Obama lost because of NAFTA
March 7
I can't be as sure as that heading implies, but it appears the flap being described as "NAFTA-gate" is what stopped Obama's momentum last Tuesday. I'm not buying the "3:00 call" ad because Obama countered it very effectively, and he ran more ads than Clinton did so I'm sure it was seen. The Resko story can't help him, but it still seems more a punditocracy/blogosphere story. On the other hand NAFTA was a huge theme on the stump in Ohio, and despite assumptions, Texan voters were concerned about trade issues too, and strongly skeptical. So when the story broke that Obama had told the Canadian government that he didn't really mean it when he criticized NAFTA, he looked completely two-faced on an issue that has become a wedge issue among the Democratic base. At least that's my theory. It's also revealing. We learned that the Obama campaign was too slow to realize how big and bad this could be, by contrast with how they handled Samantha Power after her "monster" remark, which may indicate Obama learns fast. We learned that Clinton is willing to keep using a story that works, even after it's been put in doubt, apparently assuming the doubt will go unnoticed or that the repetition will make hearers unsure it was ever doubted after all. Actually this isn't a surprise, since the Clintons were the cause of the coining of the term "Republican-lite". Full Republicans would go with a full-blown lie, like saying Obama personally assured Stephen Harper. And tried to convert him to Islam. Clinton doesn't go that far, thus "lite".
Oh yes, the doubt. It can be confusing, because the story keeps changing, and if my suspicions are right, people keep lying. It's looking like an Obama advisor, Austan Goolsbee, had a meeting with diplomats at the Canadian consulate in Chicago. That part isn't in doubt. Obama denied there was a meeting when asked about it, but later said it did happen and he didn't know earlier that there had been a meeting. What Goolsbee told the Canadians is in dispute. The leaked Canadian memo quoted Goolsbee saying, "He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans." Goolsbee said that wasn't what he said. Obama denies approaching the Canadians through backchannels. To add a twist, it turns out the initial leaker was Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie, who said it was the Clinton campaign was giving the assurances. The Canadian opposition parties seem to suspect the Harper government is up to no good. I suspect so too. My impression of Harper has always been that he's a Bush wannabe, and this leak and the attempts to protect his staff and blame Obama seem very Bush-like. Clinton and Harper deny there were assurances, but she's as implicated as Obama and must know it, yet she's still going after him on it knowing full well the whole thing is based on one consulate staff member's disputed recollection of what an Obama advisor said. Oh yes, a minor point: the Clintons would rather we all forget that it was Bill, with occasional praise for the idea from Hillary until it become too unpopular for a presidential candidate, who foisted NAFTA on us. By "us" I don't mean multinational corporations, for whom NAFTA and free trade in general has been just great. For most workers, not so much.
To get back to the campaign, please Obama, make something out of this report that the Clinton campaign is also accused of giving assurances, and link it with her past statements supporting free trade. If you don't, nothing anyone else tries to say on your behalf will get media attention.
"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at his pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose."
Abraham Lincoln in 1848, during the Mexican War, expressing why allowing a president sole discretion to decide when to invade another country is dangerous to the liberty of his own country.
"The OPR [the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility]also has been far behind in producing required annual public reports summarizing its activities. Last month, it released its report covering fiscal year 2005. That means many investigations undertaken during the tenure of former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales remain under wraps."
LA Times reporter Richard B. Schmit, in an article written in July 2008, on how the OPR is hiding the results of investigations --- assuming they actually are investigating.
"Mr. Chairman, I think the number's actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108, and the total number that were declared homicides by the military services, or by the CIA, or others doing investigations, CID, and so forth — was 25, 26, 27."
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, on the number of detainees killed in Bush's prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and locations still secret.
"Democracy works, but sometimes churns slowly. Time is short. The 2008 election is critical for the planet. If Americans turn out to pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen, if Washington adapts to address climate change, our children and grandchildren can still hold great expectations."
James Hansen, on the 20th anniversary of his testimony before Congress where he informed them global warming was now certain, and how little time remains to prevent catastrophes.
