At a media availability in St. Louis this morning, Barack Obama told reporters that while he has railed against Countrywide Financial Corporation on the campaign trail, it’s OK to have VP vetter Jim Johnson as a volunteer. Johnson came under criticism yesterday when it was learned that he may have gotten favorable loan rates from the embattled Countrywide, whose top executives were accused in March of exacerbating the home mortgage crisis.

“First of all, I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages,” Obama began.

“But shouldn’t you?” a reporter interjected.

“Well no - it becomes sort of a - 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,” he explained.

Johnson has a “discreet” task, Obama said that’s done on a volunteer basis. “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,” he said, giving Johnson’s relationship with Countrywide and another Obama veep vetter, Eric Holder’s involvement in the Marc Rich scandal a pass.

Just four days prior, Obama told reporters on board his campaign plane that “there is no decision that’s gonna be more important before the November election.” According to Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod, Johnson’s potential loan problem won’t affect his vetting duties. “The job he’s doing has nothing to do with any of these issues. It’s essentially an executive screening function that he’s done before, so you know, there’s nothing that would get in the way of his doing that,” Axelrod told FOX News yesterday.

Of the Countrywide scandal that broke a few months ago, Obama said at the time in a statement, “We should be reprimanding them, not rewarding them. Rewarding their bad behavior just encourages others to pursue the same kinds of irresponsible practices that led us into this financial mess in the first place.”

Team Obama hit back today after McCain told FOX that Barack Obama has shown a “contradiction” by talking tough and not following through by naming Jim Johnson as the head of his veep search team. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that Johnson may have received preferential loan treatment from Countrywide, a mortgage company Obama has railed against on the stump.

Here’s the Obama camp’s response:

“It’s the height of hypocrisy for the McCain campaign to try and make this an issue when John Green, one of John McCain’s top advisors, lobbied for Ameriquest, which was one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders and a key player in the mortgage crisis. As President, Senator Obama will crack down on fraudulent lenders and bring real relief to Americans struggling in the grip of the housing crisis—the kind of change that works for the American people.” – Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

The McCain campaign in turn responded that Green in fact resigned from his position at Ameriquest “months ago and isn’t a lobbyist in accordance with our policy.” They stressed that Green is a volunteer who has “zero role in policy development,” and concluded, “It’s a totally false analogy” to compare Green to Johnson.

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WASHINGTON, DC — Sen. John McCain attacked his Democratic rival Monday for contradicting himself by naming an official to his campaign who allegedly received preferential loan treatment from a controversial mortgage company that Sen. Barack Obama has been criticizing on the trail.

“I think it suggests a bit of a contradiction talking about how his campaign is gonna be not associated with people like that. Clearly he is very much associated with that,” McCain told Fox News’ Carl Cameron in an interview today, referring to Jim Johnson who Obama has tapped to head up his VP search process.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Johnson received more than $7 million in loans from Countrywide Financial, at least two of which were at below-market rate, stemming from a relationship with the company’s CEO, Angelo Mozilo.

See more of Carl Cameron’s interview with the presumptive GOP nominee tonight on Special Report.

See full interview below, where McCain also says an Obama presidency would be a second term for President Carter.

PART I and  PART II