I want you to watch this video:
Now I want you to read this account of a November 10, 1993 meeting on NAFTA that occurred at the White House (emphasis mine):
Two attendees of that closed-door briefing, neither of whom are affiliated with any campaign, describe that event for ABC News. It was a room full of women involved in international trade. David Gergen served as a sort of master of ceremonies as various women members of the Cabinet talked up NAFTA, which had yet to pass Congress.
“It wasn’t a drop-by it was organized around [Hillary’s] participation,” said one attendee. “Her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy. There was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time.
David Gergen went on national television to tell the nation (and the people of Ohio) that Hillary Clinton strongly objected to NAFTA prior to its passage. Yet, David Gergen, himself, organized a meeting between Hillary Clinton and ‘women involved in international trade’ where Clinton unambiguously boosted NAFTA. David Sirota has a list of other examples where Hillary Clinton boasted about NAFTA, including in her own autobiography. Jake Tapper reports:
And as the AP reports today, the recently released 11,000-plus pages of her First Lady “schedules show her holding at least five meetings in 1993 aimed at helping to win congressional approval of the deal.”
This inconsistency can be resolved if David Gergen wants to tell us that Hillary Clinton worked her butt off to help pass NAFTA because it was an important priority of her husband, but that she personally disagreed with the policy. We all could somewhat understand that. I think it would be an odd use of her time and credibility, especially when Health Care was her portfolio, but she can shill for policies she doesn’t believe in all she wants if it serves the interests of her husband. We, however, reserve the right to pass harsh judgment on such calculating cynicism. All those ‘women involved in international trade’ that took Hillary at her word will probably be disappointed to learn that she didn’t believe in the very policy she was so robustly advocating.
However, the converse is probably the truth. Clinton’s strong advocacy of NAFTA prior to its passage and her consistent praise of NAFTA ever since (up until this campaign), as well as her leadership role in the pro-free trade Democratic Leadership Council, all indicate that was not lying then…she (and David Gergen) are lying now. Watch it again.
I’ve never found David Gergen to be credible. His punditry is vastly exaggerated. He’s an opportunist and will serve in any administration. Any. David is devoid of scruples…
So I’m not surprised he’s found to be a mommyf^cker of a liar.
He’s an opportunist and will serve in any administration.
That should have clued in folks from the jump. Why would someone who worked for the rethugs before B. Clinton suddenly be against NAFTA? It doesn’t pass the smell test. The union folks who voted for Hillary are just begging to be kicked to the curb…once again.
I’m just shocked that anyone fell for the “I was privately against it.” What tripe!
When will these folks EVER learn to vote in their own economic interests?
I wrote an op-ed about NAFTA and other trade agreements for my union paper in late 1992 warning people about something like what eventually happened with Bill Clinton and NAFTA. This last January our union’s National President came to our branch meeting and had the gall to spend an hour of our time fluffing H. Clinton. After NAFTA.
I spent most of my adult life in a blue collar job. It’s not a job that can be exported, but you don’t have to be a genius to figure out the law of supply and demand. If all the other blue collar jobs are devalued then so are you and your work.
Sorry, I don’t forget.
Shame on you, David Gergen, shame on you! Meet me in PA and let’s have a discussion about your tactics!
…with the worst comb-over since Donald Trump. Dude, just go bald gracefully. Pretty soon his part is going to be somewhere around his left nipple.
What are the chances that 2 savvy individuals have faulty memories regarding NAFTA? None to none would probably best describe it. Umm, but that would make them both liars, wouldn’t it? < gasp >
And it looks like now the Obama campaign is using Hillary’s lobbying for NAFTA as an issue…
Link
And the Obama campaign lays out all of the facts and quotes needed for any Stenographer/Journamalist to cut & paste into a story in a concise memo.
Let’s see if anyone reports it with footage of the “Shame on you Barack Obama!” press conference footage where she was unfairly accusing her opponent of her own Rove-like tactics.
Of course they probably won’t because it seems Rev. Wright is receiving an award from some divinity school in Texas and that’s just a travesty after all of the uncomfortable things he’s said about white people in those video clips that they’ve been playing at every opportunity for the last week. Of course this just created a new opportunity to play them all again. Yay!
