: Was Jones a dangerous radical or a sacrificial lamb? What do you think? Gawker’s Foster Kamer put it succinctly:

Apparently, all that needs to happen to provoke a White House Administration official’s resignation is: a bunch of blowhards and crazies find something someone once said that was once extreme. Fixate, extrapolate, instigate, bring mainstream. And Van Jones resigned yesterday.

And that is that. There may be some investigation into how it all unfolded, but most likely there won’t be – everyone’s looking forward now, to a news cycle that’s alive again. Who has time to rehash old news? He did sign that petition, after all.  No, the story is pretty much dead…until the next right-wing uproar, and scalp.

• Slideshow – Van Jones, Czar of Hotness

Photo via Guardian UK by Ethan Miller/Getty Images