Over the past few days there has been an ongoing flap regarding remarks about NAFTA allegedly made to the Canadian government by the Obama campaign. The story was that an Obama staffer had reassured the Canadians that Obama didn’t mean what he said about NAFTA. This story was pushed hard by the Clinton campaign even after the Canadian government denied it, andit may have played a role in Clinton’s recent win in Ohio.
Well, folks, guess what? The Globe and Mail says that it was the Clinton campaign that reassured the Canadians about NAFTA. The issue first came up in comments by PM Harper’s chief of staff, Ian Brodie.
At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio’s anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.
Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton’s musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.
Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.
“Quite a few people heard it,” said one source in the room.
“He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton’s campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry.”
Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.
Mysteriously, the allegation about Clinton changed to an allegation about Obama somewhere between Ottawa and the CTV’s Washington Bureau.
Gracious, will Senator Clinton’s face turn maple leaf red?
The Clinton’s have been waving as “proof” a leaked memo written by a Canadian diplomat claiming that Obama economic adviser Austan Goulsbee had given reassurances about NAFTA during a conversation at the Canadian consulate in Chicago. The Obama campaign has said the diplomat misrepresented by Goulsbee said.
See also Steve Benen, Liza, Eric Kleefeld at TPM, publius, and Josh.
David Sirota has more on what he calls the “Clinton-Lieberman Connection“:
Confusion and misinformation are two of the most powerful weapons in a desperate politician’s arsenal. They were used by Joe Lieberman in the 2006 general election against Ned Lamont, and exit polls suggest that they helped Hillary Clinton blast her way through yesterday’s primary in Ohio.
Over the last few weeks, Clinton has been telling Ohio voters she never supported the North American Free Trade Agreement – an agreement that has become a symbol of corrupt economic policies to many working-class voters. Clinton has made these claims expecting everyone to forget her speeches over the last decade trumpeting NAFTA as a great success.
Her direct quotes praising NAFTA repeatedly are not up for interpretation – and neither are her absurd claims to “have been against NAFTA from the beginning.” We’re talking about pure, unadulterated lying here – and lying with a purpose: To confuse enough voters into thinking she actually did oppose NAFTA and that her strong support for NAFTA is somehow the same as Barack Obama’s longtime opposition to the pact.
Are you taking notes, Pennsylvania? Or are you going to be snookered the way Ohio was?
Pam of the House Blend says she is encountering increasing numbers of Clinton supporters who say they will not vote for Obama if he is the nominee. In fact, they plan to vote for McCain, she says. This is the reverse of a charge aimed at Obama supporters a few weeks ago — that we were “losers” who didn’t understand political reality and would not support Clinton if she were the nominee. Rich, huh?
At the Washington Post, Adele M. Stan objects to this column by Linda Hirshman. Stan writes,
Hirshman … makes her claims as a feminist, and then tars fellow feminists — those who vote differently than her — with the right’s “liberal elitist” brush. For flourish, she uses the sexist technique of ridiculing two women prominent in the Obama campaign by focusing only on their physical attributes. (Maria Shriver is reduced to a description of her hair, while Michelle Obama is mentioned in the context of her fashionable shoes.)
Feminists who support Obama, Hirshman writes, care little for the working-class woman. Their votes reflect nothing more than a “turn to solidarity with their own class.” The same goes for college-educated women of all stripes who support Obama, all of whom are presumed, in Hirshman’s argument, to be well-off, be they social workers or administrative assistants. If we cared for the working-class woman, she says, we would vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton because she was the first of the two to offer a paid family leave proposal and proposes a “slightly more generous” health plan than does Obama. If we vote on the basis of, say, something as esoteric as foreign policy, we’re being elitist, because presumably everybody knows that foreign policy has no bearing on the life of the working-class woman.
Um, whose children are being sent to Iraq, again?
I wonder about some of these “feminists” who insist we judge Senator Clinton as Prototype of All Women and not on her record or opinions or how she conducts herself. Being judged as individuals, on what we do instead of on our physical attributes, used to be the feminist ideal.
Also in WaPo, Ayelet Waldman writes,
I’m a longtime Barack Obama supporter, not because I’m a snob in thrall to his sex appeal, but because I’m heartily sick of candidates who preach populism while accepting donations from PACs and corporate lobbyists. Obama has amassed an astonishing war chest from over one million individual donors, many of whom gave small contributions. Clinton, meanwhile, held a “Rural Americans for Hillary” fundraiser at the offices of Troutman Sanders Public Affairs — the Washington lobbying firm that represents Monsanto. More like “Rural, Multinational Agribusiness for Hillary.”
There’s more; highly recommended reading.
Update: See also the BooMan, especially the second half of the post.
Update 2: Keith Olbermann is highlighting this.
