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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Lobbying Disclosure Forms Don't Tell Full Story

Lobbying Disclosure Forms Don't Tell Full Story
 

That activity in eight states led to media coverage, a plus for the group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, or ACCCE. "Likely members of Congress would have seen those stories and read those stories and seen there was support for coal," said Lisa Camooso Miller, an ACCCE spokeswoman. The effort came just before the Senate was due to return from its August break and consider climate legislation that is likely to have a profound effect on coal.

But none of the money ACCCE spent on that August effort is reflected in the lobbying report it filed with Congress, detailing spending in July, August and September. The report also fails to capture what ACCCE spent on television advertisements featuring "real people" talking about the importance of coal as a source of low-cost electricity in their lives.

The $302,700 that ACCCE told Congress it spent on lobbying in the third quarter does not include the summer spending, the group said, because by law it is not obligated to disclose it. Congress allows groups that file lobbying reports to choose from three formats for totaling their spending. One is a narrower disclosure as defined by Congress. The other two, defined by the Internal Revenue Service, use a far broader definition for lobbying.

ACCCE -- along with groups that include the American Petroleum Institute, the American Wind Energy Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association -- uses the format that excludes grass-roots activity, leaves out most advertising spending and does not show money spent on state and local lobbying.

ACCCE and the other trade groups say they are following the law and that they fully reveal all lobbying expenses to the IRS.

While grass-roots activities "might be influencing Congress," said Ronald Jacobs, an attorney with Venable LLP who works for ACCCE, "on the other hand, it's not captured in the definition of lobbying disclosures, so it's not reported."

But government watchdogs find the uneven disclosure in filing to Congress troubling, especially as more groups use grass-roots work, advertising and community-based efforts to sway lawmakers' votes.

"The stakes are too high," said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at Public Citizen. "On every major issue, you see sophisticated efforts to sway the debate one way or another. The outside D.C. grass-roots activity, that sometimes is having the most influence on swinging the public debate."

"Everything hinges on the impact that these grass-roots or AstroTurf campaigns have," Slocum added, "so it's really significant."

Because Congress allows different filing methods, Slocum said it is impossible to compare companies and trade groups and see which ones carry the biggest lobbying wallets. (Public Citizen, which does some lobbying, files under the same method as ACCCE and those others. In the third quarter, it reported $50,000 in lobbying. Slocum said the group does not do state lobbying and does very little grass-roots activity.)

ACCCE reports lobbying as it is required under the federal law as written by Congress, spokeswoman Miller said.

"We didn't write the law," Miller said. "Certainly, the IRS has defined it one way and the Lobbying Disclosure Act [passed by Congress] defines it another."

"We work every day to ensure that we comply with the rules as they are written," Miller added.

Concerns about how lobbying expenditures are reported comes as the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming investigates whether ACCCE failed to properly disclose all of its lobbying spending.

Committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asked the trade group whether its lobbying reports should include money paid to the Hawthorn Group, a public relations firm, according to a document viewed by E&E. ACCCE paid the Hawthorn Group, among other things, to coordinate an effort to stop the House climate bill from passing. The committee already is investigating ACCCE for its ties to a subcontractor that in June sent forged letters to House members urging them to vote against climate legislation.

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Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
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Monday, October 26, 2009

Bombings in Iraq, Deadliest Since 2007, Raise Security Issue

Bombings in Iraq, Deadliest Since 2007, Raise Security Issue
Joao Silva for The New York Times

An Iraqi grieved outside the Provincial Council building in Baghdad on Sunday. More Photos >

Notes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict in the post-9/11 era. Go to the Blog »

The attacks in Baghdad hit critical government offices. More Photos »

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The bombers apparently passed through multiple security checkpoints before detonating their vehicles within a minute of each other, leaving at least 155 dead and about 500 wounded strewn across crowded downtown streets. Blast walls had been moved back off the road in front of both buildings in recent weeks.

