Dear Friend and Reader,
The first presidential debates are days away. The schedule has been hashed out, lighting and makeup have been agreed upon and the format has been solidified: The first debate, airing on Friday, will cover foreign policy; the second will be a casual format, responding to audience and emailed-in questions and the third will focus on the economy and other national issues.
Mr. Obama successfully sought to flip the proposed topics for the first and third debates, so foreign policy is now coming first and economic and other domestic issues come last. There is a second debate, in the format of a town hall meeting, in which the candidates will sit on director’s chairs and take questions from the audience and Internet users on any topic.
McCain’s campaign advisers have accepted that the big scar on the senator’s face may be visible, and the Obama camp has accepted the rigid format for the V.P. debates: much more structured, with less chance of ad libbing or addressing the opponent, as Palin has significantly less knowledge of government and less experience debating than Joe Biden, and would surely fall apart outside of a highly controlled environment. (No flash photography, we don’t want to distract her!)
And now, they retire to their separate corners to prepare. Obama’s coach, The New York Times reported, is Greg Craig. My first question, and perhaps yours, was: who is this guy?
Wikipedia tells us Craig is a Piscean lawyer (March 4, 1945) based in Washington, D.C. who has been involved in pretty much every high-profile case in the last twenty years, except for the O.J. Simpson trial (nope, neither the first, nor the most recent). For a more complete list, take a look at his work profile on the Williams & Connelly website, where he is a partner.
In 1981, he represented John Hinckley Jr., the guy that shot, but didn’t quite assassinate, Ronald Reagan, and was responsible for Hinckley Jr.’s successful insanity defense. He also represented Elian Gonzalez’s Cuban father in the 2000 custody battle that obsessed us for months, and symbolized the tensions between Communist Cuba and the free, flag-waving United States. When Kofi Annan needed an attorney when implicated in the oil-for-food program scandal, he went to Craig.