Familiarize yourself with that name. He's the chief of staff to the Canadian prime minister, and allegedly, the source of the leak to CTV about Austan Goolsbee's freelancing. Except... in his original comments, his seems to have also made the same assertions about the Clinton campaign.
« No Country For Mark Penn | Main | Obama, Clinton, McCain, And The General » Ian Brodie06 Mar 2008 07:54 am Comments (24)
Wow...more incredible hypocrisy from the Clinton campaign. These people prove time and time again that they are evil personified. 
Please Marc, PLEASE get this to the MSM. I really hope they start asking questions on this.
Marc, one big change in your post. According to the story, he never made the assertions about the Obama camp. It was simply changed to the wrong camp when the story went to print. A memo was also distributed (apparently without verification) of a similar conversation between an Obama advisor and the Canadian government. So far, the only accusation that is actively verified by any member of the Canadian government is that Clinton's camp engaged in political doubletalk, not Obama's.
AS much as Marc Ambinder believes the fiction that there is not greater truth than the fact of MSM bias against HIllary, this hypocrisy will never get echo chambered by the media. When a candidate claims media bias and most of the media cynically agrees with her, then you realize how stacked things are against the other guy.
where are the clintons tax returns. what are they hiding?
Marc: Thanks for posting this. One problem, the article makes CLEAR that he never mentioned Obama. Re-read the article or the first post above. Suggesting that he was talking about BOTH mutes the hypocrisy of the Clintons cynical actions earlier this week. Looks like the Obama campaign got the thing they needed to change the narrative. Perhaps they will exploit it.
Shouldn't this be the lead story on all the evening news shows? According to the chief of staff to the prime minister, Hillary's campaign was secretly reassuring the Canadian government that her remarks about NAFTA were phony! Hey Ohio and Texas -- want to vote again?
Blame Canada!
Man, I am ashamed to be Canadian right now. Our Conservative PM knows that if Obama wins, Canada will be even more isolated on climate change. Also, he knows that the winds of change will probably also blow up here. Hopefully, he'll be gone by Obama's inaugeration. This story will help. Also, if you want a real scandal. Harper's aides often a very sick MP $1 million in life insurance to vote for the Conservatives in a crucial vote. To his credit, the MP declined.
This isn't exactly the same, as I thought that Mr. Goolsbee was asked to meet with the Canadians (was this invitation before or after the call from the Clinton campaign [who, precisely]?) unbeknownst to Hon. Sen. Obama.
One problem - the only real evidence is damning to Obama. Days later, the leak of the internal Canadian diplomatic note revealed that Mr. Obama's adviser, Austan Goolsbee, spoke to Mr. Rioux on Feb. 8. In a summary of the meeting written by Canadian diplomat Joseph de Mora, Mr. Goolsbee was described as indicating that Mr. Obama's NAFTA stand "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."
One problem - the only real evidence is damning to Obama It will be interesting to see what's forthcoming from concerned Canadians in regards to showing how insanely duplicitous the Clintons truly are. This has the potential to backfire straight into Hillary's crone-like face.
Any suggestion of this being an attempt by Harper to aid the Republicans is ludicrous. Harper would never be so ham handed and, more importantly, this isn't when you'd release the information. What he'd do is wait until Obama's secured the nomination and then drop the bomb shell. CBC is reporting that: Brodie allegedly also discussed musings by Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, saying people from her camp also told Canadians to take her NAFTA" http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/05/canada-obama.html
I forgot the obvious: Even if the aim was to help Hillary win, which is what everyone seems to think (smacks head), it still doesn't make sense why you'd leak it so obviously.
Whoa - Ambinder's got it wrong AND the above Obamaphiles got it wrong too. Read the article. It says Brodie referred to the Clinton campaign in the original conversation, but that he had misspoke and it was changed to the Obama campaign in newspaper reports. I'm sure the Obamaphiles smell a conspiracy there, but - again, according to the article - the subsequent leak of the actual memo describing the actual conversation with the actual presidential campaign makes it clear that it was Obama's campaign reassuring the Canadians, not Hillary's.
Keith: Are you just a common liar or simply fucking nuts? Where does it say that he "misspoke"? Here's what I read: "The news agency quoted that source as saying that Mr. Brodie said that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign called and was "telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt." My guess is that you're simply a know nothing moron.
One problem - the only real evidence is damning to Obama. Give me a break. We all know both candidates were pandering like crazy on NAFTA. Neither Clinton nor Obama think NAFTA is at the root of US or Ohio's economic problems. The only real story here is how it all got pinned on Obama -- was it merely incompetence in the Obama campaign, or a concerted smear against him? Most likely, both.
Harper would never be so ham handed and, more importantly, this isn't when you'd release the information. What he'd do is wait until Obama's secured the nomination and then drop the bomb shell. This issue won't matter in the general. It only matters to protectionist Democrats, an awful lot of whom live in Ohio. You think a protectionist Dem is going to vote for McCain because of some rumor that Obama's not as hard on NAFTA as he claims? The only reason to leak this information is to help Hillary gain traction in Ohio, which could keep her in the race long enough to give McCain time to get his act together.
My error was to write that they'd release now as a means of damaging him in the general. As you say, releasing it now is meant to hurt Obama and help Clinton (the weaker candidate against Repub). I disagree that this issue couldn't have hurt Obama in the general. While NAFTA might not be a big liability for Obama the article could do serious damage to his narrative. Hence the drop in the polls now. Had this been released in a general between Obama and McCain it could have had a greater, longer impact in portraying Obama as empty words.
>>In a summary of the meeting written by Canadian diplomat Joseph de Mora, Mr. Goolsbee was described as indicating that Mr. Obama's NAFTA stand "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Canwest%20News_1.pdf In the conversation, Goolsbee is reported to 1) reinforce Obama's often-stated position, that he wants to see changes in the labor and environmental provisions and 2) that the Canadians should not interpret comments as indicating that Obama is *protectionist*, something he himself has said on numerous occasions. In other words, the memo isn't damning even if you believe it, and CBC reports today that the Canadian gov't acknoweledges it misrepresented some of what Goolsbee said in the memo. ---------- In any event, none of the events involving Goolsbee or Obama are in any way connected to the originally 'leaked' story: that someone from X campaign called the Canadian Ambassador to warn him not to pay attention to the candidate's public words on NAFTA, that it was only 'campaign rhetoric' So either someone made up that story out of whole cloth to create an anticipation of scandal before dropping the rather innocuous memo -- or -- if a call like that came from a candidate, was it perhaps Clinton rather than Obama? I don't know. It could be the Republicans or the Canadians behind it all, but it wasn't Obama, yet he's the only one that got tarred - badly - in the press and in TV ads from his opponent. Mark, I agree that your statement is not correct. According to the news article you are referencing, Brodie made accusations ONLY against Clinton. It doesn't say that he made the "same" accusations against her.
Please report this! Do not let Hillary be left of the hook.
people,
I am so embarassed of my government. It's inexcusable that the Canadian government interjected itself in the internal political affairs of another nation, a friend no less. Not to mention the damage they have done to our foreign service. Canadian diplomats are seen as honest brokers. Now, foreign governments will be very vary to extend our diplomats the courtesy of these sorts of meetings in the future. Harper needs to fire Brodie immediately.
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Posted by Mark | March 6, 2008 8:03 AM