Beltway Snark

Then again, Obama has never been known for looking deeply into the people he surrounds himself with. The latest embarrassment for Obama; Jim Johnson his head VP picker-type person.

Yet despite Johnson’s legendary fastidiousness, his high-profile campaign role has suddenly exposed him to questions about his financial dealings. The questions range from his relationship with the embattled CEO of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial to his more recent oversight roles on various corporate compensation committees that approved hefty executive pay packages.

In a presidential campaign where the subprime mortgage crisis and high corporate salaries figure to be staples of debate, Johnson is now at risk of becoming a political liability for Obama, who’s trying to sell anxious voters on an economic message that calls for stricter financial industry regulation and ridding Washington of special favors and tax breaks for wealthy CEOs.

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Johnson received at least $7 million worth of home loans from Countrywide through an informal program for friends of company CEO Angelo Mozilo that offered rates below the market average. At least four of the loans were issued while Johnson was employed either as the CEO or an outside consultant for Fannie Mae.

In 2006, five companies where Johnson served on compensation committees came under fire from Institutional Shareholders Services and The Corporate Library, two corporate compensation research companies, for accounting errors and failing to sufficiently tie executive payment to performance. 

Of course McCain is havign a field day with this one, calling Obama a hypocrite for criticizing his lobbyist connections while employing Johnson. Here’s the Obama camp’s spin:

“It’s the height of hypocrisy for the McCain campaign to try and make (the loans) an issue when John Green, one of John McCain’s top advisors, lobbied for Ameriquest, which was one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders and a key player in the mortgage crisis,” responded the Obama campaign, which described the media scrutiny of the loans as “overblown and irrelevant.”

Overblown and irrelevant when it comes to Obama, you mean. Because I remember it being a pretty big deal to you guys when it was McCain. Besides, there’s a big difference between lobbying for a mortgage company and getting $7 mil worth of shady loans from one while you’re CEO of Fannie Mae.

I wonder how long before Johnson is gone. Lemme guess, this isn’t the Jim Johnson you knew, and you’re shocked and disappointed.