It was the deadliest coordinated attack in Iraq since the summer of 2007 and happened just blocks from where car bombers killed at least 122 people at the Foreign and Finance Ministries in August, in the continuation of a focused attempt by insurgents to strike at the government's most critical functions.

For months, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who is seeking another term as Iraq prepares to hold national elections in January, has painstakingly tried to present Iraq as having turned a corner on the violence that threatened to tear the country apart in 2006 and 2007.

He has recently ordered blast walls removed from dozens of streets in the capital and has insisted that Iraqi forces are capable of securing the country as American troops prepare to withdraw entirely by the end of 2011.

In large part, Mr. Maliki's popularity has rested on the belief that he has kept the country reasonably safe.

But the bombings at four high-profile, well-protected government buildings within a two-month span led some Iraqis to say Sunday that they were reconsidering their support for Mr. Maliki.

"We don't want a government that does not provide us with security," said Saif Adil, 26, who has been unemployed since graduating from college two years ago. "It was good for awhile, and now explosions happen less often, but they are having big effects — large numbers of dead in important places."

Ali Hussein, 32, said the explosions had also caused him to question his support for the prime minister. "Why should I vote for Maliki?" he asked. "He has done nothing except bring explosions and corruption."

On Sunday afternoon, President Obama spoke with Mr. Maliki by telephone to offer condolences, White House officials said. And in a statement, Mr. Obama condemned the attacks as hateful and destructive. "The United States will stand with Iraq's people and government as a close friend and partner as Iraqis prepare for elections early next year, continue to take responsibility for their future and build greater peace and opportunity," he said.

American Marines were seen walking around the debris-filled streets after the attack. One Marine said the Americans had been asked by the Iraqi government to aid in the investigation.

Iraqi and American officials in Baghdad have repeatedly warned about a potential rise in violence as the Jan. 16 parliamentary elections approach, as political parties and their allies vie for advantage and insurgent groups redouble their efforts to destabilize the country.

In a rare personal appearance at a bombing site, Prime Minister Maliki arrived at the provincial council building about an hour after the explosion, his face ashen as he surveyed the carnage.

Around Mr. Maliki, paramedics carried the wounded to Red Crescent ambulances, workers wearing plastic gloves scooped body parts into plastic bags, and rescue teams pried open scorched cars in a desperate search for signs of life.

Surrounding streets had been blocked off and were under more than a foot of water because the blast had apparently also damaged a water main. Pools of water were red with blood.

Mr. Maliki did not venture far from his armored sport utility vehicle. He made no public comment before being driven away.

Mr. Maliki later issued a statement calling the attacks "cowardly" and blamed elements of the Baath Party and the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. He said the attack would not affect the elections.

President Jalal Talabani said the attackers had sought to damage Iraq's fragile democracy.

"The perpetrators of this have revealed publicly that they are targeting the state and its basic pillars," Mr. Talabani said. "They want to hinder the political process or to stop it and to sabotage what we have built during six years with great sacrifice."

The two government buildings, typically filled with officials as well as civilians seeking government help, are on Haifa Street in one of Baghdad's most congested sections. Nearby are other Iraqi government buildings, embassies, the heavily fortified Green Zone and bridges crossing the Tigris River.

The explosion at the provincial council building collapsed a section of a 12-foot-high blast wall, crushing people underneath, witnesses said.

The Iraqi police said the first bomb struck the Justice Ministry building around 10:30 a.m. It blew out the building's large windows that overlook Haifa Street, sending flying glass and shrapnel into passers-by. A plume of black smoke that rose over the city could be seen for miles.

"I was eating in a restaurant near the Justice Ministry when a huge explosion took place," said Sa'ad Saleem, 28, an employee of Iraq's state-owned television channel, who had shrapnel wounds in his neck and chest. "The entire scene was filled with bloody human flesh. Large pools of blood were everywhere, in addition to the remains of burned cars. It was horrible."

At the provincial council building, Sheik Hadi Salih, 60, had been attending a meeting on the second floor when he heard the sound of an explosion, followed by the collapse of the ceiling.

