Patterico's Pontifications

5/19/2010

The Greg Craig Saga

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 4:21 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

President Obama named Greg Craig, a Clinton lawyer and confidante, as his first White House Counsel. Craig’s job was to roll back President Bush’s terrorism policies and close Guantanamo but, by Fall 2009, Craig had been sidelined as Obama realized his campaign promises were unworkable in fighting the war on terror. Craig’s resignation as White House counsel was accepted in November 2009 and he left in early January 2010.

As a candidate, Obama promised to enact tough ethics rules regarding former employees, and he spoke about it when Craig agreed to represent Goldman Sachs last month:

“Obama also said he isn’t embarrassed that Greg Craig, his former White House counsel, has been hired by Goldman Sachs. “He’s one of the top lawyers in the country,” Obama said. “He has a range of clients. But we have the toughest ethic rules that any president’s ever had.”

“The one thing that he knows is that he cannot talk to the White House,” Obama said. “He cannot lobby the White House. Once he left the White House, he cannot in any way use his former position to have any influence on us.”

One of Obama’s strengths is his ability to portray himself as a guardian of ethics and the public interest. One of his weaknesses is the facts often betray that image:

“President Barack Obama tried to avoid a high-profile ouster of his original White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, by coaxing him out of his job and into a federal judgeship, according to a new book.

Craig declined Obama’s offer, and his forced removal — which he learned of while reading the morning paper — caused a backlash by Craig’s Washington loyalists, who felt he was being treated shabbily, and by many liberals, who believed he was being punished for trying to fulfill Obama’s failed campaign promise to shut the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The details on last fall’s Craig imbroglio are among the revelations in Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” a behind-the-scenes narrative of the administration’s first year that comes out Tuesday.”

Alter’s book also portrays Craig’s departure as a showdown between Craig and Rahm Emanuel and contributes to the image of Obama’s trash-talking, male-dominated Administration.

Follow the link for more of the Obama drama. And stay tuned, because I have a feeling more Obama-is-fallible stories could surface.

— DRJ

13 Responses to “The Greg Craig Saga”

  1. Awful early for tell-all stories to be coming out of this administration.

    The wheels sure came off quickly.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  2. He offered Craig a judgeship – bribery is just an ingrained aspect of The Chicago Way.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  3. Sad

    Neo (7830e6)

  4. the HIM is not to be mocked! you will all be called to account by flag@whitehouse.gov

    Enoch_Root (174a66)

  5. I like Greg Craig, I just don’t like him all that much.

    ropelight (96295b)

  6. This is another test. I have not been able to successfully comment here in over 24 hrs , or see many posts that appear to have been made by others as I look at the recent comments ladder. The “sending mom to Arizona” thread says there are 28 comments. But I can only see 3 comments–the last one was from 9:04 this morning, shortly before I tried to comment. I know, whine, whine, whine but I am very unhappy not being able to interact with my friends about the great stories on the site.

    elissa (a1e1f3)

  7. Damn, I’m not fan of Jonathan Alter and I can’t stand Newsweek, but the more I hear about this book the more I feel like I want to read it. Maybe I can get it from the library.

    JVW (08e86a)

  8. So a former counsel of President Obama has been hired by the same financial firm that the SEC brought a civil suit against?

    Who’s JP Morgan Chase going to hire, Andy Stern?

    Another Chris (35bdd0)

  9. On behalf of males, I object to the reference to the Obama Administration as “male dominated.”

    I propose instead “adolescent boy-child dominated” as the more appropriate term.

    Beldar (f06464)

  10. No way a very good lawyer (Craig) going to get along with an empty suit (Obama).

    nk (db4a41)

  11. nk – Who decided he was a very good lawyer?

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  12. maybe its just in comparison to Ear Leader…..

    i’m fairly certain my Persian cat would win in a head to head comparison with the First Failure.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  13. I also object to the reference to the Obama Administration as “male dominated”!

    I mean, just because it’s full of pr*cks doesn’t mean . . .

    Icy Texan (deac71)


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