Cannonfire

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Tit for Tat

dr. elsewhere here

I have tried to stay out of this infernal snit fest between our two esteemed (really; they both just are) Democratic candidates.

From most of what Joseph has offered on this nasty set of stories, seems to me that the bulk of the turmoil lies with the advocates on each side. Honestly; to a great extent, all the campaigns have to do is sit back and watch the show, and hope it doesn't backfire on them before they distance themselves.

So there's the Canada tiff. Now I have to confess that I smelled a big time rat on this one, mainly because it just did not make any sense that either candidate would stand to gain from such a communication with Canada. I mean, why would Obama feel the need to reassure Canada, for cryin' out loud? Really; think about it.

So, further, it occurred to me that Canada's PM, Stephen Harper, is extremely conservative, and it might actually serve him - and conservatives everywhere - better than anyone in the Democratic camp.

Well, seems my intuition may have been somewhat on; seems the Globe and Mail has today published a story exposing just that idea, that the story itself originated with - sooprize sooprize - Harper's Chief of Staff.

According to Josh, not only was this guy the source of the story, but it originally came came from the Clinton campaign!

Now, to my way of thinking, it makes a little more sense that Clinton might have enough of a relationship with Canada to prompt her to make such an overture. And then, it makes some sense that Harper's office might just, erm, sort of massage the story a bit to protect a "friend," or whatever, if you will. Fact is, we don't know just how the protagonist in this little tale shifted from Hillary to Barack, but there it is.

Just grist for the campaign mill here, folks; plenty of bad behavior to go around.

P.S. Kudos to Joseph for his brilliant - and educational! - post below, exposing the patent absurdity of what Kos has become. I confess, I have not intentionally visited the Kos since he mocked the very idea of election fraud during the '04 election. He struck me then as a pompous ass, and that opinion has only galvanized in the interim.

posted: 7:50 AM

8 COMMENTS - CLICK HERE

Comments:

"Steve" Harper yesterday denied that his CoS Ian Brodie had been responsible for the leaks. Ipso facto, Brodie's the guy. Whatever "Steve" says, you KNOW the opposite is true, at least if your live in Canada.

The careful JFK guy.

posted by

Anonymous : 8:50 AM

I particpated greatly in DKOS till Dec 04 when i got disgusted with Kos and his odious acolytes' (Armando, DHinMI, etc) refusal to face Occam's Razor on election fraud in OH.

I still visit DKOS once in a while now, but aside from Georgia10 there's no one there worth reading.

posted by

Anonymous : 1:45 AM

It's a relatively complicated fact situation, aggravated by more than a few ambiguities. The Obama advisor HAD spoken with A Canadian official, but had not initiated the call, and it was wrongly reported as to which Canadian official had spoken with him. So the initial Obama denial of any conversation wasn't entirely true, although their next claim of 'inaccuracies' in the story WAS true, but SOUNDED like more a weasel non-denial denial, by the time the first denial of any conversation was proven wrong.

So, the story wasn't immediately knocked down, and the Obama camp's responses were part of that problem. It is not that the Clinton campaign made this up out of whole cloth as a dirty trick or something, which is the new inaccurate take on this affair.

...sofla

posted by

Anonymous : 6:04 AM

sofia, i agree; it's a helluva mess, and not at all clear we could determine what really happened no matter how hard we tried. i am suspicious of harper's calls for extending the investigation, etc. methinks he doth protest too much, eh?

and glad to see we have some agreement on the demise of dkos. thanks for that anecdote from 04, anon145; that really burns me up. i mean, they continually lambaste the bush admin, accusing them of all sorts (at times even planning 9/11!), and yet it makes no sense to suspect them of fixing an election?? puhleeze.

posted by

dr. elsewhere : 6:04 PM

doc, you should take note of the latest news from Canada...

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNMJKvj5eQRQBNSeQj3bTyETSagQ

"PMO: Canadian officials only got briefing from Obama campaign - not Clinton"

What do we learn from this? Two things:

1. Obama's campaign lied.

2. The vaguely-sourced allegation regarding Clinton was disinformation.

And we learn a third thing: Lots of people will buy into ANY claim against the Clintons, no matter how poor the sourcing.

