Posted on 06/11/2008 10:04:34 PM PDT by The_Republican
Everybody knows that the very first rule in picking a vice president is to do no harm. Really, you can choose anybody. How dumb would you feel if it turned into an embarrassment? This is why the careful, modern candidate sets up a screening system.
Now ask yourself: how dumb would you feel if you got in trouble over your selection for the vice-presidential screener.
Barack Obama is having the first postprimary crisis, a moment in which the only conceivable response is: what was he thinking?
James Johnson, who resigned Wednesday as the leader of the Obama vice-presidential selection committee, is an old Washington hand who had helped Walter Mondale and John Kerry with the same task. His aura of experience was apparently not diminished one whit by the fact that both the candidates he assisted lost and that one of them ran into embarrassing controversies over his running mate.
The immediate cause of Johnson’s downfall was a charge that he had been given a sweet deal on three home loans by the head of the Countrywide Financial Corporation, which Obama had criticized for its role in the subprime lending crisis. Since Countrywide seems to hold the mortgage on every house in the United States, it is also disliked by many, many Americans on general principles.
So far, not so bad. As Obama pointed out, you cannot really expect a presidential candidate to set up a committee to vet the people who are going to be on the vetting committee. Although you can bet that by 2012, that will become standard operating procedure.
But there’s all this other stuff. Johnson is the former head of Fannie Mae, which under his direction, according to regulators, engaged in accounting practices that were, at best, sloppy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Bad err day?
Yesterday, after a barrage of questions from McCain bloggers, Countrywide critics and Clinton operatives, ABC News asked Obama about the stunningly obvious hypocrisy. The result was, well, painful. Struck with an apparent case of restless mouth syndrome, Obama first indignantly rejected the notion that he should pick his veep pickers more carefully: "Well, look, the, the, I mean -- first of all I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages." Translation: I will remain willfully blind to the conflicts of interest created by my own mortgage industry-bashing rhetoric. Next, Obama leaned on his "Washington games" crutch and attempted to distance himself from the appointees whom he has assigned the most important and intimate of tasks: "You're going to have to direct -- it becomes sort of a -- this is a game that can be played -- everybody, 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." "Tangential"? He appointed them to search for his second in command. "Tangential" is the cleaning lady in his Sioux Falls campaign office.
At first glance I thought it said transgenitally....did I ever do a double take...lol
if this socialist idiot wins in november, i will lose all hope for the future of America.
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ONE COMPLETE IDIOT!!!
In typical NYT fashion GAIL COLLINS blames this on Barry being tired, and she says he just needs to take a nap and everything will be fine. Okay.
Obamaze, I think is a fitting technical name for Barack befuddled-mind syndrome. :)
Not surprising the Nytimese and the American MSM employees are able to untangle the confused and conflicting elements and print what he meant, that time.
Both McCain and Obama are “touchable.” I wonder which one’s the bigger crook.
Either way, we are so screwed.
Pass it on if you agree
That’s OK. Barry was “just tired”. You must give him a little slack (he’s black, you know). We must have affirmative action in our judgment of presidential candidates.
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