Costly error
“The original, revealing mistake, of course, was tapping Jim Johnson in first place to be the guy to vet Obama’s vice presidential choices,” Howard Fineman writes at www.newsweek.com.
“On one level, and at first glance, Johnson seemed to be the perfect, even unavoidable, choice. He is a fixture here; he is what passes for a Washington wise man these days. The son of a prominent Minnesota Democratic legislator, he came to Washington in the 1970, part of the ’Minnesota Mafia’ that surrounded Walter Mondale,” Mr. Fineman said.
“Tall and courtly, Johnson was not a lawyer, but had the bearing of one. He was famous for his starched white shirts and corporate demeanor. He ran Mondale’s 1984 presidential race - a disaster that lost 49 states - yet Johnson somehow emerged with his reputation for probity and good management enhanced. He has been involved as a top inside political player in almost every Democratic general-election campaign since. He was closer to the Clintons, of course, but also had made a shrewd decision to move to Obama this time around.
“Johnson has a genius for looking as bland as vanilla.
“So when it came time for Obama to pick a guy to vet his veeps, Johnson was a natural, or so Obama and his top advisers, David Axelrod and Washington lawyer Greg Craig, must have thought. And who would care anyway?
“Well, that was wrong on almost too many levels to count. If they had thought about it for more than a minute, they would have realized that Johnson is the very embodiment of the world they had been running against: a fabulously wealthy man who had gotten that way by manipulating the tangled strings of money and power in the capital, and whose chief calling card to many who admire him is not his mind but his access to other people’s bundled cash.”
Brief coverage
“Of the three broadcast network evening newscasts on Wednesday, only ABC’s ’World News’ judged Jim Johnson’s resignation from the Obama campaign as worth a full story,” the Media Research Center’s Brent Baker writes at www.mrc.org.
“CBS and NBC limited coverage to brief items that failed to inform viewers of how Obama was caught in hypocrisy. ABC’s Jake Tapper, however, explained the reason for the ’big headache for Barack Obama,’ that ’the head of his vice presidential search committee, Jim Johnson, resigned amidst criticisms that Johnson personified the very special interests and Washington insiders whom Obama campaigns against.’
“Tapper played a clip of Obama’s ’lofty’ rhetoric from February: ’The stakes are too high and the challenges are too great to play the same old Washington games with the same old Washington players.’ Tapper reported Obama picked Johnson while ’not knowing of Johnson’s ties to Countrywide Financial, a mortgage lender Obama had rallied against on the campaign trail.’ Viewers then heard from Obama earlier in the campaign: ’Countrywide Financial was one of the folks, one of the institutions that was pumping up the sub-prime lending market.’”
Growing list
“It turns out that Jim Johnson was not the man Barack Obama thought he knew,” the Wall Street Journal says in an editorial.
“The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee threw the former Fannie Mae CEO over the side as his vice presidential vetter [Thursday], only a day after he’d said that Mr. Johnson was only ’tangentially related’ to his campaign and that criticism was a ’game that can be played.’
Mr. Johnson was cast off after the Journal disclosed that he had received sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial - the very firm Mr. Obama has specifically excoriated for its role in the mortgage meltdown. …
“As for Mr. Obama, Mr. Johnson now joins an intriguing and growing list of Mr. Obama’s ex-associates that includes the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and former terrorist bomber William Ayers. We might call this list eclectic, except that there is a consistent pattern of bad judgment followed by an initial defense, then followed by rapid disassociation and regret that none of them were the men Mr. Obama ’knew.’
“We can only wonder if Eric Holder, who is also among Mr. Obama’s veep vetters, will be the next to join this club. As deputy attorney general in the Clinton Administration, he played a role in the Marc Rich pardon that also deserves to be fully vetted - all the more so if Mr. Holder is on the short list to be Mr. Obama’s attorney general.”
Fear, loathing
“While I am still reviewing the 5-4 decision written by Anthony Kennedy, apparently giving GITMO detainees access to our civilian courts, at the outset I am left to wonder whether all POWs will now have access to our civilian courts?” Mark Levin writes in a blog at National Review Online (www. nationalreview.com).
“After all, you would think lawful enemy combatants have a better claim in this regard than unlawful enemy combatants. And if POWs have access to our civilian courts, how do our courts plan to handle the thousands, if not tens of thousands of cases, that will be brought to them in future conflicts?” Mr. Levin asked.
“It has been the objective of the left-wing bar to fight aspects of this war in our courtrooms, where it knew it would have a decent chance at victory. So complete is the court’s disregard for the Constitution and even its own precedent now that anything is possible. And what was once considered inconceivable is now compelled by the Constitution, or so five justices have ruled. I fear for my country. I really do. And AP, among others, reports this story as a defeat for ’the Bush administration.’ Really? I see it as a defeat for the nation.”
About Obama
“One odd thing is already clear about the fall campaign: in it, one of the two major candidates, John McCain, is going to play only a minor role,” Steven Stark writes in the Boston Phoenix.
“Sure, he’ll occasionally get the spotlight, and there are things he can do to improve his chances marginally. But in the end, this election is about Barack Obama. The country wants a significant change in direction and Obama and the Democrats are the only ones who can credibly promise to deliver it. Thus, the results in November are going to come down to one question: can a significant portion of the electorate abide Barack Obama as its next president?
“Right now, it’s an open question. And for Obama to get the answer he wants, he’s going to have to be another Ronald Reagan or another Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
— Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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