Suppose someone in the North Korean government released a false story that shifted a key American election. If Bush were negatively affected, we might be bombing Pyongyang by now. But this just happened with what Hillary Clinton called "NAFTAgate" Without it, she might never have won Ohio, or her margin would have been minuscule. But as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporationstory reveals, practically the entire story was a lie, one that played so central a role in Clinton's Ohio victory as to thoroughly taint any claim she raises about a swing state mandate.
As the Ohio primary approached, Obama was steadily closing what a month earlier had been a 20-point lead in the polls. He pointed out that the NAFTA trade agreement was a centerpiece of Bill Clinton's term and that it cost massive numbers of industrial jobs. Instead of creating a trade-fueled boom, NAFTA helped hollow out America's industrial base, with over 200,000 manufacturing jobs disappearing in Ohio alone since the 2000 election. Even Republicans I talked with while calling the state just before the primary made clear that they thought it was a disaster.
Given these sentiments, Hillary chose not to defend her husband's actions, but instead claimed Obama was distorting her position because she'd privately opposed the agreement at the time, had "long been a critic" and now similarly supported stronger labor and environmental standards. Echoing her reinvention on the Iraq War, these claims were flat-out nonsense. As David Sirota points out, she'd praised NAFTA repeatedly in public settings from the time of its inception, even praising corporations for mounting "a very effective business effort" on behalf of its passage. And as Obama highlighted their contrasting positions and approaches on this and other issues, he was gaining in the polls.
Then, on Feb 27, the Canadian network CTV reported that even as Obama was publicly attacking Bill Clinton's role in NAFTA, and arguing for a drastic overhaul, he'd had a top staffer call the Canadian ambassador and arrange a meeting to reassure the Canadians that this was all just "political positioning," pandering for campaign trail. The likely source of the anonymous Valerie Plame-style leak was Ian Brodie, Chief of Staff, to a key Bush ally, right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the US media jumped all over it as proof of Obama's hypocrisy. The Canadian embassy denied the story and Obama and his campaign spokespeople also said it was false. On Feb 29, CTV then reported that a NAFTA conversation may have occurred earlier in Chicago with University of Chicago economics professor and senior economic advisor Austin Goolsbee. A follow-up March 3rd leak then sent a supposed memo summarizing the meeting to the major US media outlets, quoting Goolsbee as saying Obama's statements were more "political positioning than the clear articulation of policy plans." Clinton made the controversy a centerpiece of her home stretch speeches and ads, saying "You come to Ohio and you both give speeches that are very critical of NAFTA and you send out misleading and false information about my position regarding NAFTA and then we find out that your chief economic advisor has gone to a foreign government and basically done the old wink wink, don't pay any attention this is just political rhetoric." She even ran a radio ad that misleadingly presenting itself as a news story, which concluded, "As Senator Obama was telling one story to Ohio, his campaign was telling a very different story to Canada."
John McCain similarly attacked Obama for the presumed contradiction in his stand, saying "I don't think it's appropriate to go to Ohio and tell people one thing while your aide is calling the Canadian Ambassador and telling him something else. I certainly don't think that's straight talk." The week before, key Clinton ally, Machinist's Union head Tom Buffenbarger used recycled language from ads the right-wing Club For Growth ran against Howard Dean by dismissing Obama supporters as "latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies." He now attacked Obama again by saying, "Working families cannot trust a candidate who telegraphs his real position to a foreign government and then dissembles in a nationally televised debate."
These attacks unquestionably made a difference. They flipped voter perceptions on an issue where Obama should have had a key advantage. In 1994, union, environmental, and social justice activists were so angry at Clinton's staking all his political chips to pass NAFTA that many sat out that critical election, helping lead to Gingrich's win. Now Clinton ended up getting a majority the 55 percent of Ohio voters who expressed a sense "that trade takes jobs away," a majority of those worried about their family's economic situation, and a majority of union members, whom Obama won in his recent victories. She won a 10 percent plurality in a state where Ohioans overwhelmingly picked the economy as the top issue. And she won overwhelmingly with late-breaking voters, the opposite of practically all of Obama's other campaigns. Most important, by casting doubt on Obama's integrity, the cornerstone of his campaign, they made him seem like just another hack politician who'd say anything to win. This gave the supposed scandal a probable impact in Texas and Rhode Island as well, even though NAFTA was less of a central issue there.
But as the CBC report and others makes clear, the core of the story turned out to be false. The Canadian government contacted Goolsbee to clarify Obama's position on trade, not the reverse. Although Goolsbee did meet with Canada's Chicago consul general George Rioux (not, as was reported in the original leak, Ambassador Michael Wilson), there's no evidence that he ever described Obama's position as mere political posturing. Instead, they met February 8, before NAFTA began to dominate the campaign, and discussion of the trade agreement took up just two to three minutes of the hour-long meeting. Goolsbee responded to Canadian questions by clarifying that Obama wasn't pushing to scrap NAFTA entirely, but that the agreement needed labor and environmental safeguards--basically what Obama had been saying in public. The memo was simply inaccurate, as even the Harper government now acknowledges after a firestorm of criticism by opposition parliament members, who've accused Harper's staffers of trying to help their Republican allies across the border by attacking the more likely Democratic candidate. In response, Harper called the leak "blatantly unfair," pledged to get to the bottom of it, and said "there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA."
