Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs" with the White House Council on Environmental Quality was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.

The resignation comes as Obama is working to regain his footing in the contentious health care debate.

Jones issued an apology on Thursday for his past statements. When asked the next day whether Obama still had confidence in him, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said only that Jones "continues to work in the administration."

The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones' name appearing on a petition connected to the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That 2004 petition had asked for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether high-level government officials had allowed the attacks to occur.

"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 his resignation statement. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

Jones said he has been "inundated with calls from across the political spectrum urging me to stay and fight."

But he said he cannot in good conscience ask his colleagues to spend time and energy defending or explaining his past.

Jones flatly said in an earlier statement that he did not agree with the petition's stand on the 9/11 attacks and that "it certainly does not reflect my views, now or ever."

As for his other comments he made before joining Obama's team, Jones said, "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."

Despite his apologies, Republicans demanded Jones quit.

Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana sai...

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
by Anna Edney, with Kasie Hunt and Peter Cohn contributing

A telling episode recounted by Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley reveals the Obama administration might be more worried than they are letting on that a Republican senator's comparison of the healthcare overhaul to Waterloo might be dangerously close to the truth.

Grassley said he spoke with a Democratic House member last week who shared Obama's bleak reaction during a private meeting to reports that some factions of House Democrats were lining up to stall or even take down the overhaul unless leaders made major changes.

"Let's just lay everything on the table," Grassley said. "A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn't going to pass if there weren't some changes made ... and the president says, 'You're going to destroy my presidency.' "

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Grassley did not name the member but said he was not from the senator's home state of Iowa. He brought up the anecdote in response to a question about whether the president's rebuke of the Waterloo remark Monday was affecting Finance Committee negotiations on a bipartisan overhaul bill. Grassley said the imbroglio was not taking a toll on the bipartisan effort.

President Obama and the Democratic National Committee pushed back hard this week against South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's remark Friday that the healthcare overhaul could be Obama's Waterloo. Obama went directly after the comment in a speech Monday and Democratic leaders and organizations have fired off countless e-mails to call out Republicans for attempting to bring down the effort rather than offer constructive alternatives.

Most of the Blue Dog Coalition opposes the House overhaul bill and have managed to delay the Energy and Commerce Committee markup. (See related story.) Rep. Mike Ros...

July 13, 2009 5:32 PM

ABC News' Sunlen Miller and Jake Tapper report:

If a teleprompter falls in the White House, does it make a sound?

Yes, especially when it’s the President’s teleprompter – or TOTUS as it is often referred to.

Midway through his speech on urban and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building this afternoon, one of his two small glass prompters came crashing down, hitting the wood floor and crashing in many pieces. It made quite a ruckus.

“Oh, goodness,” a startled President Obama said. “Sorry about that, guys.”

He then proceeded on with his remarks, “To pull our economy back from the brink, including the largest and most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation's history…”

For the rest of the speech the president relied on the one remaining teleprompter, to his right, and notes on his podium to finish his speech.

Shards of glass remained near the president’s feet for the duration of his speech.

The President’s fandom for his nearly omnipresent prompter has become something of a joke, even to him. In May at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner the President poked fun at himself, declaring that he wanted to “speak from the heart” and “off the cuff.”

Two large teleprompters then rose, with a big smile from the President, and laughs from the White House press corps.

Prompter problems also recently plagued Vice President Joe Biden as well. During a commencement address in May to graduates of the Air Force Academy, a gust of wind knocked over his teleprompter.

The VP took the opportunity to crack a joke at his boss’s expense.

“What am I going to tell the president when I tell him his teleprompter is broken?” Biden joked, “What will he do then?”

Of course, television reporters and anchors never become over-reliant on teleprompters. Never happens. Nope. Never.

-Sunlen Miller and Jake T...

Big admission from Vice President Joe Biden today.

"The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," Biden told me during our exclusive "This Week" interview in Iraq.

Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June -- the worst in 26 years.

"The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited," said Biden, who is leading the administration's effort to implement it's $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

"Now, that doesn't -- I'm not -- it's now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we're in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we're in," he told me.

The vice president argued more time is needed for the stimulus to work.

"We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package," he said. "The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money."

Biden didn't rule out a second government stimulus package, but downplayed calls from Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman this week that a second stimulus will be needed.

I pressed the vice president, who is also leading the administration's middle-class task force, on whether he'd rule out a second stimulus package.

"So, no second stimulus?" I asked.

"No, I didn't say that," Biden said, "I think it's premature to make that judgment. This was set up to spend out over 18 months. There are going to be major programs that are going to take effect in September, $7.5 billion for broadband, new money for high-speed rail, the implementation of the grid -- the new electric grid. And so this is just s...