Obama lies again.
Who needs Bush when we have Hussein?

Nothing Nedra Pickler writes is to be taken seriously at this point. Have we already forgotten the "Obama Patriotism" piece from last week?

This is meaningless hearsay from the Right-wing Canadian government. Even what they say he said was not that damming, and he denies even saying that. I guarantee all that was said was that the Canadians need to calm down, quit reading into every little thing said by Obama, Clinton, Tim Russert, whoever about NAFTA and hypotheticals, like at the last debate. I'm certain that the Obama campaign, and the Clinton campaign have just been urging the Canadians to settle down, relax, and wait until after the election to worry about NAFTA, because until then nothing concrete can be done anyway. The memo doesn't even imply anything beyond that! There is absolutely no reason to take this as Obama saying he isn't going to stick to his stated positions on NAFTA!

I'm sick of this story, what hyped up nonsensical bullshit. Seriously. If the little evidence NYT piece against McCain got nowhere, how is this smear piece with even LESS evidence still coming up? The Clinton campaign no doubt has their fingers all over this and it reeks of desperation.

Eric: Will you please post this?

Two years after U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins was accused of meddling in Canada's federal election, the same is being said of Stephen Harper's Conservatives with respect to the current U.S. contest.

Democrats appearing on a nationwide U.S. political program accused the Harper government yesterday of interfering in the primary campaigns to help the Republican Party candidate in the coming campaign.

"You've got a right-wing government in Canada that is trying to help the Republicans and is out there actively interfering in this campaign," Bob Shrum told the popular program, Meet the Press. Mr. Shrum is a top-level Democrat adviser who has had key roles in the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry.

At issue are reports that members of Mr. Harper's prime ministerial office leaked word last week that a member of Barack Obama's campaign told a Canadian diplomat that Mr. Obama was not serious when he raised the possibility of renegotiating the free-trade agreement.

snip

ABC News says the leaker was Mr. Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie. Mr. Brodie reportedly learned of the conversation which took place between Mr. Obama's economic adviser and a Canadian diplomat in Chicago from Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States.

snip

Opposition MPs said it appears obvious to them that the Harper Tories want the Republicans to win and that they have taken steps to help them to do so.

The Harper government may find itself in hot water should the presidential winner be a Democrat, they said.

"This is serious," said Navdeep Baines, the Liberal Party's trade critic.

snip

Mr. Harper's communications director, Sandra Buckler, said Mr. Brodie also doesn't remember such a conversation.

"Ian Brodie does not recall discussing this matter and at the end of the day Ambassador Wilson issued a statement and we stand by that statement," Ms. Buckler said.

link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/...

As I recall, Obama's campaign first provided what was derided here as a 'non-denial-denial' because they didn't do what Greg is claiming they did --deny a conversation happened. It was only after Goolsbee pointed out that he didn't call the Ambasssador they questioned whether the conversation happened --and Goolsbee was absolutely correct about that story.

Leaving aside whether Goolsbee was speaking for the campaign or was accurate about Obama, or even was quoted correctly --all of which is being disputed; I don't see how they've been contradicted.

Really? I'm so surprised that the Canadians turned out to be right.

So which will get more attention today: Hillary's comments on whether Obama is a Muslim or this whole NAFTA flap? Personally, I think they're both bogus. Silly season, indeed.

Both Obama and Clinton should be called out on the NAFTA rhetoric. The chances of either one "opting out" of the deal are minuscule. As Politico points out this weekend, both candidates seem to lose their fiery anti-NAFTA on the way from Ohio to Texas.

Overall it is a bigger problem for Obama than Clinton, not just because of the memo, and this has little to do with his "new style of campaigning" and more to to do with a new prospect of Left politics. He needs to be making an argument that the problem isn't the trade deal, but that Ohio's manufacturing base needs to be re-tooled for a different kind of economy - more service oriented, higher-tech, and more innovative. Its too late in the campaign now, but he should have challenged Ohio's manufacturers more, calling for more innovative union involvement in retooling, and more educational / university based cooperation with industry.

What is up with all the trolls on TPM? Jeez!

Here's the deal: NAFTA was not good for America. It should have been done differently, with more thought to the consequences. We rushed to sell out, and while some made money, a lot more got hurt.

