Video: Obama on Countrywide Finance in April
posted at 6:00 pm on June 10, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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When Barack Obama needed to win Pennsylvania, what villain did he use in his populist rhetoric? As we see in this video, he chose Countrywide Finance. Countrywide, Obama said, paid off its executives while leaving homeowners with foreclosure notices:
When it came time to selecting his VP, what hero did Obama choose? Jim Johnson, who got millions in loans from Countrywide. Now Obama wants to pretend that he doesn’t care about connections to Countrywide. It didn’t sound that way to Pennsylvanians in April, did it?
Slate’s John Dickerson wonders when we will get the handbook on New Politics:
Barack Obama called out Countrywide by name on the campaign trail during the primaries. He particularly criticized the company’s CEO for his excessive compensation and more generally “infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis,” which he linked not only to the 2 million who lost their houses but to school districts that couldn’t purchase supplies and pay teachers. This is the same CEO who gave Johnson his sweetheart deal. Obama’s aides also criticized Clinton’s then-campaign strategist, Mark Penn, for giving PR advice to the company.
Now the man Obama has entrusted with what he has called the most important decision of his campaign is wrapped up in Countrywide and tied to the CEO. There are lots of unanswered questions about the Johnson deal, though no evidence as yet that he did anything wrong. But the Obama standard isn’t wrongdoing. It’s mere connection to the company. By that standard, this is bad news.
It’s not just the fact that Johnson works for any presidential campaign; it’s the utter hypocrisy of a self-appointed ethics scold demanding one standard for his opponents and demanding a much different standard for himself. By any standard, that’s bad news, and it portends much more bad news in an Obama administration.
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These are just distractions from the REAL issues. /axelrod
fiatboomer on June 10, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Who sits on Obama’s shoulder?
ignatzk on June 10, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Watch the woman on the right of the screen rear back in indignation about the “$19 million bonus.” Classic.
warrenmr on June 10, 2008 at 6:10 PM
He is the antithesis of the ” Buck stops here” mentality.
I do think he is a trojan horse/puppet for other “deciders”. He does not seem capable of making big decisions by himself at all. And when he gets into a wringer he bails. Definitely not POTUS material by any stretch of the the imagination.
bbz123 on June 10, 2008 at 6:13 PM
You want a list, Barry?
1) corruption
2) hypocrisy
3) bad judgement
And, that’s just for openers.
trubble on June 10, 2008 at 6:14 PM
Countrywide is or was the largest PRIVATELY owned mortgage lender in the nation. Mozillo, for all his flaws, was perfectly within his rights to sell his stock. And when he sold his company, he reaped a windfall profit, too. Countrywide was one of thousands of lenders who went to wall street and securitized their mortgage backed funds. To have called them out in the first place was discrimination and political theatre at it’s worst.
DrW on June 10, 2008 at 6:14 PM
Well can we start with that the speaker is a blithering idiot?
No. Really. I saw a guy the other day wearing a t-shirt with Barry’s mug on it and it said: This time we want a SMART president.
This tool is smart?
Listen to what he said. He wants to have it two ways: He wants Countrywide to be responsible for lending too freely and causing foreclosures, but he also wants them to be responsible for the valoue of real estate after they stop.
Well, Barry, if there wasn’t anyone out there lending easy money to begin with, housing prices would be where they’ll wind up after that money’s out of the market, won’t they?
And when they are, school districts will just have to set their budgets based on what real estate taxes bring in with no “predatory lenders” around to jack up values, one of the consequences of which is that they get more money.
But you can’t have it both ways.
Dumba$$.
Typhoon on June 10, 2008 at 6:20 PM
I’m sure we’ll be hearing “This isn’t the Jim Johnson I knew/know.”
moonsbreath on June 10, 2008 at 6:25 PM
Can you imagine the media outcry if it was McCain?
TheBigOldDog on June 10, 2008 at 6:26 PM
If McCain can get this fool live, he got him. I would think the Dem’s are having second thought.