But we already learned that in the 1990s, didn't we?

posted by

Joseph : 8:53 PM

joe, i read that piece, and i don't see where it condemns obama.

as far as i can tell, goolsbee denies his meeting was a 'briefing,' or that he met as a rep for the campaign. if THAT is true, then it would make sense that the obama campaign did not know about it, and responded as such. when they learned there was a meeting, of course they had to backtrack, but that does not mean they were lying.

i'm not saying this is what happened, i'm just saying it's a reasonable interpretation of events as we know them.

because i can determine no earthly sensible reason that ANY candidate would pull such a boneheaded stunt as this simply to make the canadian PM feel better, i'm willing to entertain such interpretations as plausible, give the obama campaign the benefit of the doubt, and move on. it simply does not rise to radar level for me.

all that being said, i'll grant you that the clintons, especially hillary, have endured unfathomable harassment for fifteen years, and i swear, the only way i can understand it is there is enormous misogyny lurking in dark places in this country, and she represented a 'threat.' gee, ya think?

it's all shameful, and as far as i can tell, it appears both campaigns are resorting to shameful racist/misogyny crap, or using it when it emerges. not to mention the 'experience' vs 'not' stuff, there's enough below the belt blows to go around.

yeah, hillary has been pilloried, but they're both starting to play dirty, but there just is not enough evidence in my book to claim obama lied on this particular event. more data could emerge that proves me wrong, but until they do, i'm agnostic and watching for other issues. like kos's stupid 'dark' crap. now THAT's a story.

posted by

dr. elsewhere : 1:04 PM

Not so fast, Joseph.

There is no denying that the Goolsbee meeting took place, at the request of the Canadian govt., not the Obama campaign.

But here are the critical details you seem intent upon ignoring:

"Mr. Brodie wandered over to speak to Finance Department officials and chatted amiably with journalists — who appreciated this rare moment of direct access to the top official in Mr. Harper's notoriously tight-lipped government.

The former university professor found himself in a room with CTV employees where he was quickly surrounded by a gaggle of reporters while other journalists were within earshot of other colleagues.

At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio's anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.

Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.

Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.

"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room.

"He 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."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080305.wharpleak0305/BNStory/National/home

It is possible that Brodie was simply misinformed and misspoke. [It wouldn't be the first time, nor will it be the last, I'm sure.] However, what he said was overheard by multiple reporters - including his contention that it was Clinton's campaign who had offered reassurances.

However, the PM's chief of staff said one thing, only for his sole superior, the PM [who wasn't present at the time], to deny it later.

So, who lied, Joseph? The Chief of Staff? The Prime Minister? [Both are serial liars, so best of luck parsing that conundrum.] Or the Obama campaign?

I'm not an Obama supporter, but as a Canadian citizen, if I had to choose which of the three above lied, I'd have to go with my own Prime Minister. He has his own reasons for wishing a Republican to win the November general, and please don't think for a second that just because he denied a Hillary reassurance was offered that no such thing took place.

posted by

The Careful JFK Guy : 4:02 PM

thank you, mr. careful; thank you, thank you.

my position, i'll sum it up in the kernel here, is that there is simply no strategic reason for either the clinton OR the obama campaigns to make such a stupid overture to the canadian govt at this point.

in contrast, there IS some reason - albeit sleazy - for harper to stir up this issue in order to quell concerns in canadian markets.

moreover, enough of the evidence we do have (which isn't enough to determine ANYthing definitively, anyway) suggests harper's office is behind the whole thing, anyway. the fact that he is calling for this investigation (say what? over something like this??) raises further suspicions.

and as i noted in my previous comment, goolsbee has stressed that his meeting was academic and had NO political overtones, which would explain why the obama campaign might not know anything about it. hence, they first denied such a meeting, but then goolsbee had to say, well i did actually meet, but his direct quote denies anything resembling what was ultimately reported.

we just don't have enough to hang the obama campaign, especially with all the evidence to implicate the harper office. simple as that. at least for this little complicated affair, which really doesn't amount to enough to bother with.

move on, i say; far bigger fish to fry, like this stupid kos darkie blustering. bring that guy down, i say! go joe, go!!

posted by

dr. elsewhere : 9:24 AM