But globalization is here -- we cannot turn back the clock. America needs to be competitive. We need to fix NAFTA, WTO, and other trade agreements with an eye towards how does this help the average American. We need universal health care, we need to fund education again, we need a clean energy and zero emissions, we need to fix the lunatic in the White House and we need to end the INSANITY of this stupid, pointless war. This is not because 'we wanna be such nice guys' -- this is because THIS is what it will take for America to be competitive!

Do you want to compete with the English, the Germans, and the French? Their governments are investing in these areas, in their people. Or do you want to race to the bottom against workers in China and India who get no protections either?

We have a great choice -- someone who really gets it. Who not only knows the mistakes that were made in the past, but has a plan for how to make our way forward. Yes, that is Obama. He is going to be the best president this nation has seen in 40 years.

Oh, come on Junionman, have you looked at the polling in New Jersey from the 90's forward. There has always been a strong condervative streak in New Jersey. Kerry only carries it by 53% in 2004, not a glowing victory, Republicans hold 6 of the 13 state congressional seats. Whomever gets elected will not have a cakewalk in New Jersey. If you are trying to say that Hillary polls better than Obama against McCain in New Jersey, then OK but we can say just the opposite is true in many other states for Obama.
As to this article, I would say at a bare minimum this looks bad even though the facts in this incident are far from certain. However I lean towards viewing NAFTA as net bad thing for North America and specifically for the US and Mexico. Obviuosly it's convenient of me to pick on NAFTA right now considering the current economic downturn as well as the problems we face in this nation concerning illegal immigration. The rich in this country who have a vested interest in NAFTA have only gotten richer and the trickle-down to the working class in Mexico has not been substantial. The reform candidate in the last Mexican presidential election ran a anti-NAFTA message and almost beat the established candidate in the election, so if one were to assume based on the election it would be that many in Mexico, especially working class mexicans who were very supportive Lopez Obridor, felt that NAFTA needed to be revisited too. I would imagine that one of NAFTA's chief goals could be that by increasing our ties between participating coutries that all countries would thus be rewarded both economically and politically. So the net effect since NAFTA's inception has not been a minimization of Mexican Nationals leaving their country and a deep sentiniment within Mexico that NAFTA has not been all that it was cracked up to be. I know on this side of the fence that NAFTA is a touchy question to say the least and considering how hot immigration just was in 2004, I would say that substantial immigration policies and trade polcies can have the double effect of killing two brids with one stone.

What do you guys and gals think?

Wait. The memo said Obama's guy suggested the candidate wanted to re-work labor and environmental issues in NAFTA.

Isn't that what we don't like about NAFTA? It looks like Goolsbee said something to the effect of people in the US want to scrap NAFTA because of protectionist sentiments, and there's a political aspect to this. But the meat is renegotiated labor and environmental agreements.

Sounds good to me.

This is amateur hour.

A sitting US Senator, engaged in a campaign for the Presidency, should not permit his private agent to speak to a foreign government, even informally. It is the role of the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations.

It seems to me that the consulate official in his paraphrasing and summary overemphasized the political over the policy and that the TV then chose to emphasize only the political by claiming that Goolsbee had said it was just campaign rhetoric, which is actually not even consistent with what the consulate official interpreted Goolsbee as saying and which it is clear Goolsbee did not say. In fact, what Goolsbee said is consistent with what Obama has said-which is that he wants to make labor and environmental standards a real enforceable part of NAFTA as they are, for instance, in the recent US-Peru free trade agreement that he voted for.

Here's what I don't understand:

Obama's "surrogate" suggests to the Canadian consulate that Obama doesn't really want to kill NAFTA, but is "more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more 'core' principles of the agreement."

Isn't this exactly what Obama has been saying publicly???? That he wants to renegotiate to secure better terms on labor and the environment???

On February 29, the headline was:" Canadian Government Denies Obama Campaign Official Downplayed Rhetoric".

The chronology here:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4365922&page=1

Two short days later and one day before the primaries suddenly a memo surfaces written by Joseph De Mora a low level conservative official of the Canadian consulate in Chicago.

Then a the spokesman for the Canadian embassy in Wash.D.C., issues the following: " DeMora was not available for an interview Sunday. His only comment on the memo was to say that although consulate officials reach out to U.S. campaign officials to seek their views, "Canada does not in any way seek to interfere in U.S. electoral politics."

oh, yeah?

"The memo contradicts initial suggestions by the Obama campaign that no such conversation ever happened — meaning that this story has suddenly taken a turn for the worse for the Obama campaign."

