D’OH-bama’s mortgage industry mess Update: Jim Johnson thrown under the bus
Scroll for updates…2:55pm Eastern breaking…Jim Johnson off of Obama veep committee…another one under the bus…stay tuned for more…See-Dubya knew it was coming and was ready to deploy the jacked-up Obama bus photoshop…distraction! distraction!…Riddle from commenter Jim M.: “What’s the new name for an advisor to the Obama campaign? Answer: Speed bump…
My syndicated column this week looks at Barack Obama’s vetter dodgeball. More here, here, and here. Judging from the buried media mentions of this issue (update: it did make WaPo A1, but little mention on TV so far), looks like Obama’s won this Washington game. (Update: Or maybe not! Mirabile dictu.)
The WSJ weighs in on the friends of Barack and asks: “Is this what you mean by bringing change to Washington?” Round-up from NY magazine here.
***
D’OH-bama’s mortgage industry mess
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate 2008
If you’re going to promise “new politics,” it would probably be wise to eschew the same old Beltway cronies and insiders who have served past presidential nominees of yore.
And if you’re going to attack political opponents for playing “textbook Washington games,” it would probably be best not to play them yourself. If you do, you’ll end up tongue-tied in front of the cameras, hung by your own holier-than-thou rhetoric, and faced once again with the decision to throw another bad choice under the bus.
Yes, Barack Obama, we’re talking about you. Again. It’s getting mighty crowded under that bus, isn’t it?
Last week, D’Oh-bama announced the appointment of D.C. denizens Jim Johnson and Eric Holder to head his veep search committee–along with a Kennedy (Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg) thrown in for glamorous good measure. John McCain supporters rightly jumped on Johnson and Holder as shady Washington operators. Holder was the Clinton Justice Department official in the middle of the sleazy pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich.
Johnson, who has advised past failed Democrat nominees Walter Mondale and John Kerry, was CEO of the beleaguered, government-backed mortgage giant, Fannie Mae. Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that Johnson accepted more than $7 million in below-market-rate loans from scandal-plagued subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp. The company’s CEO, Angelo Mozilo, had set up a very special loan program for his high-powered pals. Johnson had named Mozilo to Fannie Mae’s national advisory committee more than a decade ago and they maintained a cozy friendship.
Mozilo also happens to be one of Obama’s fattest targets in his frequent broadsides against the demons of the mortgage industry. Obama likened Mozilo to a virus in March: “These are the people who are responsible for infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis.” Channeling Jesse Jackson, Obama further chided: “These executives crossed the line to boost their bottom line.” During the battle with Hillary, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was dispatched to the cable TV airwaves to inveigh: “If we’re really going to crack down on the practices that caused the credit and housing crises, we’re going to need a leader who doesn’t owe these industries any favors.” And so on.
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 own mortgage industry-bashing rhetoric.
Next, Obama leaned on his “Washington games” crutch and attempted to distance himself from the appointees that 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.
Finally, channeling Bill Clinton’s “is-is” parsing, Obama attempted to argue that his dubious veep selection committee members don’t really “work” for him: “They’re performing that job well. It’s a volunteer, unpaid position. And they’re giving me information, and I will then exercise judgment in terms of who I want to select as a vice presidential candidate. So these aren’t folks who are working for me, they’re not people who I have assigned to a particular job in a future administration.”
There are only so many gaffes, missteps, mistakes, flubs, and self-delusional statements one can make before serial naivete becomes endemic stupidity. Obama has reached the point of no return.
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Trackbacks
- Listen to the man! · Altitude
- PAXALLES
- The Conservative Pulse: Obama’s VP woes, Tancredo will vote for McCain, and more at The Liberty Preservation Alliance
- Political Party Poop
- Obama “Preposterous” “Disengenuious” : BigMouthFrog
- Beacon Street Journal » Blog Archive » Barack Obama and The Politics of Infatuation
- Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator
- The Facts about Obama - D’OH-bama’s mortgage industry mess
- Michelle Malkin » And again! This was not the Jim Johnson I knew…
- Media Mythbusters Blog » Blog Archive » Media Bias Roundup - 06/11/08
- Obama’s Continued Lying « Ragnar Danneskjold
- The Left Has Data. The Right is Pulling Strings. « Tangents in a Virtual PlayGround Blog
- Michelle Malkin » More Democrat cronies who received special Countrywide loan deals
- Thanks Michelle Malkin « Mcnorman’s Weblog
- Michelle Malkin » McCain will support earmark-stuffed Senate Crap Sandwich; Obama: Me, too!
