JIM JOHNSON, OBAMA STANDARDS AND WHY CLINTON VOTERS ARE SAYING "I TOLD YOU SO".

In his first official act since becoming the likely Democratic nominee the first thing Obama did was put a man in charge of vetting vice presidential candidates, Jim Johnson, who had to resign within days because of questions about loans he received from companies involved in the U.S. housing crisis.

Most people see this as not just a political and PR disaster but more proof of how bad Obama's judgement really is --the same bad judgement he has shown throughout his political career when he has had to show any judgment at all. It is also proof of how low his standards not to mention his competence really are.

This is the candidate whose campaign theme was bringing change to Washington. But the only change Obama has brought so far is his loose change. The first time he gets to appoint anyone to do anything the candidate of change appoints a long time Washington D.C. insider who has been around the Washington political scene for decades who then has to resign within days because of reports of shady loan deals. This is who Obama chose to do the vetting of his Vice Presidential candidates.

This is the likely Democratic nominee who claimed Clinton represented the old politics of the past, and that he was the change candidate. But he is revealing more and more that he is the snake oil salesman many thought he was from the beginning.

What we saw with the Johnson episode was not rejecting the politics of the past but an episode from Obama's politics of the past. The same politics, lack of judgment, low standards and lack of a moral compass that had him involved with Rezko, (who has now been convicted of fraud), Jeremiah Wright, and Obama's facile serial lying about the church that he said "wasn't particularly controversial", the sermons he said he never knew about except that he did but was never there to hear them except that he was, that he wouldn't disown Wright or his church any more than he'd disown his own grandmother and don't forget the vacation land in Florida he wants to sell you where you can be neighbors with Keith Olbermann and Bill Richardson.

So maybe it wasn't simply incompetence on Obama's part. Maybe Johnson was vetted well enough after all and Obama is so used to consorting with shady people he didn't care. Or even worse didn't notice. Either way things have not gotten off to a good start for Obama and his candidacy.

Now that the whole country, Nancy Pelosi,Howard Dean, and those brave political Neanderthals known as super delegates are getting a good look at just how incompetent and unqualified Obama is, now that his precocious high school level speeches designed to impress the easily impressed have no audience and he actually has to do something, I'm sure the entire side of the DNC that engineered this political disaster in the making are squirming and eyeing each other out of the corners of their eyes not daring to say a word while Clinton voters are having a good laugh, sitting back with their popcorn and enjoying every minute of this fiasco while saying "I told you so". And everyone will have their popcorn ready and waiting for the next Obama disaster to strike which it most surely will.

But is this really coming as a surprise? Dean and Pelosi and super delegates all chose to ignore Obama's serial lying concerning Wright and his church and his relationship there which showed from day one just how bad his judgement was. And so did most of the news media. They were all wrapped up in the idea of the "the first black president" even if he had no accomplishments, no character, no judgment no convictions beyond his own political ambition and never did a thing in his life to prove he had the ability to do any of the things he said he could do. The only conviction that he's ever been associated with is Rezko's.

Like those of us who knew Iraq was a huge mistake, we knew Obama was a mistake from the beginning.And we saw the same kind of spinelessness that kept the press from nailing Bush on Iraq at work with Obama because the press runs in a herd and they run on fear and their biggest fear is to be out there on their own when they prefer the safety of saying and doing what everyone else is saying and doing.

In Bush's case the press was afraid of being called unpatriotic. Katie Couric told of getting calls from the administration that she found intimidating and she actually thinks that feeling intimidated is an excuse for her caving in and buckling under to the pressure. In the case of Obama, the intimidation is being afraid of being called racist, or, not properly supportive enough of "the first black candidate for President:" even if he does say things like --

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience today..."

Not exactly Colin Powell. This is more than just a gaffe.That one sentence tells you all you need to know about Obama -- how truly empty he is. He is so used to just spewing nonsense, wrapping it some glossy wrapping paper and getting away with it that he himself isn't even paying attention to what he is saying anymore. This is from the candidate who said " words matter".

It is not possible for anyone much less a candidate for President, who has an ounce of sincerity to utter a sentence like that.And on Memorial Day no less. This is also the candidate who told a Chicago journalist at his book signing when he was still in the Illinois state legislature, "Maybe I ought to go back to the senate and actually do something".

It also tells you all you need to know about the press' standards, which aren't that different from Obama standards, since most of them also let it pass. Maybe because it was as much a reflection of their own inept judgement or their discomfort at realizing that they were taken in by a snake oil salesman, as much as anything else. Remember this was the candidate whose speech in Philadelphia they found "Lincolnesque".

There are two months to go before the convention. Clinton has only suspended her campaign not ended it. There is still time for Howard Dean to come to his senses assuming he has any left and make sure Hillary Clinton's name is on the ballot.Then let the process play out and see if after a few more bad decisions from Obama which are surely to come, super delegates are willing to make the same mistake twice. After what we've seen at Obama's first official attempt at doing anything, they might not.