Mike Mose on June 10, 2008 at 6:31 PM
ignatzk on June 10, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Since Hobama Pinocchio tossed Jiminy Cricket under the bus, Curious George suffered the same fate.
MKH, was that a ken doll?
maverick muse on June 10, 2008 at 6:33 PM
warrenmr on June 10, 2008 at 6:10 PM
Was that her sister on Drew Carey’s Price is Right?
maverick muse on June 10, 2008 at 6:34 PM
Clintonianism has nothing on this guy.
Maquis on June 10, 2008 at 6:36 PM
Agreed, this is the central tenet of the “left” along with making someone else pay for what you desire. If there is any doubt one need only look at the current energy crisis. These are the “defenders” of the poor and middle classes. And when you vote against a candidate who is going to tax an entity that is going to pass that tax on to you through higher prices you are voting against your own best interest.
Stupidity and arrogance.
jdkchem on June 10, 2008 at 6:41 PM
No, no, no. You guys don’t get it.
Helping Countrywide CEOs = bad
Getting help from Countrywide CEOs = good!
Seixon on June 10, 2008 at 6:49 PM
So what was his point, exactly? That the two individuals should have used their bonuses to pay everyone’s mortgage for them? That foreclosures were happening because of the enormity of the bonuses? They they got bonuses because people were losing their homes?
Seriously, WTF?
Along that line of logic (or lack thereof): How many bookstores have gone out of business while Barry O. has been raking in millions for penning his awful books? That ain’t right!
landshark on June 10, 2008 at 7:23 PM
Poor Barry didn’t have time to learn economics when he was busy buying votes for corrupt Democrats in Chicago.
VolMagic on June 10, 2008 at 7:44 PM
Uh, it’s pretty dishonest to claim Johnson’s “Picking his VP”. Vetting is basically a research role, he’s not an adviser nor has he been granted any long-term campaign position.
Typhonsentra on June 10, 2008 at 7:55 PM
VolMagic on June 10, 2008 at 7:57 PM
“Chicago, we have a problem…”
Just how long does it take for the MSM to see that?
Good Lord, if this was a Republican, this hypocrisy would be front and center 24/7.
drjohn on June 10, 2008 at 8:06 PM
The MSM see’s that all right. That’s exactly why the MSM, and politicians hate, and want to control the internet, and us.
byteshredder on June 10, 2008 at 8:47 PM
Via LGF
I suspect a bus tossing will soon be in order
CommentGuy on June 10, 2008 at 9:59 PM
Barack is not a new kind of politician at all.
CP on June 10, 2008 at 10:56 PM
Obama to Wesleyan graduates: Don’t join the money culture and go after the big house…
(except if a convicted felon knocks $300K off the price, then move right in).
There was a book called “The Selling of the President”. Now we have “The Buying of the Vice President”.
Steve Z on June 11, 2008 at 12:41 AM
The logic about Countrywide and other subprime lenders goes like this:
1. Lender makes loans with little or no regard to the borrower’s true ability to pay
2. Lender charges origination fees and makes more profits when loan is immediately sold into secondary market - none of these fees depend on the loan actually being paid so lender has no incentive to make sure borrower can pay. The worse the borrower’s credit, the higher the yield on the security and the more the investors will pay the original lender; so lender has perverse incentive to put borrower into costlier subprime loan even if they qualify for better rates.
3. Borrower defaults, sucker who bought the loan or the mortgage backed security loses money; original lender loses nothing (though in reality many of them have been forced to buy back these loans, whch is what caused so many of the so-called “monline” subprime lenders like Ameriquest to fold)
4. Executives of lenders make huge bonuses while thousands of borrowers default and lose their homes.
This is what has happened the last few years. It isn’t a pretty story and there is blame to go all around. I can’t really blame Democrats for trying to lay it all at the feet of the Bush Admnistration. But you have to be REALLY stupid to make Jim Johnson a big part of your campaign if you want to make the mortgage crisis an issue.
rockmom on June 11, 2008 at 8:27 AM
That people are being lemmings and taking you seriously.
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on June 11, 2008 at 10:04 AM