"We tried to find our way out down the stairs, and as we went we found many dead bodies," he said. "I've seen 20 bodies and more than 60 injured."

Among the wounded were at least two American security contractors, a United States Embassy official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under diplomatic ground rules.

Reporting was contributed by Anwar J. Ali, Duraid Adnan, Mohammed Hussein and Riyadh Mohammed.

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Diplomado en Gestión del Conocimiento de la ONU
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Vatican Bidding to Get Anglicans to Join Its Fold

Vatican Bidding to Get Anglicans to Join Its Fold

Published: October 20, 2009

VATICAN CITY — In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican said Tuesday that it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church's acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions.

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The Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Catholic archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, discussed the Vatican's plan on Tuesday. Video: nytimes.com/world.

Why the Vatican Wants Anglicans

Room for DebateWhat does the decision to make it easier for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism say about the church?

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Anglicans would be able "to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony," Cardinal William J. Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here.

It was unclear why the Vatican made the announcement now. But it seemed a rare opportunity, audaciously executed, to capitalize on deep divisions within the Anglican Church to attract new members at a time when the Catholic Church has been trying to reinvigorate itself in Europe.

The issue has long been close to the heart of Pope Benedict XVI, who for years has worked to build ties to those Anglicans who, like conservative Catholics, spurn the idea of female and gay priests.

Catholic and Anglican leaders sought on Tuesday to present the move as a joint effort to aid those seeking conversion. But it appeared that the Vatican had engineered it on its own, presenting it as a fait accompli to the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, only in recent weeks. Some Anglican and Catholic leaders expressed surprise, even shock, at the news.

The move could have the deepest impact in England, where large numbers of traditionalist Anglicans have protested the Church of England's embrace of liberal theological reforms like consecrating female bishops. Experts say these Anglicans, and others in places like Australia, might be attracted to the Roman Catholic fold because they have had nowhere else to go.

If entire parishes or even dioceses leave the Church of England for the Catholic Church, experts and church officials speculated, it could set off battles over ownership of church buildings and land.

Pope Benedict has said that he will travel to Britain in 2010.

In the United States, traditionalist leaders said they would be less inclined than their British counterparts to join the Catholic Church, because they have already broken away from the Episcopal Church and formed their own conservative Anglican structures (though some do allow women to be priests).

The Vatican's announcement signals a significant moment in relations between two churches that first parted in the Reformation of the 16th century over theological issues and the primacy of the pope.

In recent decades, the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church have sought to heal the centuries of division. Some feared that the Vatican's move might jeopardize decades of dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans by implying that the aim was conversion.

The Very Rev. David Richardson, the archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Vatican, said he was taken aback.

"I don't see it as an affront to the Anglican Church, but I'm puzzled by what it means and by the timing of it," he said. "I think some Anglicans will feel affronted."

The decision creates a formal universal structure to streamline conversions that had previously been evaluated case by case. The Vatican said that it would release details in the coming weeks, but that generally, former Anglican prelates chosen by the Catholic Church would oversee Anglicans, including entire parishes or even dioceses, seeking to convert.

Under the new arrangement, the Catholic practice that has allowed married Anglican priests to convert and become Catholic priests would continue. (There have been very few such priests.) But only unmarried Anglican bishops or priests could become Catholic bishops.

Cardinal Levada acknowledged that accepting large numbers of married Anglican priests while forbidding Catholic priests to marry could pose problems for some Catholics. But he argued that the circumstances differed.

Under the new structure, former Anglicans who become Catholic could preserve some elements of Anglican worship, including hymns and other "intangible" elements, Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, the Vatican's deputy chief liturgical officer, said at the news conference.

Cardinal Levada said that the Vatican had acted in response to many requests from Anglicans since the Church of England ordained women in the 1990s, and, more recently, when it faced what he called "a very difficult question" — the ordination of openly gay clergy and the celebration of homosexual unions.

