Worst Answer of the Campaign

Well, if you missed it, Obama hired Jim Johnson to head his VP search committee. This would be the same Jim Johnson who got some "preferential" loans from Countrywide, the lender who Obama and every moral person thinks was particularly crappy during the mortgage crisis. So, someone asked the nominee how he could lambaste Countrywide and then employ someone who benefited from their malignant practices.

Obama's answer was so bad it defies description. Here are the words, as edited by MSNBC:

"Well, look ... first of all, I am not vetting my vice presidential search committee for their mortgages," Obama answered. "I mean this is a game that can be played -- everybody you know who is anybody 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. I mean at some point you know we just asked people to do their assignments. Jim Johnson has a very discreet task, as does Eric Holder, and that is to gather up information about potential vice presidential candidates -- they are performing that job well, it's a volunteer, unpaid position. And they are giving me information and then I will then exercise judgment in terms of who I want to select as a vice presidential candidate."

"These aren't folks who are working for me. They are not people, you know, who I have assigned to a job in the future administration. And ultimately, my assumption is that this is a discreet task that they are going to performing for me in the next two months."

That doesn't begin to convey how halting and awkward he sounded delivering the terrible non-answer.

This will begin a new, irregular segment, of Worst Answer of the Campaign so far, but it will take a lot to beat this doozy. If someone has video of the answer (couldn't find it on YouTube), please post it.