The American Spectator : Obama Goes to the Mattresses

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Obama Goes to the Mattresses

By The Prowler on 11.16.09 @ 6:09AM

The ugly exit of Gregory Craig and unprecedented rise of consigliere Robert Bauer.

The ugliness surrounding the pushing out of White House Counsel Gregory Craig was months in the making, but culminated on the day on which the White House announced that the Justice Department would be prosecuting Guantanamo prisoners on U.S. soil, the very project Craig was supposedly brought into the administration to bring about.

Last Friday it remained unclear why Craig was being shown the door, but it was clear he had angered several different constituencies. Rumors -- some generated by current Hillary Clinton allies at the State Department -- swirled that Craig had failed to gain the proper security clearances for his job, or that he had run afoul of the First Lady's staff in not moving quickly enough to clear several staffers. Another rumor had him angering White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett for not supporting her hand-picked political appointees, such as former Obama aide Van Jones. Yet another had him being caught out leaking far too many details about the Obama Administration's failed Gitmo effort.

Craig, who is considered one of the more connected of the Washington insiders brought into the Obama administration, but who long had been associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton due to his role as one of then-President Clinton's attorneys during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment process, had been rumored to be leaving his White House post for several months. That the Clinton operation was seeking to smear Craig raised some eyebrows, but Craig made a fateful decision last year to support Obama, and wrote a famous op-ed during the primary season that was seen as an attempt to break through Hillary Clinton's wall of donors and political support. "We've had it out for him for quite a while," says one current Clinton loyalist who is not in the administration. "Everyone gets a second chance, but before that can happen, one needs to some penance. Greg is getting his penance."

But the main reason most often cited for Craig's exit was his failure to successfully manage a multi-Cabinet department process to shut down Gitmo and relocate more than 200 terrorists held there to other secure facilities. The shutting down of Guantanamo is but one of several high-profile promises Obama has failed to deliver on to his most leftist and ardent supporters.

Craig was managing one of the largest White House staffs, with far more attorneys and staffers on White House Counsel's Office payroll than at any time in the Bush Administration. It rivals the Counsel's Office staffing level of the Clinton impeachment era. At the start of the Administration, Craig's staff took on a decidedly political edge, and it included the White House's political opposition researcher in its ranks. Within several months, that staffer left, and the post was moved back to the Democratic National Committee, where Obama's own political operation is now housed.

But more mysterious than Craig's exit was the announced move eight days ago by Craig's deputy, Cassandra Butts, a Harvard classmate of Obama's and one of the administration's highest-ranking African Americans. Earlier this month, the White House announced she was leaving to become counsel to Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Butts was believed to be the White House point person in vetting a number of high profile Obama appointments, not the least of whom was Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Butts was viewed as one of Obama's closest "Harvard friends" in the administration, a group that had known Obama for a number of years, and worked tirelessly on his behalf to get him to the position he holds today.

After Butts quietly resigned on Friday, November 6, friends began calling reporters to insist her resignation had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with her desire to work in the anti-poverty arena, an issue she cares about. "The whispers had already started that there was something odd going on here," says a former Butts colleague in the White House counsel's office. "We were really caught off guard by her resignation, but everyone here has been kind of on high alert for several weeks now. A lot of meetings behind closed doors, that kind of stuff."

The result is that Craig and Butts -- two respected attorneys -- are on the outside of a White House, and Obama's personal attorney, Robert Bauer, who has worked on a number of Obama personal issues over the past five years, is now taking the Counsel job.

In the capacity as Obama's personal attorney, Bauer has worked on issues related to Obama's ties to former Obama fundraiser and friend and now convicted felon, Tony Rezko, Obama's convoluted birth certificate and citizenship law suit, which was dismissed by the courts as frivolous, Obama's ties to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He also has knowledge of Obama's work as a community organizer and his other efforts going back to the Obama's days in Chicago and, further back, New York.

Beyond his efforts as Obama's personal attorney, Bauer also served as Obama's key campaign lawyer, and had associates and partners from his law firm coordinating and working for just about every major labor union and special interest group with ties to the Obama campaign, including the Service Employees International Union. Bauer also served as counsel to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and has been serving as chief counsel to the Democrat National Committee, where he oversaw the integration of Obama's campaign operation, Organizing for America, into the party's infrastructure.

