Originally published by THE AM LAW DAILY,18 May 2010

By Zach Lowe

 Political junkies are rejoicing today about the release of a new book about President Obama’s first year in office. Those interested in the personalities of the folks who populate the administration’s upper ranks will surely enjoy Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter detail Rahm Emanuel’s macho back-and-forth with staffers (he instructs one male aid to “take your tampon out!” at one meeting) and the playful rapport between David Axelrod, a longtime Obama adviser, and Larry Summers, head of the president’s National Economic Council. (There’s also this: Summers apparently sweats in the winter, something Obama poked fun at, Politico reports).

But for our purposes, the key early revelation from Alter’s book is that Obama offered Gregory Craig a judgeship in order to ease Craig’s forced departure from his spot as the president’s first White House counsel, according to Politico’s early reading of Alter’s book.

If there was an offer, Craig rejected it in favor of becoming a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where his current duties include advising Goldman Sachs in the wake of a Securities and Exchange Commission suit.

Politico also reports that Alter’s book sheds light on the events leading up to Craig’s ouster, including clashes with Emanuel over Craig’s quest to close the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“Emanuel became furious after Craig, in an apparent show of solidarity with former detainees, traveled with four Chinese Muslim Uighurs from Guantánamo to Bermuda,” Politico reports, citing Alter’s book. (As we’ve reported extensively, the four Uighurs, represented by Bingham McCutchen, won a long legal battle for their release from Gitmo and were subsequently relocated to Bermuda when the island’s government accepted them and placed them on a possible track to citizenship.)

Emanuel also “felt Craig was trying to build up his own mini-National Security Council instead of focusing on bread-and-butter legal issues,” Politico reports.

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