I suppose it's got to be awfully hard to try to change the way politics is done. I mean, especially in the election part of it, when it isn't as if you have already won and so you don't have a lot of pull yet.

I've thought about this. And, I'm going to skip this argument this time. I've watched too many good politicians pulled down by having to associate with other politicians. I mean most politicians are dirty somehow, especially in the current system. So how could ANY new politician ever get elected without associating with older (and hence dirtier) politicians.

Jim Johnson is suspicioned to have dirty "connections", no proof, just suspicions, mind you. But what is Obama supposed to do about vetting a VP? Call Kelly Services and get some temps right on that? I presume it takes a political insider with access to a lot of dirt to "vet" someone.

That's just a guess, but if you don't know who is involved in what scandals or crooked deals etc., how would you be able to tell if the fact that VP candidate X owns a set of condos in Boca with that same person is political dynamite.

So, as much as it appears to be a cop out, I'm not going to put any credence in this crud, because well, how could you possibly ever escape it anyway?

Actually there's a mounting pile of evidence that Mr. Johnson's relationship with Countrywide was fraudulently concealed from the Fannie Mae board, and thus tied to the much bigger scandal of fraud and theft at FM that has worsened the home mortgage crisis the country's in.

I'm a Democrat and I'm troubled by the Obama supporters' willingness to dismiss these issues --when they would have been among the most vociferous critics had it been any other candidate.

The Cult of Personality is leading folks like Thevail to dismiss Jim Johnson's theft from millions of home mortgage holders as the routine "dirt" that every politician has to mix with.

Really?

I'm not even going to ask you to hold yourselves to the rhetorical standards your candidate has set --since, as Thevail suggests, it's probably not possible --but I will at least hold you to the normal debased Washington standards, and even by that measure the Johnson issue stinks.

F

"there's a mounting pile of evidence that Mr. Johnson's relationship with Countrywide was fraudulently concealed from the Fannie Mae board"

You have some sources?

<link>

The WSJ link I just posted is to the story this weekend alleging graft by Mr. Johnson and other managers at Fannie Mae. That's what's new.

The old part is the scandal at Fannie Mae, which has been investigated by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight <<link>>. I'm quoting their report:

"Senior management systematically withheld information about the Enterprise’s operations and financial condition from the Board of Directors, its committees, its external auditors, OFHEO, the Congress, and the public—or disclosed information that was incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading. Systematically withholding information prevented others from becoming aware of Fannie Mae’s earnings management strategies, the fact that the Enterprise’s accounting policies did not comply with GAAP, the pervasive weaknesses of its internal control system, and related safety and soundness issues."

There have also been news reports of shocking levels of executive compensation --hundreds of millions of dollars --by Jim Johnson and others during the time they were parties to the misreporting documented by OFHEO. You can google those yourself.

Now show some integrity, Obama voters.

F

Your link doesn't even come close to your suggestion there is a "mounting pile of evidence" of fraud in this regard. Is there anywhere a claim by FNMA that the loans weren't properly disclosed, or more important that they were fraudulently concealed?

Some people find the evidence that the earth is round to be insufficient. That's their right to make that judgment, I suppose, and you can assess this case as you wish.

Fraud is defined as "a knowing misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her detriment." Mr. Johnson was a party to an intentional concealment of the true state of Fannie Mae from the board charged with overseeing it. Now we have a major newspaper reporting that he also failed to disclose that he was receiving preferential treatment from a home mortgage company that had dealings with Fannie Mae --a company that Mr. Obama himself named as a sleazy player in the home mortgage industry.

But the issue here isn't whether Jim Johnson would or wouldn't be convicted of fraud in a court of law --apparently if he could get 12 of thewolf05827 on a jury he couldn't be convicted of much of anything.

The issue is the increasingly tortured analyses that Obama supporters are engaging in in order to maintain their view of themselves as representing a new kind of politics.

This would be a terrific moment for Senator Obama and his supporters to demonstrate whether they have real ethical standards for themselves or if their campaign is merely about replacing one set of cronies and scammers with another.

F

Your off-topic flailing over irrelevancies ranging from the shape of the planet to my presence on a jury is hilarious given that you can't seem to answer a simple direct question with anything remotely resembling evidence.

Run along.

This is exactly my point..Is McCain firing Charlie Black, no, not even close? Did Clinton actually fire Marc Penn, no she just took his "job title" and kept paying him.

Look, there is no way that any candidate can operate in a political arena where one in two people has some form of "questionable" or "suspicious" something linked to them without well, interacting with them. And I don't think they have some sort of radar built in either that just sounds an alarm when something touches a person.

Besides if we're going to hold to this standard I think perhaps the entire congress and executive branch will have to disband..

Did you hear that President Bush was seen with DICK CHENEY the other day.

Okay, so you asked for citations, which I gave you. Then you wanted evidence, which I described. Then you don't like the information you've been given, and the answer is that I should go away. Great. Once all the non-cultists are purged, you'll begin to bring the country together...

Thevail: nobody's saying that Obama should "magically" know everything about everybody. After a scathing primary season in which your candidate and his proxies have treated every other politician as if they're nose-deep in filth, we now get an agonized reading of reality that concludes that somehow people are expecting supernatural abilities from him. Was it "magical" that the WSJ found out the story?

When was the last time an opponent of Senator Obama got the wide ethical leeway you're giving him?

F

And PS Johnson "retired" today..

So maybe, just maybe, you'll have to agree that Obama DOES have ethical standards. That was your criteria for deciding that, wasn't it?

Are you voting for him now?

To the Vail: Marvelous post and I fully agree with you.

Thank you japancake :)

I think I figured out your namegame.

the WSJ NEVER asserted that Johnson received preferential terms on his mortgages. The article said that they could be perceived as preferential, absent any pertinent details, such as...oh,say...did he pay points up front? what was the loan to value ratio? what's his credit rating?...and the one mortage he got while he was also at Fannie Mae??? turns out he paid a higher rate than the average at the time...so much for fact checking on EVERYONE's part.

Dickinson needs to correct his post, and walk himself back from the holier than thou ledge he was dangling over, screaming about his own piety.

I don't blame Johnson for opting out of this feeding frenzy. The media --old and new--is so addicted to this tit for tat dictation taking (the Obama camp said...here's what the McCain camp replied...here's the obama camps reply to that reply...) that they do it even when the "news" isn't news. He couldn't exactly do his job with discretion if every where he went HE was the news...but honestly...none of this speculation about Veeps makes any sense to me in the first place. Both candidates have said they will announce their pick once they've made it...all this other stuff passing for news and analysis and opinion is a bad substitue for solitaire in terms of passing time in mindless pursuits.

I'm not going to read the blogs every day anymore until August...I think most of the political reporters should take advantage of the slow news and warm weather and take a vacation and get some perspective.

If Johnson was an advisor on housing policy, or had a hand in writing Obama's policies in these areas, his personal mortgage history might be germane. But his work for the campaign was pretty far removed from that "perception" of a problem that lazy reporting promoted into a full blown "scandal"

And, for the record, the mortgage crisis at Countrywide occurred about 5 years AFTER Johnson had left Fannie Mae.

The facts on all this are readily available. McCain's right about google...Makes me wonder how, if I, a lowly reader, could find them with a google search and a few hours on government and watchdog websites...why couldn't that reporter from the Wall Street Journal...or, come to think of it, his junior partner here at Slate???

I made a comment like this in another post.

The media is ALWAYS BIASED..towards sensationalism. Not news, not facts, just what sells.