Bauer is also married to now-former White House communications director Anita Dunn, whose resignation earlier this month sparked the rumors that Craig's exit -- and her husband's ascension -- were imminent.

The Craig to Bauer shift is viewed as a move made, in large part, by Rahm Emanuel, who some White House insiders say is already looking to a 2010 election cycle that will require unprecedented involvement by the White House to maintain workable majorities in both the House and the Senate. As well, while the Tony Rezko trials may be over, the prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and several associates will begin early next year, and the case built by current U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald may enmesh the President, not only because Rezko, a close friend to Obama, who helped him buy a home (in a deal that may have been handled, in part, by Bauer), is deeply involved in the Blagojevich scandals, as are a number of other Obama supporters and allies. Some former Obama staffers from the Senate point to the recent plea agreement of former Blagojevich chief of staff Alonzo "Lon" Monk, who has ties to Obama and Rezko, as an event that had some senior White House officials wary of the direction Fitzgerald might take the Blagojevich trial.

"[Bauer] knows where all the bodies are buried, and this indicates that there is something amiss with this White House, or at least someone is nervous about what is going on," says a former Obama transition team adviser. "You don't just make these kinds of changes for the sake of rearranging the deck chairs, and not at this time with at least three legislative and policy decisions looming that the Counsel's office would have been deeply involved in."

"This doesn't come close to the 'Saturday Night Massacre' in the Nixon days, but it's pretty damn weird," says Washington, D.C.-based Democrat lawyer, who has held counsel positions both in the Senate and in previous presidential administrations. "I'm surprised not only that the press seems to be ignoring the fact that two presidential lawyers have left at about the same time, but that no one seems to care that for the first time, I think ever, we have a President's personal attorney also serving as White House counsel. I don't care if Bob [Bauer] recuses himself from future personal legal business, this should be troubling to anyone who cares about the Executive Office of the President."

topics:
Gregory Craig, Robert Bauer, Cassandra Butts

Letter to the Editor View all comments (46) | Leave a comment

JAWilson| 11.16.09 @ 6:45AM

Bauer's hire sounds a little like OJ hiring the attorney who handled incriminating evidence so he was out of reach.

Alan Brooks| 11.17.09 @ 11:48AM

But he is going to be re-elected.
Republicans have no cohesion now that the Cold War is over.

It has been 20 years!

ohyeah?| 11.18.09 @ 9:04PM

We do now. DEAL.

Appleby| 11.16.09 @ 6:46AM

The race now is to see how long the media can prevent this story from progressing to the level of proletarian consciousness -- and when their next pretend crisis will be launched, now that Swine Flu and Global Warming have both been pretty well blown off by the proletariat (except here in Canada, although even here it is beginning to bore people whose real concern is hanging onto the job they have or trying to find one anywhere, doing anything, if they dont.) Unfortunately we are dealing mainly with a generation of proles for whom life on Earth began the day they personally were born. Its very hard to get people like these to connect the dots.

This is all beginning to remind me of the rise of Nicolae Carpathia in the first Left Behind book.

ibeds| 11.16.09 @ 7:15AM

This is a strange title. Obama Goes to the mattresses

Eric Damon| 11.16.09 @ 10:47AM

This is a phrase from the original "Godfather" when the Corleones were at war with the other families. The best button men (hit men) were housed in safehouses together, many sleeping on mattresses laid on the floor, so that they could be easily dispatched if someone needed to be whacked. So it makes perfect sense, since this seems to be exactly what Obama is doing; he's getting the people he trusts the most around him so that they can do his political bidding ASAP.

Otis, my man!| 11.16.09 @ 12:11PM

I thought the phrase referred to dispersing the Godfather's troops to unknown locations so they could not be easily whacked themselves.

Alan Brooks| 11.17.09 @ 11:52AM

"leave the gun"
"take the cannoli."

