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

[ndolomar]

sadly, it seems your research and blog are falling on deaf ears. i've seen countless posts and news articles by "reputable" organizations that seem to dismiss facts. it's not like people can't find supportive evidence that she wasn't as opposed to it 12 years ago. but, it's easier for people to make ad hominem attacks against obama. i'm sure hrc supporters feel that the public is stupid enough not only to buy her refuting, but also to jump on board if she manages to get the nomination. what a sad commentary on the electorate that would be. still, we'll keep trying to get hrc supporters and the media to vet her -- without falling victim to the "hillary basher" label.

[gloryoski]

"I'm sure Hillary supporters feel....": It's somewhat reasonable to speculate on the thoughts and motives of the Clinton campaign as a whole when we see the latest (transparently manipulate and therefore dazzlingly stupid) "strategy" some in the inner circle have thought up.
I don't know if anyone can claim the same level of clairvoyance about all Hillary supporters.
Now, if you mean the more rabid among those who post/comment here and on other blogs, that's different.
Just sayin'...

[MPeter]

HRC has the writing on the wall. Concede and get out. Stop Bill from going off on the deep end. This election is about change and optimism. It is about the future. You guys are none of that....

[clevelandchick]

You know she supported NAFTA and I know she supported NAFTA. But now she's trying to convince us she's an FDR Democrat. Hogwash.

My state has lost 300,000 jobs to NAFTA. Ohio and the other rust belt states never got the boom from the Clinton 90s, they only got to tread water. Now we're drowning. It makes me ill that she is leading in a state where policies she supported have devastated the economy. She cheered this crap on and now tells me only she can fix our economy? Give me a break.

The Clintons have done enough 'fixing' of the economy for their wealthy supporters. We can't take any more.

I wonder what the next line of bull she's going to serve us - that she never supported the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act that deregulated the banks and the markets?

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney01292008.html

[gabbyone]

It is interesting that Carl Bernstein who is no
fan of Hillary said in his book about her that he heard her tell Bill it was a bad decision.
Carl said a "first lady" can't go out in public and stand against her husband. I just want through and counted all the negative stories on this website for today on Hillary which is about most of the political section.
Oh, excuse me, there was one small one on Obama. Where is the story about Obama declaring "his" econmic policy yesterday in
Wisconsin.....only problem- Hillary had already had the same policy in 2007 and actually worked on a bill for one part of it...
I am sure if you all spent 10% of the 100% of time you spend on Hillary, You could find something Barack does wrong.

[clevelandchick]

You are waaaayyy off base on your assessment that David is one of your(sniff) Hillary Haters.

If you'd have ever bothered to read David Sirota's work (he's on commondreams.org and has his own blog) you'd know that his cause celebre is fair trade and he equally criticizes any politician who is disingenuous on the topic.

Maybe a first lady can't stand against her husband but then again going to Davos and trumpeting the wonders of NAFTA wasn't a mandatory task of a first lady either.

Hillary cannot claim her experience as first lady as being equal to the experience required to lead this nation if she is going to be completely disingenuous about her support of her husband's policies. She claims she was working right along side of him then and that's why she is best qualified now. So she can explain to the 300,000 Ohioans that lost jobs to NAFTA why she supported it.

[gloryoski]

Interesting and certainly not irrelevant. (I'll have to look that up.)

But if, as Mr. Sirota says, she chose to go out and support the policy publicly as her husband's representative, she then "owned" that to policy some (large) extent.

In order not to be disingenuous, she would have to say that she had actually been ambivalent personally and now regrets having made public statements of support in an official capacity.
Then voters could decide what they think that says about the candidate.

I doubt that will happen though. As David also says, for this campaign, "voters" and "think" don't seem to go together.

[Countess]

It is very difficult to refute this and once again we can see the character of someone running for president and willing to lie about her Iraq vote and her support of NAFTA in order to win.