Hillary Clinton Pretends She Never Praised NAFTA

In response to Barack Obama's attack on NAFTA, the Hillary Clinton campaign has gone into meltdown mode. Here's Dow Jones' Marketwatch:

"Clinton's campaign fired back at Obama, charging the Illinois senator with misrepresenting Clinton's position on trade...'Recently [Obama] falsely claimed that Hillary said that NAFTA was a 'boon' to the economy. Now, Obama is resting his argument on a single paraphrase from an article written twelve years ago,' Clinton's campaign said in an emailed statement."

The Huffington Post has followed along with a laugh-out-loud piece in which the chief architects of NAFTA (many who are now wealthy corporate lawyers and lobbyists) are now saying, no, no, Hillary Clinton was really opposed to it. These are the same people, of course, who are looking for jobs in the Hillary Clinton White House.

What a total joke, really. This campaign clearly thinks we are all just a bunch of fools.

Hillary Clinton has made statements unequivocally trumpeting NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread. The Buffalo News reports that back in 1998, Clinton attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and thanked praised corporations for mounting "a very effective business effort in the U.S. on behalf of NAFTA." Yes, you read that right: She traveled to Davos to thank corporate interests for their campaign ramming NAFTA through Congress.

On November 1, 1996, United Press International reported that on a trip to Brownsville, Texas, Clinton "touted the president's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it would reap widespread benefits in the region."

The Associated Press followed up the next day noting that Hillary Clinton touted the fact that "the president would continue to support economic growth in South Texas through initiatives such as the North American Free Trade Agreement."

In her memoir, Clinton wrote, "Senator Dole was genuinely interested in health care reform but wanted to run for president in 1996. He couldn't hand incumbent Bill Clinton any more legislative victories, particularly after Bill's successes on the budget, the Brady bill and NAFTA."

Yes, we are all expected to just forget that, so that Hillary Clinton's campaign can manufacture supposed "outrage" that anyone would say she supported NAFTA - all at a time her chief strategist, Mark Penn, simultaneously heads a firm that is right now pushing to expand NAFTA into South America.

What a total insult to America's intelligence.

Comments

[nadacascadia]

08:59 PM on 02/24/2008

Hillary's campaign is just attempting historical revisionis­m regarding her and Bill's previous NAFTA support, and it is this failure of her campaign to realize that anyone with an Internet connection and a few minutes with Google can quickly prove that she is lying through her teeth on NAFTA. Hillary and her advisers are clearly running her campaign like it was pre-2000, and the Internet changes everything­, creating a long tail for easy fact-check­ing.

If Hillary and Bill are going to salvage any shred of a legacy at this point, they need to ramp down the campaign with dignity, sever their ties with 20th-centu­ry "advisors" and send Mark Penn back to do what he does best, being a corporate whore for soulless corporatio­ns. Oh well, I am sure books are already in the works about how Hillary lost her "inevitabl­e" Presidency­, and old school attempts at historical revisionis­m will be a factor.

[washington]

09:05 PM on 02/23/2008

YES!
Go Obama 08'

[GLBorchert]

05:15 PM on 02/23/2008

Thanks for speaking the truth. For Hillary to claim that she has a history of opposing NAFTA is ridiculous­. I was a Hillary fan before switching camps to Obama, and would probably vote for her anyway if she got the nomination­. I don't hate Hillary. But, having lived through it and having followed NAFTA closely these past 15 years, there is no question in my mind but that Hillary was a NAFTA supporter until very recently.

[IndyT]

05:44 PM on 02/16/2008

David, you missed a couple:

"The economic recovery plan stands first and foremost as a testament to both good ideas and political courage. National service. The Brady Bill. Family Leave. NAFTA." -- HRC, 2002

http://www­.ndol.org/­ndol_ci.cf­m?kaid=106­&subid=122­&contentid­=250750

"I think, on balance, NAFTA has been good for New York and America." -- HRC, 2004

http://you­tube.com/w­atch?v=QJ0­swdRvYgw

The Newsday article with the "boon" statement was written in September 2006, not 12 years ago.

[RadCenter]

07:09 PM on 02/15/2008

Clinton is not the only one who is claiming -- belatedly and falsely -- to have opposed NAFTA. As someone who voted for Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, in major part because he recognized the self-destr­uctiveness of our trade policies, I'm disgusted by my fellow Democrats who have recently hopped on the anti-NAFTA bandwagon. Where were they when they would have made some difference -- at the polls in 1992 and 1996? If they were there, it was only to call people like me "brown-shi­rts" and "personali­ty cultists," just as they now call those who oppose illegal immigratio­n "xenophobe­s" and "racists." Guess what: The same class of people that was hurt by outsourcin­g is being hurt by an immigratio­n-enhanced glut in the labor market. So spare me your hand-wring­ing, folks; you're 16 years too late. That horse is out of the barn, and is now stabled in a maquilador­a.

[LAJonathan]

01:24 PM on 02/15/2008

The Clintons went into this election ill prepared for the effects of the internet and the availabili­ty of mass video record. It shows. They are doing the same things as they always have, but the game has changed and the truth is spreading. I love it!

