by Damozel | Once again, a person holding a position of responsibility in Obama's campaign turns out not to share Obama's stated values. I am still not sure exactly what this means about Obama. Is he frighteningly disingenuous? Worryingly gullible? Or is he really as big a hypocrite as some of my former fellow Hillary supporters allege? So it ain't so.
It seems that Obama campaign official Jim Johnson has $7 million in loans (i.e., a 'sweetheart deal') from Countrywide Financial Corp. the same company which Obama has said --- and he gets no argument from us --- 'is as responsible as any firm in the country for the housing crisis we're facing today.' And who is Jim Johnson? I'm glad you asked. 'Jim Johnson...[is] the disciplined, discreet and obsessively meticulous vice presidential vetter for Barack Obama.' (Chicago Tribune) And according to Obama, there's no need to 'vet the vetters.' (Chicago Tribune)
In other words: 'The problem is, as Obama critics say, perception and hypocrisy,' Jake Tapper remarks.
Obama had railed against Countrywide and Mozilo, and his campaign had impugned Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, for taking money from Countrywide lobbyists and for allowing a senior campaign adviser to simultaneously do work for Countrywide....
Campaigning in Pennsylvania in March, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, assailed mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp., for embodying the economic and political culture dominated by corporate lobbyists and insiders.
....Obama said...."When Countrywide Financial was sold a few months ago, its top two executives got a combined $19 million. These are the folks who are responsible for infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis….They get a $19 million bonus while people are at risk of losing their home. What's wrong with this picture?".... (Jake Tapper; emphasis added)
But never mind that picture. What's wrong with this one?
ABC News' Sunlen Miller today asked Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, how he could "rail against Countrywide Financial Corp as an example of insiders and today's economy while your VP search is headed by someone who got questionable loans from Countrywide?"...
"Well, look," Obama said, "the, the, I mean - first of all I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages, so you’re gong to have to direct -- "
"But shouldn’t you?" asked Miller.
"Well, no," Obama said. "It becomes sort of a, um, I mean, this is a game that can be played - everybody, you know, who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships -- I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters. I mean, at some point, you know, we just asked people to do their assignments.
"Jim Johnson has a very discrete task," Obama continued, "...and that is simply to gather up information about potential vice presidential candidates. They are performing that job well, it’s a volunteer, unpaid position. And they are giving me information and I will then exercise judgment in terms of who I want to select as a vice presidential candidate.
"So this – you know, these aren’t folks who are working for me," Obama said. "They're not people you know who I have assigned to a job in a future administration and, you know, ultimately my assumption is that, you know, this is a discreet task that they're going to performing for me over the next two months." (Jake Tapper)
I see; people working on the Obama campaign aren't really working for Obama.
McCain's people aren't too dim to see that that dog won't hunt.
Sen. John McCain presidential campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds just pounced on this, saying “It’s preposterous for Senator Obama to claim that the leader of his VP selection committee isn’t working for him. Barack Obama has castigated Countrywide Financial, but now that Jim Johnson has been exposed for taking sweetheart deals from Countrywide’s CEO - Obama is in a state of denial. It’s that brand of weak leadership and hypocrisy that shows why Barack Obama has no record of taking courageous stands or making change in Washington.”(Jake Tapper)
But if Obama truly believes that the personal background and business ethics of the man charged with vetting his running mate aren't germane, what price his campaign's rebuke to Hillary Clinton?
On MSNBC, senior Obama strategist David Axelrod criticized how senior Clinton strategist Mark Penn had consulted for Countrywide. "She's stuck him with him through the revelation that his firm was working for Blackwater and working for Countrywide," Ax said.... "And, you know, so, it’s kind of stunning. Remember that the embassy said they weren't sure whether he was there as a representative of his firm or a representative of Senator Clinton. I mean, I think there are issues associated with this. I'm not - you (Keith Olbermann) can use the word hypocrisy, but there are certainly questions that arise from this."
I am trying to come to terms with Obama as my party's presumptive nominee. But this is the sort of thing that makes it really hard for me to believe that there is any substance at all behind his rhetoric. Besides, people who hold themselves and their close associates to a lower standard than they do the rest of us scare hell out of me after eight years of Bush and his cronies.
Then there's the matter of judgment. Did Obama --- or his campaign operatives, which comes to the same thing --- really not know Johnson's history? And if not, why not? Mickey Kaus writes:
Johnson was an atrocious, tin-eared choice on many...grounds. He's a symbol of old Democratic elites--the Mondale Restoration!--and of Beltway business as usual. He's gotten obscenely rich off of public service while pursuing a failed liberal antipoverty theory (community develpment) and taking credit for spreading around other peoples money. He failed to catch Geraldine Ferraro's problems before they blew up on Mondale. He helped lead Fannie Mae into a multi-billion dollar debacle (even though he let his successor catch most of the blame). He said Mozilo's firm had "done a brilliant job of insulating itself for the down cycle" shortly before Mozilo's firm was clobbered in the down cycle, eventually selling itself to Bank of America for about a tenth of it's former value, according to the Sun.
Why would Obama, in his first big personnel decision, choose a paleoliberal greedhead with a track record of failure? You tell me! He's described Johnson as "a friend." It looks as if he was at best highly susceptible to amicable overtures from someone he [SIC] about whom he should have retained some critical perspective. (Slate; emphasis in original)
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because Johnson is in Soros's pocket - follow that connection.
Posted by: hr | June 11, 2008 at 11:59 AM