Here’s Barry on Countrywide Financial:

However, it appears that Sen. Obama has no qualms with hiring people who have profited from doing business with those who are responsible for the “infection” of our economy:

Now that Barack Obama is the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, we are starting to see more of the inner circle of the junior senator of Illinois . And it should give most people substantial cause to pause.

One name that has been ringing lots of bells is that of Eric Holder. He’s helping Sen. Obama vet prospective running mates.

Mr. Holder was a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who had designs on becoming attorney general in a Gore administration. He played a pivotal role in securing a dubious presidential pardon for Marc Rich, the commodities trader who fled the country in the 1980s to avoid prosecution for tax evasion. It was an outrageous situation that even had prominent Democrats screaming.

Then there’s James Johnson, another member of the vice-presidential screening committee. The Wall Street Journal reports he took at least five sweetheart real estate loans totaling more than $7 million from Countrywide Financial Corp. The rates were below market averages. A Johnson spokesman defends the loans as “well within the band of standard industry practices … .”

Countrywide, of course, is the poster child for the subprime mortgage mess. And Obama, once upon a time, lashed out against Countrywide for making sweetheart deals with its executives.

You are judged by the company you keep. And, thus far, Barack Obama’s company isn’t very flattering.

Here’s video of Sen. Obama’s justification for working with such people–which is, when you boil it all down, that he can’t be bothered to vet all of his employees. That should make for some interesting hires once he’s in the White House: