“We’ve addressed these rumors before. They are nothing more than typical Washington parlor games. It’s disappointing that while we are focused on reviving the economy and fighting two wars, others spend their time pointing fingers in an attempt to promote their own status.” – White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, via Wall Street Journal
Whether the Wall Street Journal has a solid story amidst the wild-eyed, anonymously sourced writing that breathlessly offers that the Administration is “holding discussions that could result in White House counsel Gregory Craig leaving his post,” is unknowable right now. The White House, the only source on record for the piece, is having none of it, with Emanuel’s office quick to swat it down.
What isn’t really in question is that Greg Craig has not served his President well.
The state secrets issue is a problematic stance, but it’s hardly shocking once Obama became part of the Presidents’ Club. And the idea of closing Gitmo isn’t an issue either, even though The Weekly Standard wants to make it one. Gitmo has to be closed, though no one is doubting that doing it won’t be easy. If it were we’d have done it already. Besides, keeping Gitmo open is untenable in an Obama presidency. But the real tipping point for Greg Craig was when he put Pres. Obama in a place where he had to reverse himself on releasing detainee photos, in a flip flop that revealed horrific legal advice that exposed the President to his adversaries, while it was clear that the timing of the release would coincide to Obama hitting Cairo just as the photos were to be released. It was a White House amateur hour moment, likely delivered, at least in part, through bad advice from Craig.
When you couple this with DADT, which is clearly under the national security umbrella, which Craig seems to partially hold up, the decision to not have the President issue an executive order (as Truman did on desegregating the military), but instead let legislation snake through at a snail’s pace, while pictures of a hunky fighter jock about to be kicked out of the Air Force blast across the country, clearly presents Obama look like a man who doesn’t deliver on promises. When you have Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who is about to be discharged even after heroic service, saying that explicitly, well, it’s a direct hit no commander in chief takes lightly from a vaunted military man who also has the backing of military groups across the country.
FISA is yet another issue where Greg Craig’s excuses for Obama remain incredulous to this day. But it was foreshadowing of the bad advice to come. From 2008:
“This was a deliberative process, and not something that was shooting from the hip,” Mr. Craig said. “Obviously, there was an element of what’s possible here. But he concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.”
Greg Craig may or may not lose his job, but so far, he’s not done the President much good.
It may not be fair to judge it like this, but it just seems like this WSJ piece is part of the shotgun blast coverage Pres. Obama is now getting since his poll numbers started to soften and he’s made himself vulnerable over the horrific mismanagement on health care messaging, which culminated in the botched press conference that led to the “beer summit” that took Obama further off message on health care. While Republicans dug in and down, continuing their well funded grass roots campaign in the void, with nothing short of well financed and well organized mobs bombarding legislators in their home districts, which will continue throughout the recess.
Greg Sargent asks the bottom line question: Is Obama’s Vaunted Political Operation Getting Outworked By Tea-Baggers?
Going after Craig is just a side show for the real battle, which is to take down Obama by scuttling health care. So Republicans are hitting the President wherever they can. It’s open season on all things Obama.
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