Will Clooney take starring role in film about Osama’s driver?

George Clooney (left) does not appear to have learned the lesson that anti-Iraq war films do not sell at the American box office. The Barack Obama-supporting actor is considering his politically riskiest move yet - taking a starring role in a screen version of the story of Osama bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan. Salim Hamden (right), an inmate of Guantanamo Bay, was given the unexpectedly light sentence of five-and-a-half years last week for his role in helping the al-Qaeda leader.

Clooney's production company, Smoke House, has moved fast and paid a seven-figure sum for the screen rights to The Challenge, a book about Hamdan's capture and trial, by the journalist Jonathan Mahler. Clooney, according to the New York Post, is interested in playing Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, the US Navy lawyer who got the Yemeni off more serious charges that could have seen him jailed for 30 years.

Mahler's account portrays Swift as the classic "little guy" winning against the odds. While the prosecution sought to show that Hamdan was a member of bin Laden's inner circle, Swift argued, successfully, that he was a simple man who had taken a high-paid job in order to feed his family. Swift took the case to the Supreme Court. The strain cost him his marriage and saw him passed over for promotion.

Clooney and Obama are such good friends and text each other so frequently that they are known as "BlackBerry buddies". New reports say that the Ocean's Eleven star has been quietly offering the Democrat presidential candidate advice on everything from presentation and body language to guidance on the Middle East. With such a controversial role in the offing for Clooney, it is well that he also promised Obama months ago that he would keep off the campaign trail for fear of giving the Republicans another stick - friendship with an avowedly liberal, pro-Palestinian celebrity - with which to beat his friend.