By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

By mid-Friday, it was clear that the days of green jobs czar Van Jones are numbered in the Obama administration.

Forget radio shock jock Glenn Beck, who's trying to get Jones fired. Even White House spokesman Robert Gibbs offered only lukewarm enthusiasm for keeping Jones.

On Friday Gibbs said, "He continues to work in the administration..."

Oh, and Gibbs added that Obama does not agree with Jones' signing of a petition to investigate possible federal involvement in 9/11.

No kidding.

Earlier this week, Jones didn't look like a communist, racist, Republican-hating radical when he visited Kansas City earlier this week.

But Beck says that's exactly what Jones is.

And Jones definitely has made some very public mistakes. Calling Republicans "assholes," as Jones did earlier this year, isn't good for job security in a high-profile White House job.

On Tuesday, Jones came to Kansas City as part of his job with the White House Council for Environmental Quality Office.

Fed officials were taking a look at the Green Impact Zone, a good-faith effort by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver to reinvigorate a 150-block area of low-income neighborhoods in KC.

Cleaver at one point in the day even held up Jones' New York Times best-seller -- "The Green Collar Economy" -- and asked Jones to sign it for an audience member.

By Friday, however, Beck's pursuit of Jones seemed to be paying off, to a degree.

Jones issued denials of Beck's charges, while right-wing websites continued to call for Jones to resign.

Among the charges being spread against Jones:

-- In 2004 he signed an online petition calling for an investigation into whether 9/11 was instigated by the federal government.

Jones responded late this week: "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."

-- In February, Jones called Republicans "assholes" in discussing how Democrats had to push their agenda harder.

"And Barack Obama is not an asshole," Jones said. "So, now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity."

Jones has apologized for that comment.

-- He attacked "white polluters" and "white environmentalists" for "essentially steering poison into the people of color communities."

Summation: Jones won't and shouldn't survive in this job. His radical statement detract from Obama's hopes of shining a spotlight on the need to create green jobs.