Posted March 6th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Just when I thought I’d gotten a handle on the so-called “NAFTA-gate” story, it takes an unexpected turn.
Some Canadian news outlets reported last week that Barack Obama’s campaign had reached out to Canadian officials, telling them to effectively ignore Obama’s concerns about NAFTA, claiming the rhetoric was just political posturing. Those reports turned out to be false. Canadian news also noted that Obama aides had contacted the Canadian ambassador with the same message. That turned out to be false, too. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain read almost
identical talking points, but much of the accusations proved to be unfounded. Nevertheless, given the attention and scrutiny, the largely controversy had a fairly significant impact in Tuesday’s primaries.
Now, a
new report out of Toronto suggests the original story may have left out some important details.
If the Prime Minister is seeking the first link in the chain of events that has rocked the U.S. presidential race, he need look no further than his chief of staff, Ian Brodie, The Canadian Press has learned.
A candid comment to journalists from CTV News by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most senior political staffer during the hurly-burly of a budget lock-up provided the initial spark in what the American media are now calling NAFTAgate.
Mr. Harper announced Wednesday that he has asked an internal security team to begin finding the source of a document leak that he characterized as being “blatantly unfair” to Senator Barack Obama.
OK, so the chief of staff of Canada’s conservative Prime Minister decided he wanted to meddle in the Democratic Party’s primary process. Clearly, that’s wildly inappropriate.
But the odd twist is that it may have been
Clinton who reassured Canadians about NAFTA.
<...>
So, let me get this straight. If this report is right, the Clinton campaign gave assurances to the Canadians not to worry about her rhetoric on NAFTA. The Clinton campaign then spent a week hammering Obama on alleged assurances to Canadians about his rhetoric on NAFTA?
moreLook over there, Obama did it!
<...>
The candidates preceding Hillary released their returns before they were the nominee.
According to the Washington Post, "Sen. John F. Kerry released his returns in December 2003, long before winning the nomination; Vice President Al Gore's returns, of course, were already public." And Kucinich, Dean, Clark, Gephardt, and even evil Joe Lieberman released his returns.
Then there's Bill Clinton. In 1992, Bill Clinton made his tax returns public during the primaries. But, there was a catch. He didn't release his 1979 and 1978 tax returns.
Those were the returns showing that Hillary had made a 10,000% cattle-futures profit that raised a few eyebrows.
So is that why Hillary isn't releasing her returns? Because she knows that sometimes tax returns hide things that might appear (or be) scandalous? But even that argument doesn't make sense since Hillary has promised to release her returns AFTER she becomes the nominee. That means that she has no privacy interest in her tax returns, she's going to let the public see them soon anyway, but she simply doesn't want Democratic voters to get the chance to have her tax returns inform their vote during the primaries.
See, here's how it works. Hillary's tax returns could have something foul-smelling in them, like her 10,000% profit on the cattle-futures. If she releases her returns now, it gives you and me and every other Democratic voter the chance to judge her on what's in her returns, and vote accordingly. But if she waits until after she becomes the nominee, she knows she has us by the, uh, cattle-futures. As a Democrat, I might not vote for Hillary in the primary if I see something fishy in her tax returns. But in the general election, of course I'm going to vote for Hillary, regardless of what's in her returns. At that point, only Republicans will hold Hillary accountable for something fishy in her returns so she mitigates the damage by releasing them later rather than sooner.
more by John Aravosis (DC) • 3/06/2008
She called it "
frankly disturbing" that he refused to release his returns, and now
she won't release her own returns when Obama released his a year ago.
Hillary's right. It does look like she's hiding something:
Mr. Lazio pledged to release his tax returns soon after entering the Senate race in May, but had not done so, raising suspicions about whether he had the kind of financial problems that have tripped up other politicians in New York in recent decades.
The campaign of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, criticized the delay, asking whether he was hiding something.
And more from one of Hillary's current top advisers:
''Rick Lazio can't explain why it took three months to release his taxes,'' said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton campaign spokesman. ''Now he won't come clean with New Yorkers and reveal the real cost of his reckless trillion-dollar tax plan. It's time for Mr. Lazio to stop playing games and start talking straight.''
How is Hillary going to fight Mr. Straight Talk in the fall when her own campaign isn't holding true to its own "straight talk"? She can't. Another theme Hillary won't be able to hit on.
Oh, and
there's more:
Howard Wolfson, the chief spokesman for Mr. Lazio's opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, even showed up at a Lazio event in Harlem to fan the flames (over his tax returns).
more Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, taking the campaign a bit meta on a conference call today, attacked Obama for attacking Clinton, and compared him to a notorious Clinton foe.
"When Senator Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be Commander-in-Chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Senator Clinton," Wolfson said. "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president."
Wolfson was attacking Obama's explicit strategy, in the wake of his March 4 losses, to attack elements of Clinton's record on the grounds of secrecy, and to revisit the questions raised by Clinton foes in the 1990s and earlier. Obama has demanded Clinton's tax returns, cited delays in releasing her White House schedules, and
even made reference to trades in cattle futures in the late 1970s that became a subject of allegations during the White House years.
Wolfson also responded to the substance of Obama's complaint, that Clinton hasn't released her recent tax returns, and to the
reminder today that Clinton (via Wolfson) attacked her 2000 Senate rival, Rick Lazio, for failing to release his tax returns.
moreWhat's Hillary hiding?
Remember the plagiarism charge during one of the debates:
by kos
Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 08:27:22 AM PST
Look who's working
with the Clinton campaign:
In Austin on Feb. 21, Clinton had a solid debate performance, although her aides groaned as she accused Obama of offering "change you can Xerox." The line, advisers said, was offered during debate preparation by Bruce Reed, a Clinton White House official, but onstage it came across as forced and drew boos.
Clinton is getting her debate prep from Bruce Reed, the president of the DLC.
Clinton has been silent on her
leadership role at the DLC, since it's not the sort of thing that people like to trumpet anymore. Reed has been an
enthusiastic surrogate for Clinton, but the candidates don't always get to choose their supporters. (Al Wynn, anyone?)
But debate prep? Team Clinton has Team DLC firmly embedded in the campaign.
Update: Remember who top Clintonista James Carville wanted as DNC chair after 2006 in his attempted party coup? DLC executive director Harold Ford, who would clearly be a finalist for the gig in a Clinton administration.
Nothing say change like the DLC!
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