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MEDDLING OR MUDDLING?

« H E email
posted Tuesday, 4 March 2008
The Obama/NAFTA leaked memo story heated up during question time in the Canadian Parliament yesterday. I'm not sure if it's the first major gaffe by the Obamaites or if it's a dirty trick by the Canadian Conservative government that's intended to help the Repubs in the general election by undermining Obama's credibility. Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, thinks it's the latter: "Instead of sticking his neck out for the Republican party over there, why doesn't he stand up for working families over here?" Layton charged during question period. Harper scoffed at the suggestion that his minority government has that kind of clout south of the 49th parallel.
 
"This government doesn't claim that kind of power," the prime minister responded. "I certainly deny any allegation that this government has attempted to interfere in the American election." Harper also said that Canada would continue to have a "strong alliance, friendship and partnership" with the U.S. regardless of which of the three remaining frontrunners, which includes Republican John McCain, wins the White House."
 
The Obama people have mishandled things BUT things that smell this fishy often *are* fishy if you catch my drift. It reminds me of the ham fisted intervention by John Major's Tory government during the 1992 Presidential election. In that instance, the British foreign office dug for dirt on Bill Clinton's student trip to the Soviet Union at the behest of Bush the elder's lackeys but couldn't come up with anything. The Harper government has close ties to the current Bush administration and received help from US winger operatives at the last Canadian general election. The plot, as well as the pudding, appears to be thickening. I don't know what that meant but it had a nice ring to it...
 
There isn't any good video of Layton's verbal assault on Harper online so this clip posted at TPM will have to suffice:
 
 
I got a kick out of the fact that MSNBC's Nora O'Donnell called Layton "the Labor party leader." Wrong country, eh. That would be the UK or Oz, eh.

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comments (4)


1. mominem left...
Tuesday, 4 March 2008 12:42 am

Please spell it out. Are the Canuks saying that NAFTA is beneficial to them?

If is is beneficial to them is it detrimental to working families in the US?


2. bayoustjohndavid left...
Tuesday, 4 March 2008 8:05 am

I'm almost positive that I remember specific objections to NAFTA being dismissed as technical detals that could be revisited later. In effect, we were told that there could, and probably would, be limited renegotiation. That's if my memory's correct; it's been 15+ years. Maybe it's a case of "always get it in writing," but it seems to me that the people that accuse Obama and Clinton of demagogery are forgetting the arguments that they made, or the assurances they gave us, 15 years ago.


3. adrastos left...
Tuesday, 4 March 2008 11:14 am

Mom, the NDP are in favor of revising NAFTA but the ruling Tories are not. The main opposition Liberals are somewhere in between the two positions.


4. jeffrey left...
Tuesday, 4 March 2008 11:36 am :: http://librarychronicles.blogspot.com/

The underlying political truth here is that neither Clinton's nor Obama's rhetoric this week is to be taken as genuine. Blue collar workers in places like Ohio are tired of being dicked around and this "memo" dust-up whether it's contrived or not serves as a reminder that they are indeed being dicked around. It's the reason I think Hillary will show well today. Not that her actual position on this is any better than Obama's but the blowback over this will hit Obama hardest.