Oh, I get it. It's a reverse Rove strategy- take your candidate's weakness and project it as his strength! Well played, sir.

MJ, I'm actually kind of annoyed about this. Maybe I'm not being ruthless enough but having Jim Johnson help you find a Veep is a very minor thing. It has nothing to do with Fannie Mae, it has nothing to do with Countrywide.

What I see is that the media pounced on this. But that same media has given John McCain a pass on something far more relevant -- he had a former Senator and UBS executive and lobbyist actually writing his mortgage crisis policy.

If McCain can get away with that, why should Obama be made to do without Johnson's considerable (at least as acknowledged) skills in veep vetting?

And... is Obama going to get a fair shake from this media?

I know, I know, back in my Hillary days I complained about how the media loved Obama. Times have changed. This ain't fair.

Seems that Obama made this a one day story which is good. However, I wonder how he was picked in the first place. I also wonder why we don't keep bringing up the Phil Gramm ties.

MEMORANDUM

To: MLR
From: FEB
Subject: Career Choices

If you ever see a job in the Want Ads labeled "Ass Kisser," APPLY! You'll get it for sure.

Your piece was an insult to the intelligence of TPM readers and is right up there with Nixon's Press Secretary Ron Zeigler responding to a reporter's question about false info being given out by the White House re Watergate; that famous response was, "Those statements are no longer operative."

Shame on you.

Is Obama showing his first political mistake, Jim Johnson? Then it will be Eric Holder? ("...as deputy attorney general, Holder was the key person who made the pardon of Marc Rich possible in the final hours of the Clinton presidency")

Who will replace Jim Johnson on the committee, how about one of the Virginia potentials, like Sen Webb or Gov Kaine, that way if they don't see any "good" prospects after analyzing the polling and the opposition party, they can look at themselves in the mirror and just say, heck, why not me!? (Cheney/with Bush).

Recent polling is claiming to show Latinos and Clinton supporters are now drifting towards Obama. If true and holding, the prospects of Hillary being on the V.P. ticket become more unlikely. With that in mind, I do wish the media would stop talking about Hillary, Bill, and the rabid Clinton supporters....it's so old news and so yesterday.

Don't all of you people have useful, constructive tasks you could be working on?

I want Obama to be successful now that he's the nominee, but wow, is every article you write about him going to be like this? Everything Obama does is just a sign of his magnificence?

He voted for him before he voted against him.

Look guys. I'm not an Obama worshipper, but I do think his handling of this whole thing has been pretty deft. I thought his line about having to "hire at vetter to vet the vetters" was pretty poignant a nice succint way to pointing out the 'gotcha' mentality of the MSM. Then by dispatching Johnson immediately he takes this story out of the news cycle very quickly. And in any case, I doubt this story would really resonate on street anyways. For us high information types this is interesting stuff---but i know my grandad couldn't care less.

At the same time, he immediately pounces on Old Man McWar's "not too important" comments. This buries the Johnson story and makes McBush's idiotic comments the new story of the day.

It's not just his handling of the Johnson situation, but how he diffused this flare-up, disposed of it and pivoted swiftly to attack McCain on his perceived strength. What he's doing is systematically painting McWar as out of touch with the American people on Iraq and he won't let little games like the Johnson affair stand in his way.

The guy has his operation running like a well-oiled machine. No Democrat has ever had a rapid response apparatus like this before, nor a candidate this willing to be so aggressive and ruthlessly efficient if that's what's called for.

Obama is doing everything they said he was too young, too inexperienced, and too black to do.

You don't have be an Obamabot to appreciate this.

I actually think to the contrary on this one MJ. This shows the Obama team's inexperience and naivete.

Whose business is it who the people are that are doing the preliminary research and evaluation of potential VP candidates for Obama? It is no one's business outside the campaign.

It was just plain dumb for Obama to go around announcing who is doing that stuff. He should have seen this sort of thing coming or rather his top people should have, but oh yes, the first time winners of the nomination are going through the quadrennial Democratic ritual of forgetting about business and thinking they have the race in the bag already. Such dumb moves just open up the campaign for foolishness and gotcha politics of the sort we've seen in this case.

The people doing this work for Obama are not even employees of the government or of any kind. He can have whoever he wants and it simply is nobody elses business. They are doing some work on a volunteer basis for Obama and thus it's just plain idiotic to a) make a bid wahoo out of who they are to begin with and b)to go through these sorts of sophomoric "gotcha" moments where people have to "resign" from nothing in order to get the paid national gossips, uh, I mean the corporate media, to focus on something else.