The Politics of Divorce

Well, it turns out that Obama should have "vetted the vetters" after all. He tried to strike a no-big-deal tone at a news conference Tuesday, but he underestimated the fallout. While it took a few days, that WSJ piece on favorable mortgages for the leader of Obama's VP search has knocked him out of the box:

"Senator Barack Obama, moving to quell a growing furor, accepted the resignation of the head of his vice presidential search team, James A. Johnson, on Wednesday after days of questions about Mr. Johnson's tenure as head of Fannie Mae and other business associations," says the NYT.

"The resignation of Mr. Johnson, a consummate Washington Democratic insider, highlights the challenge Mr. Obama faces living up to his goal of not surrounding himself with people with ties to special interests."

Michelle Malkin has been in high dudgeon about this:

"Struck with an apparent case of restless mouth syndrome, Obama first indignantly rejected the notion that he should pick his veep pickers more carefully: 'Well, look, the, the, I mean--first of all I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages.'

"Translation: I will remain willfully blind to the conflicts of interest created by own mortgage industry-bashing rhetoric.

"Next, Obama leaned on his 'Washington games' crutch and attempted to distance himself from the appointees that he has assigned the most important and intimate of tasks: 'You're going to have to direct -- it becomes sort of a -- 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.'

" 'Tangential?' He appointed them to search for his second in command. 'Tangential' is the cleaning lady in his Sioux Falls campaign office.

"Finally, channeling Bill Clinton's 'is-is' parsing, Obama attempted to argue that his veep selection committee members don't really 'work' for him."

Liberals, meanwhile, are pouncing on McCain's "Today" show comment yesterday. John Aravosis leads the way at Americablog:

"MATT LAUER: Do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?

"JOHN MCCAIN: No, but that's not too important.