Ohio: A hollow victory based on a lie. CBC (Canada TV) exonerates Obama on NAFTAgate

According to CBC, all the details were wrong. Canada contacted the campaigns. Michael Wilson was not involved. And, most damning, they are now admitting that the memo at the heart of the controversy "may not accurately reflect what they were told".

In other words, according to CBC, this scandal was manufactured out of whole cloth. Goolsbee said something consistent with Obama's official position - that he wanted protections added, but it wasn't going to be a fundamental change or revocation of NAFTA, and that Obama was not a protectionist. This was morphed somewhat going into the memo, and now the embassy admits they "may have misrepresented the Obama advisor". Even after the memo misrepresented Obama, the Harper government took it a step further and then leaked a completely fantastic version of the story to the press, in order to maximize the bloodletting.

In short, Chris Bowers was right. This whole thing is clever maneuvering on the part of the Harper government to bolster McCain by sowing dissent among Democrats.

A lot has been written about this scandal. The sensational misrepresentation of the original CTV story was shocking. But now CBC has cleared the air, with the final note from the embassy that they "may have misrepresented the Obama advisor". In the end, there's nothing to the story but air. It all boiled down to a memo, which was far less dramatic in content than the first story that ran, and now they are even disclaiming the accuracy of the memo.

In short, people have been duped. With the memo disclaimed, there is nothing left to support this story.

Tangled Friggin' Web

03.05.08 -- 10:28PM
By Josh Marshall

Seems the NAFTAgate leak started with -- surprise, surprise -- the Chief of Staff to Canada's conservative PM Stephen Harper. Only the first hint wasn't about stuff the Canadians had heard from the Obama camp. It was about reassurances the Canadians got from the Clinton campaign. According to a reporter who heard the original conversation, 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."

Only somehow this evolved into a story about the Obama campaign giving such reassurances.

The Globe and Mail has the latest details.

So was HIllary bashing Obama for what her own campaign had done? Did they both do it? Was it all a set up? I think the overarching story here is that friendly governments should not interfere in our elections.