Eric Kleefeld:

Please cite an instance where the Obama campaign has suggested that no such conversation ever occurred between Goolsbee and his Canadian counterpart.

Allsburg, yes, everything supposedly said to the Canadian official is consistent with what Obama has said: that he wants to renegotiate the agreement to strengthen environmental standards and provide a more level playing field. He basically said exactly this in the last debate. The Canadian official is somehow characterizing Obama's position as playing politics, but how, exactly? He's saying to them the same thing he's saying to us.

wwjb, you've been doing a great job here, trying to keep the thread focused on the bigger picture.

Elizabeth2 hits the nail squarely on the head that the new "memo" story shows the original CTV broadcast was a complete fraud and that fraud has still not been sufficiently investigated.

When the CTV disinformation first broke Friday morning, I ranted all day that it was a crap story. Spent part of the weekend ranting against frankly0 and others for making shit up. I challenged people pushing the CTV story to produce evidence.

Well, now I have to suck it up and say that this goddam memo written by a meddling Canadian bureaucrat is indeed evidence, and it does hurt Obama. Goolsbee needed to keep his mouth shut, he made a mistake saying anything about Obama's campaign, he wasn't assigned to deliver any "campaign" messages. Obama's strategists took their eye off the ball by letting some academic loose cannon go rambling around in a foreign consulate.

If Ohio goes badly against Obama tomorrow, the original CTV story will be retroactively vindicated, even though the 1,300-word DeMora memo totally contradicts what CTV originally reported (and then revised & re-reported, and then . . . what version is CTV foisting now?).

Admitting that this 1,300-word memo is some kind of evidence, where indeed is the entire actual memo? We need to see the whole thing, esp. if it was so "widely distributed" within the Canadian govt. I agree with others here that setting aside the unauthorized gratuitous comments by Goolsbee about the "campaign," the portion of the memo that we have been allowed to see confirms Obama's policy to improve labor & environmental standards under NAFTA. It is also quite obvious that the Canadian embassy here in D.C. is extremely anxious that their low-level idiots in Chicago may have inflicted serious political damage on a progressive leader of their biggest trading partner, in which case the Canadians have screwed themselves very thoroughly if Obama ends up winning the nomination.

Bottom line: this hurts Obama a little but if we are lucky Obama will take Texas by such a margin that the game will be over tomorrow night.

Yes, "Obama's black base" can most definetely "afford" to stay home (interesting locution, by the way... not "black voters," but "Obama's black base.")

I just love the chutzpah of politcos to assume that various voter slices will put up with anything since they "have no where else to go." Tell me, though: how has that been working for the Republican Party and the Religious Right this season?

Perhaps more of this claptrap will compel black voters to stay home.

Rebuttal from Obama campaign not too bad:

"Senator Clinton knows full well that she’s not telling the truth on this story, and that her blatant distortion is just part of her campaign’s stated strategy to throw the kitchen sink at Senator Obama in the closing days of this campaign," Bill Burton, the Obama campaign spokesman, said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. "The truth is, Senator Clinton called Nafta a victory and has switched positions for raw political reasons. Her false attack won’t protect American workers, but as President, Senator Obama will."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/us/politics/03cnd-campaign.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

This seems to be another tempest in a teapot. Honestly, I don't see how Goolsbee's statement (as related third person in the memo)is inconsistent with what Obama and Clinton have each said. Political statements about protectionism (which neither candidate has espoiused) should NOT be taken out of context. And Obama and Clinton have both said they wouldn't scrap NAFTA, but renogiate it. I see nothing in what Goolsbee is said to have said that contradicts that.

For God's sake, this brouhaha and the flap over Hillary's "as far as I know comment" are both ridiculous. They're gotcha politics.

The AP nails it. The Clinton campaign is all over it.

Barack Obama has been telling the voters of Ohio that, if elected, he would try to renegotiate NAFTA to strengthen labor and environmental protection rules.

"I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced."

Secretly, though, one of his economic advisers told Canadian officials that, Obama merely wanted to renegotiate NAFTA to strengthen labor and environmental protection rules.

On NAFTA, Goolsbee suggested that Obama is less about fundamentally changing the agreement and more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more "core" principles of the agreement.

I'm shocked. How sneaky is it to say the same thing in private you said in public? We're entitled to expect more duplicity from our office-seekers.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/03/duplicity.php