He said that 20 to 30 bishops and hundreds of other people had petitioned the Vatican on the matter in recent years.

In the United States, disaffected conservatives in the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism, announced in 2008 that they were reorganizing as the Anglican Church in North America.

Bishop Martyn Minns, a leader of that group, welcomed the pope's decision. "It demonstrates his conviction that the divisions in the Anglican Communion are very serious and these are not things that are going to get papered over," he said.

However, both Bishop Minns and Archbishop Robert Duncan, primate of the Anglican Church in North America, said that they did not expect many conservative Anglicans to accept the offer because the theological differences were too great.

"I don't want to be a Roman Catholic," said Bishop Minns. "There was a Reformation, you remember."

In Britain, the Rev. Rod Thomas, the chairman of Reform, a traditionalist Anglican group, said, "I think it will be a trickle of people, not a flood."

But he said that a flood could in fact develop if the Church of England did not allow traditionalists to opt out of a recent church decision that women could be consecrated as bishops.

Some said the move would probably not win over traditionalist Anglicans in Africa.

"Why should any conservative break away from a church where the moral conservatives represent the overwhelming mass of opinion, such as in Nigeria?" said Philip Jenkins, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and an expert in the Catholic Church's history in Africa and Asia.

The plan was announced at simultaneous news conferences at the Vatican and in London.

The Vatican's archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, and Archbishop Williams of the Anglican Church issued a joint statement in which they said that the new structure "brings to an end a period of uncertainty for such groups who have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the Catholic Church."

In London, Archbishop Williams minimized the impact of the announcement on relations between the two churches. "It would not occur to me to see this as an act of aggression or a statement of no confidence, precisely because the routine relationships that we enjoy as churches will continue," he said.

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www.consultajuridica.blogspot.com
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

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Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
Diplomado en Gestión del Conocimiento de la ONU
www.consultajuridica.blogspot.com
Dirección: Renato Sánchez 3586 Of 10
Fono Cel. 93934521
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Friday, October 16, 2009

diabtes bchile

American Diabetes Association Donate today

rodrigo, welcome to the October 15, 2009 issue of Diabetes World - Quick Read.
"Diabetes isn't that bad." Months of research by ADA has shown that this is a common perception among Americans. Get the behind-the-scenes on this research and a sneak peek of what you can do to stop these misconceptions.

IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Find Out What's Happening in Your Community

Whether it's a black tie gala, a walk, a golf tournament, or a group in your area that can help you manage your diabetes, find out the latest about what's happening where you live.

READ MORE

HEADLINE NEWS

The Latest Diabetes News and Diabetes Research Summaries

Could Antioxidants Raise Diabetes Risk?


Vision Loss in Diabetics Becoming Less Common

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FOOD & LIFESTYLE

Save Time! Save Money! And Still Be Healthy?

If you are like many Americans, you have many intentions to eat healthy. But with busy schedules and little time to cook, healthy eating can take a back seat. ADA author Brenda Ponichtera offers tips to make healthy eating easier than ever.

READ MORE

PEOPLE SPOTLIGHT

Parents with a Purpose

Imagine raising three children with diabetes and fearing the same fate for your youngest. Read how Amy and Andy Wold support diabetes research and learn how you can become involved.

READ MORE

ADA IN ACTION

Making of the Movement

The ADA is preparing to launch a movement to Stop Diabetes. Get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the creation of this movement and what we all need to do next.

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BOOKS

Taking Herbal Remedies? What You Need to Know

Get in the know about the benefits and cautions of using herbal remedies and dietary supplements.

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The Moral Instinct BY STIVEN PINKER

The Moral Instinct

Illustration by Adrian Tomine



 

Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it's an easy question. Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to the poor in Calcutta, has been beatified by the Vatican, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and ranked in an American poll as the most admired person of the 20th century. Bill Gates, infamous for giving us the Microsoft dancing paper clip and the blue screen of death, has been decapitated in effigy in "I Hate Gates" Web sites and hit with a pie in the face. As for Norman Borlaug . . . who the heck is Norman Borlaug?