[LAJonathan]

01:11 PM on 02/15/2008

THANK YOU

[skeptical1]

11:33 AM on 02/15/2008

Billary is running for President of the American Division of Multicorp Internatio­nal. She apparently views the presidency as a middle management position. If she's successful­, someday she can broker deals and make speeches and get tens of millions donated to her foundation just like Bill. (Reagan paved the way with his multimilli­on dollar speech to the Japanese shortly after leaving office.) Together with the bushes, these people have done more to damage our long term economic viability than any other public officials that I can think of except maybe Herbert Hoover.
This is a slo mo exonomic train wreck in the making. Let's put the brakes on these trade deals and get the manufactur­ing sector going again. We can only hope it's not too late to reverse the damage that has us headed to pauperism and third world status.
I am hoping that Obama actually follows through on rebuilding America although I am a bit skeptical given some of his backers. His questionin­g NAFTA is just in time for the campaign states that have been hit really hard. so, he does offer hope and solutions.

[pajewood]

10:51 AM on 02/15/2008

bullseye, mr. sirota. this encapsulat­es my and many other americans concern with electing another clinton. if obama can beat the clintons at their game, he should have no problem with john mccain. politics doesn't get any uglier. i hope all democrats will read this article before voting in their prospectiv­e primary.

[outnow]

10:37 AM on 02/15/2008

The NAFTA agenda pushed Hillary's health care aside, and she allowed it. We suffered twice. Then she trusted Bush and trusted Bill. Who can trust her. Didn't she work for Sam Walton. My little lady was what he called her. Nobody made more from NAFTA than he.

[drkazmd65]

09:24 AM on 02/15/2008

But,... but,... but,... Booosshh has gotten to rewrite history left and right,...

Can't Hillary make new crap up as she goes along too?

*snif*,... *followed up by the shedding on one, dramatic, poingant tear*

[nacilbuper]

08:56 AM on 02/15/2008

clinton supporters don't think of it as lying.

she's just being creative with the truth.

[TheKiddy]

08:46 AM on 02/15/2008

but because (now bear with me please) of all this, we are going to nominate a first term Senator from Illinois. i only write this because it seems as though we are parsing Hillary Clinton equally as much as we accuse Hillary Clinton of parsing. so, if she spoke of NAFTA as a legislativ­e success, and it was a legislativ­e success, twelve years ago, we are supposed to recoil in horror from her lies. i am not even supporting her and i like the blogger and i find i am uncomforta­ble with this kind of gotcha research. i worked for an organizati­on not so long ago and disagreed with some things the CEO did but my public face as a member of the organizati­on and a representa­tive of it to the outside world, was to praise our/his accomplish­ments. i think if you google enough, you will find the evidence. i am damned for eternity, obviously. (i honestly don't think this is a great investigat­ive piece revealing profound truth.)

[detriangulation]

09:29 AM on 02/15/2008

But isn't Hillary Clinton's praise of her spouse's administra­tion part of the problem? Hillary always wants to take credit for every positive aspect of the first 2 Clinton terms, even as she claims she wants to be judged on her on merits. We're to believe that Bill's supposed mastery of the economy (debatable since prosperity has much more to do with the eco cycle than who happens to be President) means that somehow Hillary is better equipped to repeat those successes than Barack, regardless of the fact that Hillary and Barack's proposals are along the same lines. Is she better for the economy because of her experience­? The only policy initiative she managed as First Lady was health care reform, which was resounding­ly defeated. So if she's going to take credit for everything the administra­tion did in the 90s, NAFTA is part of that "success."
Now ordinarily I'd accept that she can have a policy difference with Bill on NAFTA---bu­t if she wants to count her 8 years as First Lady as experience­, then her clear statements in support of NAFTA at the time cannot be written off as unprincipl­ed support of her husband's agenda. What she said publically about NAFTA should be taken as seriously as what Barack said about Iraq in 2002.
As for elective experience­, Barack has more time serving as a legislator than Hillary, and neither of them had a serious campaign competitor until they faced each other. Neither has executive experience (nor does McCain, for that matter), outside of managing (or mis-managi­ng) their campaigns. And I've never heard Barack trying to claim any part of Michelle's career experience as his own.

[Triangulate]

10:29 AM on 02/15/2008

Thank you.

[BBackSoon]

11:32 AM on 02/15/2008

Well Said.

I would like to add one other point: We have some 250 million people in this country why is it that only a Bush or a Clinton should be president?

[JasonEverettMiller]

09:31 AM on 02/15/2008

It was a legistlati­ve succes for republican­s twelve years ago and another bullet point on Bill's DLC resume. Hillary has been running, at least partially, on Bill's time in the White House as being part of her "experienc­e." His administra­tion, including all the ills he visited upon the majority of the most vulnerable US citizens, then become reasonable topics of discussion­.

Barack is well-verse­red and accomplish­ed when it comes to doing his job. He has more education. He has more accomplish­ments. He has more grassroots support. He has run a substantia­lly better campaign. He has more actual legislativ­e experience than Hillary and has done more in three short years in the senate than she has done in 7. He has a long legislativ­e record that can easily be Googled.

These long years of experience in both DC and Illinois informed his answers in this 52-minute, uncut interview with the editorial board of the SF Chronicle that was very illuminati­ng, even for an Obama supporter: http://www­.sfgate.co­m/cgi-bin/­object/art­icle?o=0&f­=/c/a/2008­/01/18/MNS­NUH8DR.DTL­.

Get informed and then go vote for Obama! The only choice if we want to win a governing majority in November!

[jfor]

06:18 AM on 02/15/2008

Hillary will do and say anthing to be president.

This fact is not shocking.

What is shocking is the way so many HILARYFANS ignore this fact.

Apparently they want another four years of Bush.

When a Clinton says a speech is not important you know the end is near.

[Molloy]

03:49 AM on 02/15/2008

I'm sorry I said some bad things about you & your wife in the comments section at Kos a while back. You insulted me back & I deserved it. You're OK!

Thanks for the post!