How busy are Bill Richardson’s busy hands?
Politico tries to answer the question by finding out what Kerry’s people learned when they vetted him for VP in 2004. Answer: inconclusive. Jim Johnson, a D.C. lawyer who did the vetting, will only say they he didn’t find anything that would have disqualified Richardson. Richardson’s campaign manager claims Johnson told him they found nothing having to do with sexual harassment; a reporter in New Mexico likewise claims to have gotten a call in July 2004 in which Johnson “sang Richardson’s praises.” He quoted Johnson at the time as saying he’d “looked very comprehensively at all of the information available to us” and discovered no impropriety. Others are a bit more coy: Three other people — either senior Kerry aides or Democrats involved in the vice presidential search process — said in interviews that Richardson’s past was not subject to any examination aimed at determining whether his personal conduct with women was a potential political problem. These Democrats, who declined to be q