Ironically, the day before the story hit American TV, Brodie, told reporters questioning him on trade that "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." But that never made the headlines and no one raised it in the campaign. The Harper government has since denied any such approach, but this leaves open the question of why Brodie mentioned it to begin with.
As Matt Wallace writes in the Daily Kos, "this scandal was manufactured out of whole cloth. Goolsbee said something consistent with Obama's official position -- that he wanted protections added, but it wasn't going to be a fundamental change or revocation of NAFTA, and that Obama was not a protectionist. This was morphed somewhat going into the memo, and now the embassy admits they "may have misrepresented the Obama advisor." Even after the memo misrepresented Obama, the Harper government took it a step further and then leaked a completely fantastic version of the story to the press, in order to maximize the bloodletting."
The Harper government has now apologized for any interference in an American political campaign, but the damage is done, and except for Keith Olbermann, the mainstream media continues to accept Clinton's framing.
Clinton's victory also benefitted from some pretty questionable attack politics. Her 3:00 AM ad echoed the worst of Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. When asked if she'd "take Senator Obama on his word that he's not a Muslim," she left the door open to the right wing lies by saying "there's nothing to base that on. As far as I know." She pretty much handed McCain his campaign script by saying, "I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."
Taken together with a week of media framing that the respected Project for Excellence in Journalism described as overwhelmingly critical of Obama, and initial twenty five-point margins based on name familiarity and insider connections, these attacks also contributed strongly to her Ohio victory. Back-to-back sympathetic Saturday Night Live shows helped as well (with the one claiming the media was biased against Hillary being written by right wing comedy writer Jim Downey--how also wrote the sketch portraying Al Gore as a buffoon in the 2000 debates). Support from popular governor Ted Strickland and former Senator John Glenn also helped. Clinton may even have benefited from Rush Limbaugh's exhortation to his listeners to cross over and vote for her to keep the Democrats bloodying each other up. But "NAFTAgate" was key. Without it her victory would have been non-existent or minimal. The nine delegates Clinton netted from Ohio can't be changed, but the salience of this lie casts into doubt everything she says about the lessons of this victory.
PS--Some readers have asked, "But what about Obama's denials? Aren't they proof of hypocrisy?" I'm still trying to track down the precise sequence of internal communication. But my guess is that Goolsby didn't tell Obama about the meeting because he didn't consider it that loaded or important--NAFTA was a small part of the discussion, and it was with a relatively low-level Canadian official, the Chicago consul general. Also, Obama was intensely campaigning and hardly has time for his advisors to tell him about their every meeting. When the Canadian ambassador said the story was false, I suspect the Obama campaign took him at his word. But then the media avalanche began, they figured out what had happened, and acknowledged what should have been a non-story. Could they have handled it better if they weren't doing a million other things? Probably. But there's not even a glimmer of the kind of duplicity alleged in Hillary's ads and attacks--not even counting the fact that, if you believe Ian Brodie, Clinton's campaign in fact did approach the Canadians with precisely the kind of covert disavowal of her own public stands for which she attacked Obama.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
I guess because that soul has already been lost, as far as I know, HRC just doesn't care if she's right - factually or morally - as long as she wins.
Remeber: you get the leaders you deserve...Ohio...
THANK YOU Ohio!
Thank you Ohio, by the way, check who ohio gave us the last time. The best.
The Canadian government is now investigating how and why the story was ever given to the AP reporter, having denied all the stated points of the story except that there was a meeting, even down to the content of the follow on memo.
This leaves only one question of significance. Why did Hillary Clinton choose to use this in her campaign?
Does she not think it important to vet accusations leveled at her opponent? If not, she is in fact a swift boater.
And don’t give me any of that crap about how Obama had better get used dirty politics. We are all used to dirty politics, every candidate, every cop, every dock worker, every baby sister and every school kid. You are not telling anyone anything except that Clinton should, somehow, be excused for using dirty politics when nobody else gets an excuse.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58533
This makes me so mad .........................................
And, why isn't Hillary being totally exposed for the flat-out Liar and total Parasite that she is?!?
Contrary to the Hillary/Republican tactics (Tell a Lie, and then keep repeating it/Remember Al Franken!), the MSM is 'Actually Totally For Hillary' and not, for Obama. That was just a very effective
('negative,' needless to say) Republican and now, Clinton, tactic - Reverse Psychology !!!
Does that sound like a fair-thinking, reasonable person with a modicum of intelligence?
