Greg Craig, senior foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign, went on MSNBC this afternoon to defend his candidate's decision to skip a visit with wounded U.S. troops in Germany. The key exchange:
Andrea Mitchell: You were facing the Pentagon saying this can't be political, you can't bring aides, you can't bring General Gration, who is a retired military officer, why not just have him go and make it clear you weren't bringing all the others?
Greg Craig: The Pentagon said they were treating it as a campaign event, that this was politically sponsored, and the Pentagon told us that that was the fact of the matter, that he was engaged in a political event. So, to avoid putting the troops in the middle of a political situation, Senator Obama said "I'd rather take them out of it, rather than be seen as exploiting them. Let's not politicize the troops." And what has happened is, that ad and what Senator McCain has said has done precisely that. They are using the troops in a political fashion. It's disgraceful.
Craig should know disgraceful when he sees it, having personally represented an assassin (John Hinckley), a dictator (Fidel Castro), and foreign officials accused of war crimes (former Bolivian Defense Minister Carlos Sánchez-BerzaÃn). When not advising Senator Obama on matters of foreign policy, Craig remains a partner at the D.C. law firm Williams & Connolly. There he currently represents, among others, Pedro Miguel González, the president of Panama's legislature and a fugitive from justice in the United States. González is under federal indictment for the murder of U.S. Army Sgt. Zak Hernández Laporte.
Of course, Obama deserves the best representation money can buy.
