Monday
03Mar2008
Did Obama Lie to American People About NAFTA?
Monday, March 3, 2008 at 08:29PM At a recent Democratic campaign debate in Ohio, he promised to tell Canada and Mexico that he will opt out of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement if elected president.
However, according to Canadian sources, the Obama campaign called the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Wilson, “Don’t worry, it’s just campaign rhetoric. Don’t take it seriously.”
It would appeared the Obama campaign lied to the American people and that Obama is complicity and Hillary Clinton is all over it.. Developing….
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Reader Comments (20)
just keep chiping away.
It is a moot point. It shows Billary's desperations.
Obama is a compulsive liar. Just this week he told a story about speaking out against the Iraq authorization, his version of a "vote", while running for the US Senate during the debate. He was running for the Illinois Senate at that time. Yesterday, his spokesman was on national television telling people about Obama's support from Senator Rockefeller who read the intelligence report and voted against the Iraq war. Senator Rockefeller voted for the Iraq military force authorization.
It goes to his credibility. I guess socialists aren't so squeaky clean after all.
And if Obama doesn't take his political promises to voters seriously, why should we take him seriously?
Nafta is just one issue among many Obama has contradictions on. He wants to re-negotiate Nafta, okay which parts? He wants to engage the world, fine, but how do you do that by adding rtarrifs and restrictions on Foreign buisness. This issue just brinhs to light that Obama's rhetoric doesn't match his reality. That is where this guy is beaten.
I just read Newsweeks article on the subject. First its amazing how reporters go into overdrive to get the facts of the story when a popular Democrat candidate is caught by his own words. This story is like the Taliban weapons claim, half true, half false. Obama drops the campaign point on Nafta, Obama's senior advisor Austan Goolsbee , an economics professor at the University of Chicago, has a discussion with a Canadian official in which allegedly he says the political temperature in the midwest has caused some of Obama's rhetoric.
There are a couple observations/possibilities.
1. The Obama campaign didn't know its senior economic adviser had a discussion with a Canadian official. Possible, somewhat embarasing hardly watergate.
2. The Obama campaign knew a discussion took place, but considering the favorable media coverage and the refusal of jounalists to ask pointed questions to their camapign figured they would get away with it. Also possible.
3. The Obama campaign told Austan Goolsbee to drop a hint to our allies in the North do not get worked up over the issue, then when caught on it played dumb. Possible and quite damaging.
4. Austan Goolsbee has little political acumen and forgot nothing is off the record and he was trying to explain that Obama doesn't dislike Canada or Mexico. That his anti-Nafta rhetoric is just politics and that Obama doesn't blame foreigners for economic problems. Also posible.
To me the whole idea of Obama acting like a demagouge and using peoples fears of trade is a more important issue.
This should make the "is he prepared to be president" question clear and well answered. You can give Obama the doubt concluding he will surround himself with people who are knowlegable and thoughtful....wrong. Goolsby shows that Obama will surround himself with inept people that don't have a good clue as to how to deal with foriegn governments. For gods sake this is Canada america lite can you imagine if Obama made a mistake like this with Russia or China Or N. Korea. UHHHHHH i'm shuttering right now. All of that is the underbelly of this thing on the surface what bothers me is I doubt Goolsby was acting unilaterally it is most likely Obama was aware of what was happening and let it happen. Obama is about as ready to be president as Arnold Ziffle.
NAFTA was a Republican initiative.
Plain and simple.
*****
And we can all see where W. Bushies foreign policy experience led us. Into a quagmire that was sold as a Cakewalk.
http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/030408_primarycolor.jpg
Check this out mud...
I don't care whose initiative it was.... Clinton signed it into law and it's just fun to see Obama and Hillary duke it out over NAFTA!
Mud,
If there was an ever a Bi-Partisan issue, NAFTA is it.
Yo Mudkitty,
where's your llink to NAFTA being a Republcan initiative?
You always ask for links, where's yours?
All my links show Clinton signed it, and many Dems voted for it as well.
I didn't say it wasn't passed with bi-partisan support, but it was a republican initiative. A republican, free market, free trade concept, anti-regulation concept. Do I regret that Clinton signed the bill? Absolutely. But you guys don't even have the decency to take responsibility for the results of your own free market, free trade, anti-regulation ideology. And bear in mind, you guys, meaning you rightwing republicans, have been in power for 7 years, and still you've done nothing to fix it, it's only gotten worse.
Mud,
Tarrifs do not work for the greater good, they divide us and lay the seeds for conflict.
mudkitty , Tariffs are usually referred too as racist now. It limits the opposition’s fair play. I notice that Obama and Hillary both believe racism should be implemented back into American economic policy. Your whining about this implicates you too, or maybe you have not understood the arguments and therefore are not informed of the “real” issue. Free trade allows the under developed countries to place goods into an advanced industrial society as “fair competition.” If you take that fair competition away, you are in fact saying other(s) do not have the same rights as you do. Thus as implied: “humans are not born equal.” I understand Hillary and Obama do not think of other people in other countries as “human beings,” especially their attacks on Bush who is helping out humans in the Middle East with American currency; this does not mean that everyone supports racism as they do. I find it hard to believe that you take a moral stance against free trade – and side with the imperialists Obama and Clinton.
Yo Mud,
Texas is doing GREAT from NAFTA. Ohio is going down the tubes because of its high taxes and HUGE union labor costs, not NAFTA.
Gee, let me think, pro work states GOOD, pro union states BAD. Oh, yeah, right, NAFTA's the problem. If that's the case, then explain all the job losses BEFORE NAFTA.
And if Clinton signing NAFTA upset you, why didn't you say so originally. Why did you have to blame Reps out of the gate and give all the complicent Dems a pass? Until you were called on it, that is.
A little bait and switch? A little intellectual dishonesty maybe???
I blame the job losses before NAFTA on Bush Sr. The original one-world economy guy. NAFTA was in the works before '92. Or are you guys all teens?
CalP - you are so off the mark.
Duh.
“The original one-world economy guy” -- mud...
Wait a minute. The Whole US Democratic Communist agenda is a one world proletarian government. Have you not read Karl Marx? He was a socialist- globalist. He happened to be born about 100 years before Bush.
So do you have a link to prove yourself, or no?
I guess you cannot.
If you want to call Bush a socialist, which is fine. Then I ask, well what are Obama and Hillary? Conservative republicans?
CP - Marx is so out dated. Hasn't anybody told you?