For the Obama campaign, the flap emerged as an unwelcome distraction as he kicked off a two-week economic tour in North Carolina—one which threatened to seriously undermine his message.
"It's the height of hypocrisy for the McCain campaign to try and make (the loans) an issue when John Green, one of John McCain's top advisers, lobbied for Ameriquest, which was one of the nation's largest subprime lenders and a key player in the mortgage crisis," responded the Obama campaign, which described the media scrutiny of the loans as "overblown and irrelevant."
Signaling the campaign's intention to fan the flames over Johnson's ties to Countrywide, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds issued the following statement in response.
"There is nothing 'overblown and irrelevant' about millions of Americans facing foreclosure and Barack Obama entrusting his most important decision as a presidential candidate to a man who has accepted millions in special loans from a subprime mortgage lender." [My note: According to this article, Johnson got at least 4 of those $7 million sweetheart loans while he was either the CEO of, or an outside consultant for, Fannie Mae. And that adds to the stench of the scandal]
Johnson, who is a vice chairman of the private banking firm Perseus LLC, did not return calls for comment.
Despite the controversy, Democratic insiders maintain that Johnson is highly-skilled at the vetting process, having handled the responsibilities for Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004.
Well, we can all hope that he chooses as wisely for Osama/Obama as he did for Mondale and Kerry.
:-)