Obama: This Is Not The Jim Johnson I Knew

Another close Barack Obama associate gets thrown under the bus.

Jim Johnson administered the scandal-riddled Fanny Mae mortgage and collected financial favors from Countrywide Financial Corporation, a company that Obama himself derided as a predatory lender. In explaining his amazingly tin-eared choice as a staffer, "Well, look ... first of all, I am not vetting my vice presidential search committee for their mortgages," Obama answered. "I mean this is a game that can be played -- everybody you know who is anybody who is tangentially related to our campaign I think is going to have a whole host of relationships… These aren't folks who are working for me. They are not people, you know, who I have assigned to a job in the future administration."

Maybe he's hoping that the average Democrat doesn't know what "tangentially" means.