Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Obama supports NAFTA

The O-Beasts are having a hard time rationalizing this. It turns out that Austan Goolsbee was right when he assured the Canadians that Obama's anti-NAFTA public rhetoric was a sham:
In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine's upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn't want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA.

"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.
Do you think the Lightbringer's disciples will ever understand that they created a hallucinatory Obama -- that they projected all of their hopes and desires onto a Rorschach blot?

6 comments:

Citizen K said...

I've been trying to get my hands around just where Obama stands on various issues. Your post comes as no surprise - he's a politician. Naomi Klein's article, "Obama's Chicago Boys", in The Nation (a surprise in itself as she switched from Clinton to Obama in Feb 2008) raises good questions about our "progressive" nominee.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein
"Now is the time to worry about Obama's Chicago Boys and their commitment to fending off serious attempts at regulation. It was in the two and a half months between winning the 1992 election and being sworn into office that Bill Clinton did a U-turn on the economy. He had campaigned promising to revise NAFTA, adding labor and environmental provisions and to invest in social programs. But two weeks before his inauguration, he met with then-Goldman Sachs chief Robert Rubin, who convinced him of the urgency of embracing austerity and more liberalization."

Anonymous said...

What ARE the implications of NAFTA since Canada is our leading supplier of oil and Mexico is third (after Saudi Arabia)? Look on the bright side: you were bamboozled early on, and it's still early enough for others to have their own OMFG epiphanies.

I just got off the phone with Ralph - he wants to know what you've written about Gore's endorsement of Obama.

Padraig

Anonymous said...

IS THERE ANY NAME ON THE LIST WE CAN CALL HIM?

Gawd if only Barry was anglo. Imagine the names that would be at our disposal. And the lurid stuff he could be accused of without risking a keyboard thrashing.

Ok...THAT'S IT!! I'm going to risk it!

BARRY! YOU'RE A SOFTBOY! Har! Fight that!

<>_<>
HOPE CHANGE does not mean Rev Wright moves into the Lincoln Bedroom

Anonymous said...

On MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on June 10, Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, commented on the articles of impeachment. "The framers, I think, would have been astonished by the absolute passivity, if not the collusion, of the Democrats in protecting President Bush from impeachment," Turley stated.

Where do you stand?
Just ignore it and it will go away?
Like Pelosi?
Traitor?

Anonymous said...

or Quisling?

Anonymous said...

or just another deranged ranger?