Yet a deeper look might lead you to rethink your answers. Borlaug, father of the "Green Revolution" that used agricultural science to reduce world hunger, has been credited with saving a billion lives, more than anyone else in history. Gates, in deciding what to do with his fortune, crunched the numbers and determined that he could alleviate the most misery by fighting everyday scourges in the developing world like malaria, diarrhea and parasites. Mother Teresa, for her part, extolled the virtue of suffering and ran her well-financed missions accordingly: their sick patrons were offered plenty of prayer but harsh conditions, few analgesics and dangerously primitive medical care.

It's not hard to see why the moral reputations of this trio should be so out of line with the good they have done. Mother Teresa was the very embodiment of saintliness: white-clad, sad-eyed, ascetic and often photographed with the wretched of the earth. Gates is a nerd's nerd and the world's richest man, as likely to enter heaven as the proverbial camel squeezing through the needle's eye. And Borlaug, now 93, is an agronomist who has spent his life in labs and nonprofits, seldom walking onto the media stage, and hence into our consciousness, at all.

I doubt these examples will persuade anyone to favor Bill Gates over Mother Teresa for sainthood. But they show that our heads can be turned by an aura of sanctity, distracting us from a more objective reckoning of the actions that make people suffer or flourish. It seems we may all be vulnerable to moral illusions the ethical equivalent of the bending lines that trick the eye on cereal boxes and in psychology textbooks. Illusions are a favorite tool of perception scientists for exposing the workings of the five senses, and of philosophers for shaking people out of the naïve belief that our minds give us a transparent window onto the world (since if our eyes can be fooled by an illusion, why should we trust them at other times?). Today, a new field is using illusions to unmask a sixth sense, the moral sense. Moral intuitions are being drawn out of people in the lab, on Web sites and in brain scanners, and are being explained with tools from game theory, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.

"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them," wrote Immanuel Kant, "the starry heavens above and the moral law within." These days, the moral law within is being viewed with increasing awe, if not always admiration. The human moral sense turns out to be an organ of considerable complexity, with quirks that reflect its evolutionary history and its neurobiological foundations.

These quirks are bound to have implications for the human predicament. Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are worthy human beings. We seek it in our friends and mates, nurture it in our children, advance it in our politics and justify it with our religions. A disrespect for morality is blamed for everyday sins and history's worst atrocities. To carry this weight, the concept of morality would have to be bigger than any of us and outside all of us.

So dissecting moral intuitions is no small matter. If morality is a mere trick of the brain, some may fear, our very grounds for being moral could be eroded. Yet as we shall see, the science of the moral sense can instead be seen as a way to strengthen those grounds, by clarifying what morality is and how it should steer our actions.

The Moralization Switch

The starting point for appreciating that there is a distinctive part of our psychology for morality is seeing how moral judgments differ from other kinds of opinions we have on how people ought to behave. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. This is the mind-set that makes us deem actions immoral ("killing is wrong"), rather than merely disagreeable ("I hate brussels sprouts"), unfashionable ("bell-bottoms are out") or imprudent ("don't scratch mosquito bites").

The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal. Prohibitions of rape and murder, for example, are felt not to be matters of local custom but to be universally and objectively warranted. One can easily say, "I don't like brussels sprouts, but I don't care if you eat them," but no one would say, "I don't like killing, but I don't care if you murder someone."

The other hallmark is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished. Not only is it allowable to inflict pain on a person who has broken a moral rule; it is wrong not to, to "let them get away with it." People are thus untroubled in inviting divine retribution or the power of the state to harm other people they deem immoral. Bertrand Russell wrote, "The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell."

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of "The Language Instinct" and "The Stuff of
Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature."

