Even though this AP story is written by the notorious Nedra Pickler, we now learn that yes, there was indeed an actual conversation on NAFTA between the Obama campaign and Canadian officials. But this conversation (that, until recently, never actually happened) is now all just a misunderstanding. And see, they weren’t just blowing smoke up our collective ass when they denied it because it was an actual meeting, not a phone call:
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) — Barack Obama’s senior economic policy adviser said Sunday that Canadian government officials wrote an inaccurate portrayal of his private discussion on the campaign’s trade policy in a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of the meeting between the adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and officials with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but Goolsbee said it misinterprets what he told them. The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who works for the consulate and attended the meeting.
Goolsbee disputed a section that read: “Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign. 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.”
“This thing about `it’s more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,’ that’s this guy’s language,” Goolsbee said of DeMora. “He’s not quoting me.”
No, no. The man who’s a senior economist for the beloved DLC would never take part in such a blatant political shell game. After all, these things affect real people!
I knew there had to be something to this story. After all, CTV is hardly Fox News, and it sounded a little too close to reality as I know it.
Do you ever wonder why politicians can’t just be honest with people? After all, there’s a reasonable case to be made for NAFTA to the public. “Here’s where it was a plus, here’s where it was a loss, here’s how we tried to remediate that with regulations but the Bush administration stopped enforcing them.”
Because especially during a campaign, it’s crazy and chaotic and the voters solidify into the lowest common denominator. That means you must avoid anything specific, and you especially try to avoid anything complex. There’s no point. The group voter-mind not only refuses to grasp it, it actively rejects it.
Working on a campaign was such a traumatic and soul-deadening experience for me. It’s one thing to know intellectually how sausage is made; it’s quite another to see it made close up, on a daily basis. The biggest way it changed me? I no longer wonder why politicians lie. Instead, I give them points for style and originality.
Because while it’s a “bad” thing to lie to the public you allegedly serve, it is also a “bad” thing that people virtually demand to be lied to.