E. Patrick Mosman| 11.16.09 @ 7:16AM

The D.C.-based Democrat lawyer who is quoted as saying "I'm surprised not only that the press seems to be ignoring the fact that two presidential lawyers have left at about the same time" must be the 21st century version of Rip van Winkle as the press and the media as a whole have ignored Obama's lack of any record for years. MSM's failure to do due diligence led to general ignorance of who or what Obama was, is and what his socialistic goals are. There was no investigation of his past, little or no information of many of Obama's dealings with the likes of Ayers, Dohern, Rezco, Frank Marshall as well as the 20 year relationship that he and his family had with Reverend Wright. No in depth investigation of his Columbia and Harvard years, no grades or interviews with professors, college friends and fellow students that knew him. No searching into whom he met in Pakistan, who supplied his cocaine and other mind altering drugs. His confessed use of cocaine would bar him as a military man from any position dealing with nuclear weapons as an enlisted man or as an officer and he is now Commander in Chief of the largest nuclear power in the world, the absurdity is the height of the absurd. No discussion of his accomplishments, if any, as his past is written in invisible ink. Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose in an October 2008 show confessed that they know little or nothing about Obama after covering him for 21 months:
Transcript:'
ROSE: I don't know what Barack Obama's worldview is.
BROKAW: No, I don't, either.
ROSE: I don't know how he really sees where China is.
BROKAW: We don't know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
ROSE: I don't really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
BROKAW: Yeah, it's an interesting question.
ROSE: He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational (sic) speeches.
BROKAW: Two of them! I don't know what books he's read.
ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
BROKAW: There's a lot about him we don't know.
America was asked to buy the proverbial pig-in-a-poke as President.

For the real Obama check out the 2008 presidential platform of the CPUSA(Communist Party USA) at : http://cpsua.org
Or as Norman Thomas , the long time Socialist party Presidential
candidate predicted:
"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under
the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist
program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without
knowing how it happened.

bob| 11.17.09 @ 5:59PM

Everyone knew all of the stuff you recite. The choice was between him and "the maverick" and "the rogue" who act impulsively and then insist that reality conform to their impulsive choices, with vituperation for anyone who doesn't agree. People had enough of that with W.

rwoodward61| 11.18.09 @ 6:02PM

Your an idiot. Nobody knew nothing about your Hopey Change canidate. He is the most unknown canidate in the history of politics. You might as well put a bag over his head and put him on the Gong Show.

Thomas Brown| 11.19.09 @ 11:56AM

Careful, there, sparky. Your phrase "Your an idiot" is a failure of third-grade English.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.16.09 @ 9:22AM

Sorry, folks. My historian hat comes out. This reminds me of the NAZI and Stalinist purges contantly going on in their times.

MattSwartz| 11.16.09 @ 10:55AM

It's like a Rorschach card. You'd have to be looking for them to see them. I don't trust this crowd, either, but resignations are always a constant.

Dixie Pixie| 11.16.09 @ 10:56AM

Wrong Again Ken
The Obama administration is blundering from debacle to disaster. Naturally the long knives came out as the Obama minions try to pin the multiple political failures on the weakest member. This is just the beginning of the unraveling of the Obama administration. More fun and frivolity to follow.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.16.09 @ 11:33AM

Dixie Pixie
If I was wrong...why did you just say the exact same things I said? I just added a little historical perspective. This is not America's first rodeo, lovely lady.
I obviously agree with your actual agreement with me agreeing with you. (smile)

Dixie Pixie| 11.16.09 @ 12:43PM

To: Ken(Old Texican)
Congratulations on your rhetorical whiffing.

First there is a difference between a political purge and jumping ship before one is the loser of the political blame game. The former is lethal attack from above and the latter is usually due to a metaphorical knife attack from below. The Obama has not degenerated into the depths of the Stalinist or Hitlerian regimes. The Obama regime has not dropped that far yet.

Second, It is Gentleman not Lady.
The “handle” was suggested by another TAS Online post writer. I use the handle to confuse the Obama “Brute Squad” of the “Office of Suspicious Internet Posts”. Apparently the maneuver is working as you were fooled. Most Obama minions are not as smart as your writing declares you to be. So, I must be in the clear.

PS:::: What is the update on the Team America operation?

Big J| 11.16.09 @ 1:49PM

Dixie,

If I may, we are still gathering the troops at www.myteamusa.org. In order to make a significant difference, numbers are the key.

Stay tuned:

What did the dog say when he got his tail caught in the door?

"Won't be long now".

;)

Dixie Pixie| 11.16.09 @ 3:51PM

What is the wisdom of a lop-tail cat.

Don't let a small child nor a Democrat snatch your tail.
You will regret it ;-)

Ken (Old Texican| 11.16.09 @ 11:00PM

Hi back, Dix,bix.
Sorry, I did not mean to emasculate you. (tee hee)
I lied. I did too.
The best I could understand it you and I were in agreement.
Evidently we were not. You are certainly free to be stupid.
Ain't it great to be Americans...until any stupidity will get you shot?