THAT'S what you're buying into in the Obama "movement." THAT'S who these people ARE.
Yuck.
Each candidate has supporters who are eloquent and well-reasoned in their support of their choice, just as each candidate has hotheads and folks who tend to resort to name-calling and so forth. That's entirely beside the point, and doesn't make either candidate more or less credible or worthy of consideration in their bids for the Democratic nomination.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Where have we heard that logic before?
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-and-barack-afta-nafta.html
And not just one lie but 2 lies both having to do with NAFTA.
If Ohio would have been clear headed they would have seen that hillary said NAFTA was a success under their administration. A few days after the election is over we find out that the Clintons were involved in planting the canadian lie. These people will lie to win the election.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_bubble_economy
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2007/11/bill-clintons-role-in-mortgage-crisis.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html
Facts are, the NAFTA debacle was all about the Clinton campaign:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/usa/2008/03/clintons_role_in_naftagate.html
And don't pretend with your name that you are re-thinking Senator Obama. If you had done any real research on Obama, you would already know there is nothing to rethink. His record, his votes, his positions, his foreign policy experience, put him ahead of Clinton in every way.
What planet do you live on?
I did try to research Senator Obama's legislative record, after his Campaign spokesperson, Texas State Senator Kirk Watson, when asked by Chris Mathews on his TV show could not name one legaslative accomplishment of Senator Obama. The legislative record I found is rather meager and record of foreign policy experience is non-existent
I propose we start a campaign to reelect the fourth estate, because it is obvious they lack the cohanas to represent us, or even to do their effing jobs.
Yesterday, on Wolf Blitzer's show they were still referring to Obama as the guilty party.
Andrea Mitchell was tut-tutting, saying basically that Obama lied or his campaign was too stupid to give him a heads up. She also said Goolsbee should have known it was completely inappropriate for him to be meeting with foreigners.
Imagine this from the Obama campaign's perspective. This is the story coming out a few days after the last debate on Feb 27(?) : The Obama campaign contacted the Canadian embassy. The Obama campaign said take his public NAFTA words with a grain of salt. The Obama campaign knows that no one in the campaign contacted the Canadian embassy in Washington and talked to the ambassador (implicitly very recently) about NAFTA. So, Obama denies everything and honestly so. Goolsbee had a meeting on Feb 8 (approx. 3 weeks earlier) at the request of the Canadian consulate in Chicago. In the course of a relatively short meeting (40 mins or so) NAFTA is very briefly discussed and Goolsbee reiterates Obama's public stand and says nothing about a grain of salt or anything close. So, think of all this from Goolsbee's perspective. The consulate invited him to see them, not the other way around. He met with them in Chicago not Washington. The version of the story hitting the newsdoes not bear any resemblance to Goolsbee's meeting. His meeting had taken place on Feb 8, not very recently. So, Goolsbee does not connect the dots; it never occurs to him that this story has anything to do with him and he doesn't say anything to Obama or the campaign staff.
The Obama campaign did not handle this well. Obama needs to learn how to say "as far as I know" . A good person to teach him this is readily available. When this story broke, somebody should have said, this is an economics issue, Goolsbee is our economics adviser. Check with him to see if he's talked about NAFTA with anyone.
Andrea MItchell is out to lunch when she says Goolsbee had no business talking to any foreigners. I am surprised that NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondents isn't familar with the expression "diplomatic back channels". Does Andrea think that American diplomats never have contact with foreign politicians who are not members of the government party/parties in power?
The editors don't necessarily read the blogs, but if they get enough letters they may listen. Or if more other media in addition to Olbermann start covering it
It's very important that the media stop this negativity. Not because I support Obama and I want him to win, but most importantly because it's really unfair to force another candidate with high moral values, who would never go negative by himself, into going negative. Just look at the consequences it's having, not just on one candidate, but on how people percieve politics! And I honestly believe that Hillary started out as a good and just person and was perhaps dragged onto "the dark side" by other polititians, and now she calls that "a reality", meaning that all the polititians are corrupt, and the only way to survive is to beat them at it. But that's simply not true! Yes, there's not many of them, but there are good and honorable polititians and there have been some truly great presidents. She's right now willing to kill (or at least spoil) one of those promising few because of her own frustrations. The media, please don't let her.
"That started, according to people familiar with the events, when Mr. Brodie made a remark to CTV reporters at the media lockup for the Feb. 26 budget. The Democratic contenders, he said, were not serious about renegotiating NAFTA, and Ms. Clinton's campaign even contacted Canadian diplomats to say so."
First thank you for your article and I can only hope that bloggers/major media outlets across the U.S. care enough to let the truth spread like wild fire the way the original false spin of the facts did!
http://www.thestar.com/article/310541
...guess that's why they wouldn't want you to succeed...could spark an Obama clone movement in Canada...we could use some inspiration up here.