In St. Louis this morning:

Obama certainly has a point: Sometimes you have to say enough's enough. Except that what sparked the uproar in the first place was Obama's criticism of the Clinton campaign's ties to Countrywide. So maybe it's time to take his own advice.

Also, tangentially related? Obama might get caught on that one. I'm not sure the guy who's in charge of picking the candidate who could be a heartbeat away from the presidency is tangentially related.

Here's the Tribune's write-up:

ST. LOUIS - Sen. Barack Obama said today that he does not think there is a need to "vet the vetters," as he stood by members of his vice presidential search committee who have come under Republican criticism in recent days for their ties to sub-prime mortgage lenders.

"I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages," he said. "This is a game that can be played, everybody, you know, 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 simply to gather up information about potential vice-presidential candidates. They're performing that job well. It is a volunteer, unpaid position and they're giving me information and 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're not people I have assigned to a particular job in a future administration and, you know, ultimately my assumption is this is a discreet task that they are going to be performing for me over the next two months."

Obama's search committee became a point of criticism Monday for Sen. John McCain, who questioned Obama's appointment of Johnson, citing the executives ties to Countrywide Financial Corp.

Johnson, a former Fannie Mae CEO, received personal loans at preferential terms that were directed by Countrywide's CEO, according to a weekend report in The Wall Street Journal.

--------------------------------------------
Follow the RCP Blog on Twitter.
Become a fan of RCP on Facebook.
--------------------------------------------