- Michelle Malkin » Adios! Bill Richardson drops out as Commerce Secretary
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Amazingly the young voter base sees him as a “really cool dude, man” won’t investigate and patently don’t care. They already know more than all the evil conservatives. If they bothered to go to University they are properly indoctrinated not to trust an objective view point. We are doomed to repeat history.
below is the perspective of a rather astute financial advisor:
POLITICS
Like it or not politics has a very strong influence on the economy although there are always a delay between the passing of legislation and its ultimate effect. The economy works best when there is a strong balance of power so that all legislation is thoroughly debated and hopefully a well thought out reasonable compromise, leaving out the extremes on both sides, is worked out. It looks like a completely one-sided Government will be coming to power in 2009. Even if McCain is elected, the debate will always be between the Left, the Far Left and the Extreme left. Similar to what occurred during the 1930’s when a left leaning Republican House and a Socialist Republican President (Hoover) gave way to a far left President and Congress with absolutely no effective counter-balance in place. Although its hard to believe, it was left to a liberal Supreme Court to mitigate some of the Un-Constitutional Far Left policies passed by Congress. For those of you who do not know what happened back then that’s OK, you are about to see history repeat itself. Only this time the USA is in far worse shape than it was then. Perhaps our only salvation is our individual major corporations which, as they were back then, are in their most liquid positions since 1929. They will survive and hopefully help us weather the storm. It is most often true, especially when it comes to politics that “things must get a lot worse before they can get better.”
Wow
I’m sure Johnson was a volunteer, working for free, without any expectation of benefit from his “service”.
Puh-leeze!
Is that the new Democrat excuse for impropriety? Is the strategy to avoid a paper trail with favors and kick-backs and appointments and laundered payments?
No, of course this is nothing new. The Clinton’s have done this their whole lives. And the American people continue to buy this crap.
For lgm, to make this story balanced:
* McCain sucks too
*** His comments the past few days about Oil profits and CEO pay have been horrendous. He never fails to disappoint.
Here’s a story MM would have played up if it had been Obama:
McCain is in New York doing a fundraiser among Greek Orthodox. Someone asks him why he didn’t sign a letter signed by 78 other Senators asking Turkey to respect religious freedoms of Greek Orthodox living in Turkey. McCain refused to answer the question.
Rush Limbaugh made reference to MM’s column about tangential. A tribute to the fame of Michelle M!
After the bus ran over Johnson I’m not sure what color his gentials are!
Just one more associate under the bus. Eric Holder ought to be next and when the whitey tape comes out…sorry Michell, you’ll be next. Of course this won’t help Michelle’s kids—or will it?
lgm,you crack me up.BHO is a stooge.He was picked to be the bag man by the Dem power brokers.He is no where near ready to be in that office and if you can’t see that then God help you.Why do you think they blew Hillary out as fast as they could.They have the MSM in their pocket.They are using the stale race card BS and hope that people fall for it.All on this site hope that you will see the real deal for your sake.
Oh, boo hoo! Poor Barack! Guess we can’t criticize a “Black” liberal, huh LGM?
LGM, when are you going to realize this is a conservative blog?
What is your problem? The fact that the rest of the MSM promotes liberal values more than conservative ones not good enough for you?
I’m an independent, and I don’t agree 100% with Mrs. Malkin, See-dubya, or anyone else, but I at least know what I get myself into on here!
So for the love of good discussion, can you PLEASE stop complaining like stereotypical liberal!
Every post you make on here says “What McCain? He’s much worse!”
If he was so bad, why did democrats and independents vote for him in New Hampshire? Tell me that one!
About freaking time too! Why has Obummer been waiting on this turkey for days? I mean, c’mon, there Obummer, Johnson got a sweatheart mortgage package from Countrywide and you don’t think this doesn’t compromise your “beyond lobbyists/cronyism/corruption as usual” tripe?
Yet another example of do as I say, not as I do liberal playbook at work.
I feel sorry for the suspension underneath Obama’s bus…
Letters from senators are meaningless, and you know it. The way to have religious freedom is through democratization, or de-islamification, if you will. We Orthodox lost Constantinople to the Muslim’s and have experienced dhimmitude ever since.
The fall of the evil Soviet empire gave religious freedom to the hundreds of millions of orthodox in that region.
Any country that calls itself “The Islam Republic of ______” will repress every other religion but Islam.
McCain at least knows this and the sham of senate letters to affect change.
I think Michelle has made it a point to criticize McCain on everything from strategy, policy choices, votes, to the company he keeps. Get a grip, Math Man!
Spoken like the liberal who has no clue that the media, independents, and liberals chose the Republican candidate. Get a clue already.
Emjem, Little Girly Man can’t get a clue because he’s a fool, a sad pathetic fool.
Well, lgm had to sink lower than SouthernBoy and started to tell Jesus jokes.
Hey, lgm. Do you know what satan said to Hitler? I am sure you will be able to ask either of them in the near future.
Oh, terrig… the most ironic statement of the day!
Now, does the circus include/exclude our wonderfully, Dem lead Congress?
Will we get a Congressional investigation into Mr. Johnson’s (ahem) dealings? Isn’t he the “problem.”
As long as they’re grand, financial poobahs who finance our “wonderful” Dem leaders, of course there are no problems, right? Until the whole bean burrito of hypocritical shenanigans hits the fan!
if we didn’t reply to lgm.. we could be happy knowing he is angry being ignored…
Thankfully, lgm doesn’t teach my kids. He sounds exactly like every liberal I encounter. They have no reasoning ability, are inherently pessimists, have a severe case of BDS, and think government solves all ill. We conservatives on the other hand have 100’s (1,000’s) of years of proof that socialism, marxism, dictatorships, et al don’t work.
The fact that certain kool-aid drinkers think Obama is something new, know nothing about history.
But, as we are continually discovering, McCain may be hip deep in BS, but Obama is in a quicksand of his own making, and it will soon swallow him up.
We know McCain isn’t perfect, but Obama is being portrayed as such, and the shine is quickly coming off his MSM constructed halo.
Obama is such an empty suit, that he is making McCain looking good by comparison.
Hillary must be laughing her ass off.
But (with all due respect to puppies) correcting his statements is like shooting puppies in a barrel! It is like watching a head roll down the highway: you don’t want to do it. You know why you shouldn’t do it, but you have to do it. It is too easy, inasmuch as his “arguments” are so vacuous and indefensible.
Society demands that someone clean up after the liberal crapbird.
Great column Michelle. I am sure the hate-mail has been rolling in, or is that everyday. Keep up the good work. I have got a little advice for the Obama campaign. Much like he did with the superdelegates, Obama needs to produce some patriots. Roll out one or two per week. I mean we have already seen enough of the bad seeds that Obama has attracted in his life. Let’s meet the good guys in Obama’s life. Surely he is friends with a few America-loving patriots. We have seen the blame-America first friends, let’s see a few associates that do not hate this Country. Would that be to much to ask?
She’s probably vetting her next ghost writer for a book because she needs to raise money in order to run again in 4 years. The Clinton machine does not stop.
lgm,
You’re still making excuses.
I havent seen you say one thing that even comes close to actually staying on topic, or condemning the things other liberals do.
That either means you agree with them, or dont care if they are corrupt.
That’s 14 times i’ve asked you to call something wrong as being…well, wrong.
I’ll keep counting. You know, that’s something you math types actually can relate to…well, you’re *supposed to* anyway.
Obamatron needs one of those cool 60’s Ernst Blofeld style buses, the kind with the trap door that drops his failed henchmen down into an alligator pit. Oops. Did I just compare the Sweet Lamb of Chicago to a James Bond villain? I must be distracted.