You just keep on being cutsie. please quit....or go on and get your operation.

Dixie Pixie| 11.17.09 @ 11:19AM

To: Ken
Now you are just being snarky.
Save your insults for >Liberal Reader< and >S L Toddard< who seem to enjoy flame wars.
You just need to tighten up your logic. For example the meme of the thread is personal shifts in the Obama administration.

Consider in any other administration, going before a joint session of Congress and claiming his plan has such magical features and then find out the staff people never submitted the the plan to Congress. Why the personal embarrassment would be politically catastrophic. Losing a major piece of legislation by the staff would cause heads to roll and a lot of staffers would be looking for work.

In short the current shift in personal does not come close to the “Night of the Long Knives” or the Stalinist purges of the Red Army. Curious is it not that hardily a ripple has appeared despite the multiple and ongoing failures of the Obama administration. Given the facts it is curious that more staff has not been fired.

SoCon| 11.17.09 @ 4:16PM

Kinda' harsh, Dixie; Ken's on OUR side, remember?

justawhoaman| 11.16.09 @ 9:39AM

" In the capacity as Obama's personal attorney, Bauer has worked on issues related to Obama's ties to former Obama fundraiser and friend and now convicted felon, Tony Rezko, Obama's convoluted birth certificate and citizenship law suit, which was dismissed by the courts as frivolous, Obama's ties to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He also has knowledge of Obama's work as a community organizer and his other efforts going back to the Obama's days in Chicago and, further back, New York."

The question of citizenship status for which Bob Bauer has defended Obama has never been tried in court as none of the defendants have had standing, or the case was presented in the wrong court. Not a single case has been dismissed as frivolous.

Get your facts straight. The obvious fact that Obama's father was a British subject alone illustrates that he (Obama) is not eligible for POTUS at birth (two citizen parents are required for the office) and this case has not been tried... yet. Good thing Omao has his personal attorney at arms length now just as new cases might prove interesting.

Thomas Brown| 11.19.09 @ 12:04PM

Right. Everybody... all the States, Electors, and the Loyal Opposition, who knew his father was Kenyan, ignored the notion that that made him ineligible right up through election day.

And now Saint Oily Taints is gonna come to the rescue, and rid us of this Dictator and Usurper.

Obama is a Natural Born Citizen, and one of the most competent men to ever occupy the office. Get over it, and show some respect.

Oldefarte| 11.16.09 @ 10:37AM

We can ALL only 'hope' that Fitzgerald's information/legal case will facilitate a 'change' [as soon as possible] in this White House!!!!

Mattled| 11.16.09 @ 10:46AM

Rezko could be a multi-millionaire by the time he leaves prison by singing ALL he knows about Obambi.

Think of the book royalties by exposing Ofraud?

astounded| 11.18.09 @ 1:18PM

Tony Rezko will not get out of prison alive if, and when, this thing starts reaching upward. And mark my words, it will.

Barack Obama is as dirty as anyone in the Clinton WH, maybe dirtier given his connections to the Daley's criminal enterprise in Chicago.

Yosemeti Sam| 11.16.09 @ 11:09AM

LOL.

Clintonista chickens flying the coop - er White House.

Lots of chicken metaphors. LOL.

Nala| 11.16.09 @ 11:27AM

Obama is a good man, as for me.

Doctor Right| 11.16.09 @ 11:35AM

Sounds to me that as things in Chicago (Rezko, Blago, etc) heat up, Obow-ma is just making sure that Bauer, who knows "where the bodies are buried", can't be compelled to testify against him.

Rich Rostrom| 11.16.09 @ 1:02PM

justwhoaman is right: the lawsuits were dismissed for want of standing, not frivolity.

And wrong: there is no requirement that both of President's parents be citizens. One parent is sufficient.

Or even none. General Phil Sheridan was considered for the Presidency, even though his parents were Irish immigrants fresh of the boat. (There was some question whether Sheridan was born before they reached the U.S. - but if he was born here, that was enough.)

There is not much doubt that Obama was born in the U.S., and none that his mother was a U.S. citizen.

Thus there doesn't seem to be any possible stuff on his long-form birth certificate that could disqualify him. So why doesn't he release it?

Bob Miller| 11.16.09 @ 1:49PM

By the Constitution... the POTUS has to be a Natural Born Citizen... that is TWO CITIZEN PARENTS.