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Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU

www.consultajuridica.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
www.respsoem.blogspot.com
Oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02- 2451113 y  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  GESTION DEL CONOCIMIENTO - RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – ENERGIAS RENOVABLES   ,  asesorías a nivel nacional e  internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Monday, October 12, 2009

LAWYERSCHILE: Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog] Latest Issue of Originate! Online

Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog] Latest Issue of Originate! Online




Summary:
The newest issue of Originate! -- the newsletter devoted to lawyer business development and law firm marketing -- is online at www.pbdi.org/Originate. Most lawyers who aim to build a strong, vital career realize there's no alternative to bringing in business....

View the entire entry:
http://blog.larrybodine.com/2009/10/articles/marketing/latest-issue-of-originate-online-featuring-the-definitive-associate-law-firm-marketing-checklist/index.html


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Craig says he's staying on as Obama's lawyer


President Barack Obama and White House Counsel Gregory Craig
Photo: White House / Pete Souza

Craig says he's staying on as Obama's lawyer

Despite drumbeat about departure, White House counsel vows to stay.

October 12, 2009

In his most wide-ranging interview as White House counsel, Gregory Craig said Friday that he does not intend to resign his position and he pushed back against criticism of his role in the Obama administration's plan to close the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"I have no plans to leave whatsoever," Craig said. "The rumors that I'm about to leave are false. The reports that I'm about to leave are wrong. I have no plans to leave."

Craig, a fixture of Washington's legal and political establishments for decades, has faced a drumbeat of news reports since August that he is on his way out as President Barack Obama's top in-house lawyer. His dismissal of those reports is his first public comment on the matter, though he repeatedly declined to elaborate. Later in the interview, he described his relationship with Obama as "excellent."

The former Williams & Connolly partner, speaking about his first nine months as counsel, also explained the White House strategy to confirm Justice Sonia Sotomayor this summer. He said the administration has no plans to withdraw a handful of embattled nominees for the U.S. Justice Department, and he defended an unusual reversal this spring when the White House devised a new legal strategy to avoid releasing photographs that show detainee abuse.

ARRIVING WITH EXPERIENCE

One of Obama's first hires as president-elect, Craig, 64, arrived with a long and varied résumé. He has held top positions on Capitol Hill and in the U.S. State Department, served as special impeachment counsel to President Bill Clinton, and represented high-profile clients such as Kofi Annan, then secretary-general of the United Nations.

But for months, and especially the past two weeks, Craig has been fighting questions about whether he'll resign. Administration officials, quoted anonymously in news reports, second-guessed Craig's support of a one-year deadline to shutter Guantánamo. They accused him of causing a diplomatic rift while helping to transfer four detainees to Bermuda, and they described his role in the overall effort as diminished.

In an article in The Washington Post last month, Craig was quoted saying he may have miscalculated early on the opposition to closing Guantánamo.

Craig, despite the traditionally low profile of a White House counsel, rebutted some of the criticism in an interview with The National Law Journal in his West Wing office, which is lined with memorabilia tied to his work for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and other prominent Democrats. The White House last week also rallied other administration lawyers, including Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., to his defense.

Craig said he was "certainly not the point man on Guantánamo," contradicting the Post article that quotes him saying he managed the closure "on a day-to-day basis" in February. The National Security Council was in charge of the effort, he said on Oct. 9. He said that he coordinated and explained executive orders on Guantánamo and then, as the Guantánamo strategy focused on Congress, made a "natural transition" to other issues.

"The notion that I have been replaced, for a job that I was never assigned, that was just not true," Craig said.

Holder, in an interview last week, said criticism of Craig has been unfair. Craig was not the only one who did not anticipate delays in closing Guantánamo, he said. "To the extent that people blame him for the delays, they also need to give him credit for the progress," said Holder, who rivals Craig as the most influential lawyer in the nation.

About 220 detainees remain at Guantánamo. Matthew Olsen, executive director of the task force reviewing the detainees' legal status, said the task force is on track to determine each detainee's before January.

POLARIZING DECISIONS

Craig's tenure has been marked by other polarizing decisions about national security. He advised Obama, against pleas from the intelligence community, to release memos from the Justice Department outlining interrogation methods. The White House also agreed to the release of photos, sought in court by the American Civil Liberties Union, showing abused detainees because it said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court would be "hopeless." The administration reversed itself weeks later and petitioned the Court to block the release on military security grounds.

