Goodbye, Jim! Don't Let The Screen Door Hit You In The Ass On The Way Out, Either!

My pair of outraged e-mails to the Obama campaign did the trick. A sleazeball out of the Donkey past — James A. Johnson with ties to Countrywide Financial and the folks who gave us the mortgage industry meltdown — couldn't take the heat and got out of the kitchen. Good riddance! I am glad that The Hopester listened to my voice o'reason. If this is (fair & balanced) self-delusion, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
Obama Team Leader Resigns In Bid To Quell Growing Furor
By John M. Broder

Senator Barack Obama, moving to quell a growing furor, accepted the resignation of the head of his vice presidential search team, James A. Johnson, on Wednesday after days of questions about Mr. Johnson’s tenure as head of Fannie Mae and other business associations.

The resignation of Mr. Johnson, a consummate Washington Democratic insider, highlights the challenge Mr. Obama faces living up to his goal of not surrounding himself with people with ties to special interests.

In a statement issued by his Chicago campaign headquarters, Mr. Obama said Wednesday afternoon that “Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice presidential nominee, so he has made a decision to step aside that I accept.”

Mr. Johnson, who also directed Senator John Kerry’s vice presidential search when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004, had come under fierce scrutiny in recent days after disclosures that he had received mortgage loans on favorable terms from Countrywide Financial, the beleaguered mortgage lender. His large paychecks and bonuses while president of Fannie Mae, the quasi-public government mortgage agency, also drew heavy Republican criticism.

Mr. Obama had defended Mr. Johnson as recently as Tuesday, saying that he had only a “tangential” role in his campaign and that he was not troubled by his business activities. He said he had not inquired about his mortgages and would not hire people to, as he put it, “vet the vetters.”

But Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Republican Party officials kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of Mr. Johnson. The case became a test of Mr. Obama’s professed independence from Washington insiders and supposed higher ethical standards. Mr. Obama has refused to accept campaign donations from lobbyists and had made criticism of the cozy financial and political relationships in the capital a hallmark of his campaign rhetoric.

Mr. Obama said the remaining two members of the vice presidential vetting team, Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general, and Caroline Kennedy, would continue the work that began last week.

“We have a very good selection process under way, and I am confident that it will produce a number of highly qualified candidates for me to choose from in the weeks ahead,” Mr. Obama said in his statement. “I remain grateful to Jim for his service and his efforts in this process.”

Mr. Obama was meeting with campaign aides in Chicago on Wednesday afternoon. . Campaign officials would provide no details of the discussions that led to Mr. Johnson’s departure.

Earlier Wednesday, on a conference call with Obama campaign staff before Mr. Johnson’s departure was announced, Senator Kerry defended him.

“Jim Johnson is a very experienced, very discreet, very capable individual who is performing a voluntary function without pay, without any interest,” Mr. Kerry said. “He’s not seeking a job and, you know, he is acting completely independently to gather information about somebody. And that’s it.”

Mr. Kerry added, “That is the full measure of this, and it seems that this is one of those sort of Washington grab stories where people try to make something out of something it’s not.”

Referring to the 2004 vice presidential vetting Mr. Johnson performed for him, Mr. Kerry said, “There were no leaks from my process, and he was handling unbelievably sensitive information.”

He added, “He did an outstanding job in that capacity, and I have no complaint about what he did for me.”

[John Broder is the Los Angeles Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He previously served as the newspaper's Washington editor and White House correspondent. He also worked in the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times, covering defense, the intelligence agencies and the White House. He earlier worked at newspapers in Cleveland, Dayton and Detroit.]

Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

Get an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Reader at no cost from Google. Another free Reader is available at RSS Reader.