"Who will chair the commission investigating the secrets of warrantless spying, years from today? Will it be a young senator in this body today? Will it be someone not yet elected? What will that senator say when he or she comes to our actions, reads in the records how we let outrage after outrage after outrage slide, with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one? I imagine that senator will ask of us, 'Why didn't they do anything? Why didn't they fight back? In June 2008, when no one could doubt anymore what the administration was doing---why did they sit on their hands?'"
Sen. Chris Dodd, in his speech on the Senate floor opposing the FISA bill and retroactive immunity.
"We had the worst natural disaster in the history of this country Katrina, and there wasn't a drop of oil spilled."
Sen. Norm Coleman, proposing more offshore oil drilling. There was actually enough oil spilled to match the Exxon Valdez. Whether Coleman is lying, or ignorantly repeating Republican talking points, is unknown.
"I'll go back to square one on this: We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us."
George Carlin, in an interview with Salon, on how he became a disappointed idealist.
"To date, seven long years after we scooped up our first detainees in Afghanistan, not a single one of them has faced evidence, his accusers, or anything remotely resembling a legal court hearing on his guilt or innocence."
Joseph Galloway, military correspondent for McClatchy, on how responsibility for war crimes goes right to the top, despite efforts to confine consequences to the bottom, in light of the recent McClatchy series on detainees.
"As I was leaving the UN food distribution center in Damascus, Layla Atiya, the widow with seven children, touched my arm. 'Can you tell me one thing?,' she pleaded. 'Why did America do this to us? What did we do to America to make her hate us so?'"
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink, writing about her visit to Iraqi refugee camps.
"So we're sitting here and, for example, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who said that he wanted to be a martyr on 9/11, make no mistake about it --- he said that he just couldn't get a visa --- launched into a description of what kind of psychotropic drugs he's taking here at the prison camp, or being given here at the prison camp. And the media monitors hit the white noise button. We didn't get to hear what exactly he's being given and we didn't exactly hear his explanation about why he's on medication.
And one of the escorts here explained that this was HIPAA protection, the Health and Information Protection Act on a place where the Bush Administration says the Constitution doesn't apply."
Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, on the restrictions placed on the press and mistreatment of detainees.
"If the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court was really concerned about fairness, it could have simply asked the Florida Supreme Court to devise a universal standard, appoint a judge to enforce it, and then extend the state's meaningless 'safe harbor' deadline to make it possible to complete the recount. It did not do so because it was not interested in counting the votes. It wanted George W. Bush to win."
Gary Kamiya, Salon writer at large, in a review of the HBO's "Recount", on how the Supreme Court stole the election for Bush.
"Convicting and imprisoning Paul Minor on corruption charges could be a powerful way to curtail contributions to the local Democratic Party."
U.S. House Judiciary Committee report on political prosecutions by the Bush DOJ. Minor was a vital contributor to the Mississippi Democratic Party.
"Where does the madness end? Where do words lose their meaning? Al-Qa'ida is not being defeated. Hizbollah has just won a domestic war in Lebanon, as total as Hamas's war in Gaza. Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza are hell disasters — I need no apology to quote Churchill's description of 1948 Palestine yet again — and this foolish, stupid, vicious man is lying to the world yet again."
Robert Fisk, columnist and resident of Lebanon, responding to remarks by Bush that show he hasn't the least understanding of the region he's mucking up.
"The short version: Republicans in Congress, McCain included, have slashed the United States budget for wind energy since Carter was president, which is why McCain has to speak at a Danish turbine manufacturer instead of an American one."
Mother Jones reporter/blogger Jonathan Stein, noting that McCain made his climate change speech in a Danish wind turbine factory after repeatedly cutting funding for wind development here.
"We get off on warfare."
Rev. Rod Parsley, McCain's spiritual advisor, who calls for mass murder, in a snippet of a sermon in a video by Mother Jones and Brave New Films. That line of Christian charity comes about 1:25 into the video.