Obama'a Lawyer

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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15663.html


I found this article on politico. Greg Craig was selected as White House Council. Strange name. There was a stnence that seemed quite weird to me:
The choice gives the president-elect both experience and loyalty. During the primaries, Craig was an early Clinton alumni defector to Obama.

Seems a wee bit contradictory. No? Greg Craig Greg or whatever is loyal until he defects. I don't know.
 
An unusual interpretation of the concept indeed...

Maybe -

1. the author thinks that a former defector can't really afford to defect a second time, making him a safer choice than someone who has not defected yet

or

2. he believes that the guy's motivation to join the Obama campaign was a strong one (stronger than in the case of someone who's just been hired off the alleys of Harvard) making it more likely that his reasons to be part of the Obama team are not just money/career etc...

or

3. it's some sort of strange typo :)
 
I think you're stretching to find a contradiction where none exists.

Read the passage you quoted carefully, especially this sentence: "During the primaries, Craig was an early Clinton alumni defector to Obama." It says Clinton alumni, not Clinton campaign.

In other words, this is someone who had worked with the Clintons previously and who some people might have guessed would back Hillary Clinton in the primaries but who instead chose to support Barack Obama.

I don't see any significant act of disloyalty in that. If he had signed on with the Clinton campaign in the primaries and then switched sides, that would be a different story. But the article you cited does not indicate anything like that.

What the article indicates is that the person is loyal to people for whom he is working. That's a desirable quality. When he worked for the Clinton's, he was loyal to them.

He was no longer working for them at the time the primaries began. He made a choice that Obama was the candidate he preferred and campaigned for him. There's no betrayal involved in that, unless there is some reason to think that Craig had indicated he was going to support Hillary in the primaries.

And there's no reason for Obama to think that Craig won't give the same loyalty to him, while Craig is working in his administration, that Craig gave to the Clinton's while he was working in theirs.

Greg Craig was selected as White House Council. Strange name.


I agree, "White House Council" is a strange name for the job Craig was appointed to. It's usually referred to as "White House Counsel".
 
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In what way is Greg Craig a strange name? His middle name, Bestor, is stranger than his first and last certainly. But I cannot fathom how you think Greg Craig is a strange name.
 
I question his upbringing; he was probably raised by terrorists. Who names their kid Greg when their last name is Craig? Did they naively try for Gregory?
 
I would have thought that Greg. was just shorthand for Gregory, as in Gregory Peck, the late actor. Now I agree that Greg Peck would have looked a bit wierd on the big screen, and been the cause of a bit of laughter, but Greg is a perfectly normal contraction of a given name, and Craig is a perfectly normal surname.

Perhaps the OP actually meant that White House Council was a strange name, and not Greg Craig. Hard to tell from the sentence construction in the OP.

Norm
 
OK I see now why the OP thought Greg Craig was an odd name and it irks me mightily. As someone who has the first name Craig I would like to state that Craig and Greg are NOT supposed to sound alike! Only since I moved to the U.S has this been an issue Craig is pronounced Krayg not Kregg which is a norwegian name I think. :(
 
OK I see now why the OP thought Greg Craig was an odd name and it irks me mightily. As someone who has the first name Craig I would like to state that Craig and Greg are NOT supposed to sound alike! Only since I moved to the U.S has this been an issue Craig is pronounced Krayg not Kregg which is a norwegian name I think. :(

Your name Craig is pronounced Krayg, but many names Craig are pronounced Kregg, and that's not wrong.

I don't know if Greg Craig is Greg Krayg or Greg Kregg.
 

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