Your Future White House Consilieri: Long on Shadiness, Short on Ethics
By Shtuey Shtuey on December 28, 2008 at 9:50 AM in Current Affairs, Obama Administration
cross posted from Oh…My Valve!
Apart from conducting the Resident-Select’s whitewash of his transition team’s involvement with Blagogate, soon to be White House Council Greg Craig has been flying somewhat under the radar of late. At the outset let me say that I’m sorry, but unless you’re a singer, actor, or circus performer, having a first and last name that rhymes is definitely a strike against you in the game of life (having Bestor as a middle name must have made for a guaranteed pummeling on the playground of Phillips Exeter Academy, unless his parents were richer than the other kids). Unfortunately for the American people, Greg Craig has a lot worse things going for him than a rhyming name.
Here’s a quick refresher course on Greg Craig through the prism of the 2008 election cycle. As some of you may remember, John Podesta recruited Greg Craig to head President Clinton’s legal team during the impeachment hearings (as we all know now, it’s far worse to lie about fellatio in the White House than say about…weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which must be why Quadrophonic Speaker Pelosi didn’t call for impeachment hearings). Greg Craig was buds with Bill and Hillary back in Yale Law School. He was also one of the first of friends to throw Hillary under the bus, in 2007. First question I’d like to ask Greg Craig would be, “So who tipped you off that the primaries were going to be rigged, Coward Dean or Naughty Nazi Nancy?”
So let’s assume that Greg Craig knew the fix was in. What else has Greg Craig had his grubby little hands in while mucking about with the rich and powerful?
Let’s see…here’s a wholesome fellow…Pedro Miguel Gonzalez Pinzon. Cool name eh? He is a Panamanian legislator who was wanted in the 1992 murder of a U.S. soldier, Zak Hernandez Laporte. Awesome. He was acquitted of that murder, but is still under indictment in the U.S. Some of you might remember the subsequently underreported story of the conflict of interest faced by Greg Craig during the election.
Seems that Mr. Pinzon was elected President of the Panamanian legislature in 2007. Many of our upstanding and ethical legislators, who would never consider giving themselves a raise while bilking us out of billions of dollars for their wealthy Wall Street benefactors, have very righteously lifted their support for the Panama/US Free Trade Agreement (PUFTA) as long as Pinzon was playing a part in the negotiations. And guess who was among them? Why it’s our own Teleprompter Jesus, Barry Soetoro. Because he is a pillar of morality, Pampers had also refused to move on a vote regarding the agreement. Thank goodness we have such virtuous legislators showing the way to Utopia.
During the election his Barryness said he would not vote for the agreement while the issue of the Pinzon case remained unresolved. He has since been quoted by AFP as saying that, the success of American business depends on, “strong, robust trade, and open doors for American products.” Thankfully, the Resident-select also assured us that any trade agreements he signs will have, “the interests of our whole nation and our workers at heart.” Wow, I feel much better now. I guess he plans on paving the road to hell with good intentions. Great. I think we ought to just assume that the agreement will be a done deal and we’ll all get screwed. That way no one will feel surprised when it happens.
For his part in the affair, Greg Craig found himself in quite a conflict of interest pickle, working as a foreign policy advisor for Pampers, and legal council to Pinzon. Fortunately he and Commander Waffalo worked out a transparent, and morally sound solution to the problem. Greg Craig, according to Panama News Briefs, simply told everyone, “The campaign knows of my involvement and I have removed myself from participation in discussions with the candidate or his advisers on relations between the United States and Panama.” Another political ethics disaster narrowly averted.
But the Panama Pajama Game is only one of a slew of shadeofgreynesses for Greg Craig and Latin America.
Though the Council on Hemispheric Affairs reports that he had an “open door” for victims of human rights abuses while working for Ted Kennedy, Greg Craig apparently ran afoul of the Bolivians when he represented former Bolivian President Gonzálo Sánchez de Lozada and former Minister of Defense Carlos Sánchez Berzaín.
Sánchez Berzaín and Sánchez de Lozada have been indicted in the United States for their being involved in the killing of 67 protestors in El Alto, Bolivia during the fall of 2003. Apparently, then-president Sánchez de Lozada ordered troops into El Alto and Sánchez Berzaín gave them approval to open fire on unarmed civilians. Whoops!
According to CoHA:
Human rights advocates believe that Craig’s continued representation of Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín demonstrates his readiness to defend the interests of the rich and famous against the poor (emphasis added by me). Admittedly, such charges complicate his reputation in Latin America, and for some bring into question his true commitment to regional solidarity.
Readiness to defend the rich and famous against the poor? Gosh, that sounds like a guy who would be standing up for someone like say, Ron Blagojevich, not someone helping bring hope and change to Washington.
And let us not forget how Greg Craig spun like a dreidle on speed in the wake of the Flip Flop Waffle a la Pampers this past summer, when the Resident-Select got whiplash while swinging from filibustering FISA to voting for it. In what could only be described as massive rationalization of garbage, Greg Craig said that Dear Leader felt, “it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.”
That’s right, when faced with defending our right to privacy and our Fourth Amendment rights, Greg Craig told America that it was better for his boss to screw the Constitution, and let the telecom companies off the hook for helping Resident Bush tap our phones without warrants. You don’t suppose that had anything to do with the fact that Pampers took money from California lobbyists for AT&T, or that AT&T was the principle corporate sponsor of the Democratic National Convention on Mt. Olympus do you? Naaaaah. That’s just crazy talk.
This is really just scratching the surface of the moral ambiguity that is Greg Craig. Perhaps he is perfect for Pampers. Not so great though for those who were expecting hope and change. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll find some morally ambiguous way to justify the ethical circus that the media will refer to as the Obama administration.
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