Key member of Obama's VP committee steps aside

[no name 1]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A key member of Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential search team, Jim Johnson, is stepping down after criticism over a mortgage he received, the Obama campaign said Wednesday.

Republicans hammered Jim Johnson for his $7 million loan from Countrywide.

"Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice presidential nominee, so he has made a decision to step aside that I accept," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in a statement.

Republicans had been hammering Johnson since The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that he received a good deal on a mortgage from Countrywide because of his friendship with Angelo Mozilo, the company's CEO.

Obama has criticized Countrywide in connection with the subprime mortgage crisis.

Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, said in a statement that Johnson's resignation "raises serious questions about Barack Obama's judgment. ... By entrusting this process to a man who has now been forced to step down because of questionable loans, the American people have reason to question the judgment of a candidate who has shown he will only make the right call when under pressure from the news media.

"America can't afford a president who flip-flops on key questions in the course of 24 hours. That's not change we can believe in," Bounds added.

The newspaper reported that Johnson received over $7 million in home loans from Countrywide, made available through a program for friends of the company's chief executive officer.

For several days, Obama pushed back against the attacks on Johnson, the first person he named to head his search team.

"I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages," Obama said Tuesday in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was campaigning.

"This is a game that can be played -- everybody who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships. I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters," he said.

A Republican Party spokesman called Obama "naive" and "hypocritical" after Obama's remarks Tuesday, before Johnson stepped down.

"Barack Obama's assertion that he won't vet his own senior aides is totally inconsistent with his rhetoric," said Alex Conant, a Republican National Committee spokesman.

Johnson, a former CEO of Fannie Mae, was one of three people on Obama's search team, alongside former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy.

The Obama campaign has not announced a replacement.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/11/obama.vp/index.html

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Wow - big deal

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Well, she's still bitter.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

He did the right thing.