And today’s new controversy: “Is Obama an illegitimate candidate?” Seems that by refusing to join Hillary in the good fight to prevent FL and MI voters from being “disenfranchised,” Hillary is calling into question the legitimacy of anyone who wins the nomination without them.
The media is trying really hard to get their dream race of Hillary/McCain. If they should succeed, Some people have other ideas of how to react. I can’t say that I disagree.
an old savvy lawyer once said, long before YouTube was an idea–it’s difficult, even with shredders, to disappear the written word. You can’t be sure it’s not been cached somewhere.
Ohio got punked. Those Hillary Ohio leaflets won’t fly in PA.
The “I always opposed NAFTA” story by Clinton was leaking from the start. Gergen made the same claim on Morning Joe before the Ohio primary, only to have it immediately contradicted by Lawrence O’Donnell, who was chief of staff of the Senate’s Finance committee.
“..I was working with Hillary Clinton at the time in the Senate when she was trying to pass her health care plan. And her only problem with NAFTA was she wanted it to go after the health care plan because if that`s come through the same committee that I was running and so, her problem was just sequential. She`s never been against NAFTA until this campaign.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23394339/
Robert Reich has also weighed in on this issue and confirmed that Clinton’s main concern was with the timing, since it would have interfered with the passage of the health care overhaul.
“..HRC didn’t want the Administration to move forward with NAFTA, but not because she was opposed to NAFTA as a policy. She opposed NAFTA because of its timing. She wanted her health-care plan to be voted on first.”
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-and-barack-afta-nafta.html
Considering how often Clinton has publicly supported NAFTA, even as recently as 2004 as shown in the videotape played during the Ohio debate, her claim to have “always opposed it” smacks of political expediency.
But the side-story on the NAFTA issue may be even more interesting. And many people have missed it, although it was a major story in Canada.
The report that the Obama campaign had given reassurances to the Canadian government regarding NAFTA had a very interesting genesis.
The memo that characterized Obama’s economic adviser Austan Goolsbee’s comments to Canadian officials was leaked to the press, and I leave it to others to guess why anyone in Harper’s neocon government would want to release a memo damaging to Obama. It should be noted that Obama’s position on NAFTA is hardly threatening to trade with Canada. Environmental regulations are tougher in Canada, and child labor is hardly a concern. So an accurate communication by Goolsbee of Obama’s position could scarcely be viewed as threatening Canada’s agreement with the the U.S.
The memo was produced by a member of the Canadian consulate, Joseph DeMora, and what’s clear is that his comments aren’t an attempt to cite Goolsbee’s actual words but a characterization of them. [see memo quote]
“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.” — DeMora memo
Goolsbee immediately objected to DeMora’s characterization:
“He’s not quoting me. I certainly did not use that phrase in any way, ..” — Goolsbee
Perhaps what’s interesting is not whether Goolsbee’s comments were mischaracterized, or even whether the leak was used to try to affect the U.S. election, but the fact the Clinton campaign contacted the Canadian government to reassure them about NAFTA, which Harper’s chief of staff, Ian Brodie, stated in a moment of candor:
“He [Brodie] said someone from (Hillary) Clinton’s campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry.” — from report by Alexander Panetta, Canadian Press
The point here is not whether or not the campaigns were having behind-the-scenes conversations with the Canadians, or whether those conversations were possibly mischaracterized, but the curious fact that the eventual story by CTV singled out the Obama campaign’s communications with the Canadians and only mentioned Clinton “in passing.”
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030608D.shtml
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jrFPkleRZmbmPtPxHBGNAPSzfUtwD8V61MF01
What’s curious about CTV’s coverage of the incident is that the contact by the Clinton campaign, which Harper’s chief-of-staff Brodie remarked on, was then reported by CTV as the Obama campaign.
“There was no explanation last night for why Mr. Brodie was said to have referred to the Clinton campaign but the news report was about the Obama campaign.” Campbell Clark, globeandmail
http://hellonegro.com/2008/03/07/the-nafta-comment-was-really-made-by-the-clinton-campaign/
Just watch this… and read all of the stuff they put on-screen. Well done.