The issue is THERE IS NO CASE LAW that clearly defines the issue of Natural Born Citizen.

There is no LEGAL requirement for The States to VET a Presidental Candidate... once his party submits the necessary paperwork to put him on the Ballot.

Since Clinton there are no laws that require a Secuitry Clearance on certain individuals.. Obam because of his POT, COKE AND CRACK use as a college student would be questioned for ANY security clearance.

You see THERE IS NO LAW ON THE BOOKS that prevensts him from being POTUS..

Why do you think he has so many lawyers in the White House...

IF THERE IS NO CASE LAW... he can do as he damn well pleases and that he exactly what he is doing.

IMPACH OBAMA

The American Patriots/Taxpayers MUST vote out all those on the hill with more than three terms in office... ON both sides of the fence.

rwoodward61| 11.18.09 @ 6:24PM

Exactly...why does he not release it? Sealing your life history and birth records creates serious concern and doubt. Americans don't like to be played the fool. Democrates put up a canidate that they felt could win and ignored his background. It is the job of the DNC to vet thier canidate before putting them before the public. Instead they gagged the media, put up idiotic fact check websites, internet trolls, fake documents, fake voter registration, millions of dollars of foreign donations and (this may sound like a stretch) crashed the economy right before the election. If you want to ignore the last accusation go right ahead but I personally do not believe the 500 billion that got pulled out of markets right before the election was a mere coincidence. To this day we still do not know who it was that pulled all that money out. Where is the investigation? We will never know until this congress gets its pink slip in 2010.

Castle the King| 11.16.09 @ 1:08PM

So if you play chess,then you'll know what I'm implying here.This is what Obama is doing by putting Bauer in this position.So come to expect the phrase "Executive Privilage" being used if Fitzgerald tries to hit the stratosphere with the investigation of Blago.Like Bush to Harriet Myers.My gut feeling on Craig is this,he was probably opposed to the closing od Gitmo.And he probably opposed the terrorist trial in N.Y.

BuffaloBob| 11.16.09 @ 10:39PM

Possible alternative titles:
Political Paranoia 101
-or-
How's that 'keep-your-enemies-even-closer' strategy working out for you, Rahm?

Richard Baker| 11.17.09 @ 7:30AM

Sounds like the thought process of Don Corleone.

Gerald Stephens| 11.17.09 @ 2:22PM

ISN'T THE INTRIGUE ...
more fun than one can imagine.

The whole farce represent the prodromal elements to implosion of the lunatic left, socialist fools, progressives, and other assorted warped intellectually challenged.

The bloody wheels are falling off at a rate not previously possible to predict; 57 states?, unknown congressional districts with saved and/or created jobs, climbing unemployment in the face of deficits that even Joe citizen has come to guess might be unsettling, not to mention a Chicago gangster usurper playing president on the world stage becoming the ultimate laughing stock.

Aside from the fact that the situation is fraught with danger for the Nation, this is the most spectacular object lesson I have ever witnessed and will not deny loving it.

Gerald Stephens
Hartford, CT

Gerald Stephens| 11.17.09 @ 2:25PM

I FORGOT

...and good night S. L. Toddard wherever you are!

Jackson| 11.17.09 @ 4:14PM

...and screw you, too, Turddard. Jackass.

AJJONES| 11.18.09 @ 11:13AM

The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under
the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist
program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without
knowing how it happened

biffguiznot@ymail.com| 11.19.09 @ 9:16AM

This comment is wrong: "no one seems to care that for the first time, I think ever, we have a President's personal attorney also serving as White House counsel. "

Think Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers. So, this would not be the "first time ever," just the first time for President Obama.

Try to find some other way to vent your spleen. You have failed miserably this time. Pathetic.

tbek| 11.19.09 @ 12:08PM

Hey,

Harriet Myers had a loooong history with George Bush, serving as his attorney in Texas on several issues, before hiring her as White House counsel. Don't you all have any intellectual honesty at all. I mean, do you even understand the term hypocracy.

chercast| 11.20.09 @ 10:57AM

Bauer.....isn't he a partner at Perkins Coie.....the firm that handled ethics complaint against Gov. Palin related to Alaska Defense Fund. Looks to me like Bauer needs to be in place for 2010 election cycle. At least, Palin knows how to move around their "block". Go get them guv!

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