The so-called "Bittergate" episode, where Hillary Clinton and John McCain kneejerked foolish, phony responses to what Obama said about small towns left for dead because of policies like NAFTA, has now offered Barack Obama the PERFECT opportunity to expose the Clintons for being for NAFTA...both of them.
The piece de resistance is that this will expose Bill Clinton, already reeling from his profiting from the Colombia trade agreement, Mark Penn for still being actually in the Clinton campaign and profiting from the Colombia trade agreement AND expose Hillary Clinton for LYING about having always been against NAFTA.
As John Nichols pointed out recently in The Nation:
Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that "her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA" and that "there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;" now that we have these details confirmed, what should we make of Clinton's campaign claim that she was never comfortable with the militant free-trade agenda that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of union jobs, that has idled entire industries, that has saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined the security of working families in the US and abroad, and has forced Mexican farmers off their land into an economic refugee status that ultimately forces them to cross the Rio Grande River in search of work?
As she campaigns now, Clinton says, "I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning."
But the White House records confirm that this is not true.
Her statement is, to be precise, a lie.http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=300860You see, it turns out that Hillary Clinton would be The Closer in events in the White House where the Clintons were trying to jam NAFTA through:
One interesting event in Sen. Hillary Clinton's just-released schedules from the 1990s comes on Nov. 10 1993, when the former first lady was to serve as the closing act during a briefing on NAFTA, the trade agreement she now assails.
11:30 am -
11:45 am
NAFTA BRIEFING DROP-BY
Room 450, OEOB
CLOSED PRESS
PARTICIPANTS: Approx 120 expected to attend
(See briefing book for further info)
FORMAT:
- Alexis Herman intros HRC for brief remarks
-HRC concludes program(pp. 1375 and 1376)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/clintons-1993-n.htmlHillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign were trying to push the Heroine of Tuzla Sequel with her lies about the Bosnia event in Tuzla of the headlines. The Clinton supporter, who recorded the fundraiser and sat on the story since last Sunday, seemed to offer the perfect story to send Bill's lies about Hillary's lies off the screen.
Guess what... they took the bait, hook, line and sinker.
Now Pennsylvanians and other voters will see just what Barack Obama meant and hopefully the big speech on trade, NAFTA and its repercussions will be front and center. Perhaps exposing them on their money made with outsourcing can be the icing on the cake.