Jim Johnson

Of the three broadcast network evening newscasts on Wednesday, only ABC's World News judged Jim Johnson's resignation from the Obama campaign as worth a full story. CBS and NBC limited coverage to brief items that failed to inform viewers of how Obama was caught in hypocrisy. ABC's Jake Tapper, however, explained the reason for the “big headache for Barack Obama,” that “the head of his vice presidential search committee, Jim Johnson, resigned amidst criticisms that Johnson personified the very special interests and Washington insiders whom Obama campaigns against.”

Tapper played a clip of Obama's “lofty” rhetoric from February: “The stakes are too high and the challenges are too great to play the same old Washington games with the same old Washington players.” Tapper reported Obama picked Johnson while “not knowing of Johnson's ties to Countrywide Financial, a mortgage lender Obama had rallied against on the campaign trail.” Viewers then heard from Obama earlier in the campaign: “Countrywide Financial was one of the folks, one of the institutions that was pumping up the sub-prime lending market.”

Washington Post: GOP tool? Might sound a tad far-fetched to you. But you're not Howard Dean.

Appearing on today's Morning Joe, DNC Chairman Dean claimed a Washington Post article about Jim Johnson, whom Barack Obama has chosen to head up the vetting of potential VP picks, was "planted" by the McCain campaign. Johnson's appointment has become an embarrassment to Obama because the former CEO of Fannie Mae has been linked to the mortgage crisis. As WaPo reported:

The questions about Johnson began after the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that he received more than $2 million in home loans that might have been below average market rates from Countrywide Financial, a partner of Fannie Mae and a leading purveyor of the kind of subprime mortgages that spawned a national housing crisis.