Changing the Story

Is that what Barak Obama means by change?

National Review's Byron York reports on the trouble the Obama campaign is in, over its discussions with the Canadian government on NAFTA. Of course, none of this will matter to those attending the revival meetings, but there are a lot of people who have genuine concerns on both sides of the NAFTA debate.

Those criticisms have been particularly intense in the run-up to today’s primary in economically struggling Ohio. At last week’s debate in Cleveland, Obama and Clinton dueled to see who could be more anti-NAFTA; Obama won, at least rhetorically, by promising to “use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage” to renegotiate NAFTA on his own terms.

Source: National Review Online – Is Obama Lying About NAFTAGate? (He certainly doesn’t seem to be telling the whole truth.) by Byron York The story is essentially Barak Obama is talking trash about NAFTA (a somewhat trendy thing to do among the left) and threatening to withdraw or to force a renegotiation. Of course, this talk disturbs our NAFTA treaty partners, but the Canadian trade minister thinks it might be a good idea:

Ottawa — Trade Minister David Emerson suggested the United States has a sweet deal over access to Canada's oil under the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying the two Democratic presidential candidates calling for renegotiations may not know just how good the U.S. has it under the deal.

Source: ViveleCanada.ca Emerson Says Oil On The Table If US Wants To Renegotiate NAFTA (Oil would be on table if NAFTA reopened: Emerson hints) by Julian Beltrame of The Canadian Press Anyway, it is clearly not something Canada wants and Canada is just reminding us it is probably something we really do not want either.

However, the story goes on. Anyway there were denials from Canada and from the Obama campaign and then a memo turns up showing the meeting did take place. Byron's piece details the evolving story complete with continued denials, more reporting on the meeting, an official memo from the Canadian Government, an oh-yeah from the Obama official, and continued story evolution from the Obama campaign. The only side presenting a dead story (i.e. non-changing/non-evolving) is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the only changing aspect of that reporting is on the scrambling by the Canadian Goverment and the Obama campaign.

One further dodge the Obama campaign and Austan Goolsbee (an Obama adviser from the University of Chicago) tried to foist on the public was the notion Mr. Goolsbee was visiting the Canadian Consulate as an official from the university and not the Campaign. However, CBC published memo indicates Mr. Goolsbee was there representing the campaign.

The point of the meeting was to assure the Canadian Government Obama's trashing of NAFTA is nothing more than words. Now, the only thing in doubt now (according to Byron's investigations and reporting) is exactly what was said between the parties.

The Obama campaign is in a quandary here. The campaign promising to bring change and hope is now appearing to be using the lofty rhetoric with a sly wink. Not unheard of, but hardly anything that could be change (in fact, this is they type of back room dealing the Obama campaign is trying to tell us they want to change).

Of course, the Obama campaign may issue a tough and detailed policy they would pursue in harmony with the revival meeting rhetoric. Canada, of course being a foreign entity, has little they can do to steer the our elections one way or another, but then this goes against all sorts of Democrat rhetoric about playing nice with the nations of the world.

Do not hope Obama will change much of anything.