The inconsistency in the photos case does not mean the counsel's office failed to provide the correct advice the first time around, Craig said Friday. "The advice he got was right on the button," Craig said.

Former White House lawyers of both parties said in interviews that Craig risked controversy early on by assuming a larger role in crafting policy than others who have held the job. Many, but not all, previous counsel have kept to the limited function of providing legal advice to the president, rather than trying to intervene with lawyers who work in Cabinet agencies.

"Greg is not just sort of any old lawyer. He is a brilliant foreign-policy thinker who has extensive experience in government doing policy planning," said John Bellinger III, who advised Condoleeza Rice when she was White House national security adviser and secretary of state. But, added Bellinger, now a partner at Arnold & Porter, that influence can create adversaries: "It's perhaps not surprising that those in the departments or agencies who disagree with any of his policy views would then be critical of his role."

Though he said he's not a "lead policy maker," Craig acknowledged that he's been more involved in national security matters than previous counsel have been.

Craig became an early supporter of Obama's presidential campaign after the two met at the home of former Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan Jr., senior counsel to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. His enthusiasm developed despite his longtime friendship with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Now as counsel, Craig said he sees Obama at least daily and has direct access to the Oval Office without having to go through other senior officials. "He makes that absolutely clear: that whenever I need to talk to him, I can just walk in and talk to him on-one-one," Craig said.

VETTING AND PREPPING

To meet his priorities, Craig enjoys resources that few other president's counsel have had. Craig began with a staff of 24 drawn from prominent Washington firms, top law schools and Capitol Hill — what he called in February "the greatest new law firm on the face of the planet." That number is down to 19, after several departures to other administration jobs, a spokesman said Friday. The Bush administration had 26 lawyers in the counsel's office in early January, in part because it was facing congressional investigations.

Much of the work of the White House Counsel's Office — preparing executive orders, vetting judicial nominees — doesn't change from administration to administration. Obama's lawyers have prepared executive orders that set out extensive ethics guidelines and that authorize advisers, popularly known as "czars," on issues such as urban affairs and health care. Issuing executive orders is "an important function for the president because that's a way he can put his stamp on the executive branch," Craig said.

In February, after a series of high-profile vetting failures by people ­outside the counsel's office, Craig said his office took over the background checks for Cabinet and sub-Cabinet nominees. The new position, a special counsel to the president, is held by former O'Melveny & Myers partner Michael Camuñez. "I think we do more vetting and more background checks than previous White House counsel have done," Craig said.

Craig's office has gotten high marks for its handling of Sotomayor's nomination, after she won confirmation with little delay. But some liberal legal scholars saw the confirmation as an ideological defeat because Sotomayor publicly disagreed with Obama's statements on the role of empathy in judging. Asked about the criticism, Craig said that Sotomayor statements about "fidelity to the law" were not an attempt to copy the playbook of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.'s confirmation process.

"That is her career. Those are her words," Craig said of Sotomayor. "If you look at her record on the 2d Circuit and her record on the district court as a trial judge, 'fidelity to the law' are the words that best describe that record. So, this is not something that we have drawn from the Roberts' lesson."

David Ingram can be reached at dingram@-alm.com.

--
Fuente:
Difundan libremente  este artículo
CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN .
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU

www.consultajuridica.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
www.respsoem.blogspot.com
Oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02- 2451113 y  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  GESTION DEL CONOCIMIENTO - RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – ENERGIAS RENOVABLES   ,  asesorías a nivel nacional e  internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

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--
Fuente:
Difundan libremente  este artículo
CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN .
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU

www.consultajuridica.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
www.respsoem.blogspot.com
Oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02- 2451113 y  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  GESTION DEL CONOCIMIENTO - RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – ENERGIAS RENOVABLES   ,  asesorías a nivel nacional e  internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile