Greg Craig Selected as White House Counsel

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President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Washington lawyer Gregory B. Craig, who served as President Bill Clinton's lead attorney during the 1998 impeachment proceedings, to be his White House counsel, according to an individual involved with the transition.

Craig has been a longtime adviser to former president Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but became a close adviser to Obama during the campaign, reportedly serving as the stand-in for Sen. John McCain during debate preparations.

Transition officials declined to comment, and Craig did not return calls left on his machine.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/11/16/greg_craig_selected_as_white_h.html">WaPo - read more

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1. Watch this

http://www.truveo.com/Obama-Advisor-Answers-Bolivia-Questions/id/1215401540

Referring to a massacre in Bolivia ordered by one of Craig's clients, Craig says: "We do not accept the characterization of those events as a massacre.... what happened there did not involve crimes against humanity... it involved tragically civil disturbances which cost lives"

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3136/gone_but_not_forgotten/">Read more here

Gone, But Not Forgotten
Why Bolivians want the United States to extradite their exiled ex-president

President Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada, widely recognized as the architect of Bolivia’s neoliberal “shock therapy,” had orchestrated the gas deal, and on Oct. 11 he ordered the military into El Alto to quell the protests and break the blockades. By the end of October, more than 60 demonstrators were dead and 400 wounded—the result of soldiers firing “large-caliber weapons, including heavy machine guns,” into the crowd, as the Catholic Church testified in a public statement. León, stopped by troops along with four others, was unarmed when she was shot. Among the others killed were small children and a pregnant woman. In the wake of the massacres, Sánchez de Lozada fled the country for the United States, where he remains today.

On Feb. 1, the Bolivian Supreme Court issued an indictment for Sánchez de Lozada that paves the way for an extradition request to be sent to the United States (along with the extradition of two of his ministers, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín and Jorge Berindoague, who also fled to the United States in 2003). The request will likely arrive in the United States in May. For his role in the massacre, known in Bolivia as “Black October,” Sánchez de Lozada is wanted to stand trial for homicide, among other crimes, and faces a 30-year sentence if convicted.

[Judi Lynn]

4. What a miserable shame. It's hard to believe a man who helped a Cuban father get his son back,

so he could take him home, away from the monstrous, rabid right-wing, howling idiots in Miami, would turn around a defend a man who had used his power as President to mow down protesting poor, indigenous Bolivian people, after he had reamed them.

It's NOT a massacre when you have your troops lay waste to people in the streets. O.K. Fine by me. Words no longer have their original meaning, apparently. A formal declaration that if you can by hook or crook make it into office like _{George W. Bush,} or "Goni," you are more than welcome to freestyle, even open up machine guns on citizens protesting.

This was a deeply bad choice.

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2. Some commentary here

http://casa-del-duderino.blogspot.com/2008/11/massive-dick-gets-obama-post.html">Massive dick gets Obama post

Obama's Bolivia adviser Greg Craig (who also happens to represent fugative ex-Pres "Goni" wanted for genocide) just got a promotion. He is now to be tapped for White House counsel, making the likelihood of an Evo-Obama pow-wow ever so slim. As Down South previously noted, Goni's other lawyer Howard Gutman, who called Bolivia's extradition request "part of a political offensive orchestrated by Evo Morales against democracy and those he considers his political enemies", is also an original member of Obama's Financial Committee. With this many WASP jackasses around it would be wise not to call Obama a brother.

[Billy Burnett]

3. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

US hegemony is a bipartisan endeavor - by any means necessary.

OUR BRAND IS CRISIS
http://www.kochlorberfilms.com/Theatrical/infopage.aspx?Id=16

For decades, U.S. strategists-for-hire have been quietly molding the opinions of voters and the messages of candidates in elections around the world. They have worked for presidential candidates on every continent (in Britain, Israel, India, Korea, South Africa, Venezuela, Brazil, to name a few…) Without the noise of tanks or troops, these Americans have been spreading our brand of democracy from the Middle East to the middle of the South American jungle. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS is an astounding look at one of their campaigns and its earth-shattering aftermath. With flabbergasting access to think sessions, media training and the making of smear campaigns, we watch how the consultants’ marketing strategies shape the relationship between a leader and his people. And we see a shocking example of how the all-American art of branding can affect the “spreading of democracy” overseas.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/our_brand_is_crisis/

Synopsis: Rachel Boynton's excellent, probing documentary goes behind-the-scenes to show the manipulation and orchestration that is involved in big-time political campaigning. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS follows members of the consulting firm of Greenberg Carville Shrum to Bolivia, where they have been hired to help controversial candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada reclaim the presidency. With only a few weeks left before the election, consultants Jeremy Rosner, Stan Greenberg, and James Carville work their magic, softening Goni's liberal image and shaping his message to appeal to the masses. In his typically audacious fashion, Carville delivers some of the film's most unforgettable quips. Meanwhile, the unemployment situation is threatening to spark a full-fledged national riot, raising the stakes even higher. Boynton's film is edited at a brisk, taut pace, adding drama to the already tense proceedings. An insightful after-the-fact interview with Rosner provides even greater context for the horrific situation that unfolded a year later and which, in fact, opens the film with a bang. Enlightening, engaging, and thought provoking, OUR BRAND IS CRISIS is a vital, profound work of nonfiction cinema.