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I'm trying to puzzle my way through this story on how the Canadian leak accusing Barack Obama of selling out voters on NAFTA actually went down. As far as I can tell, the original leak referred to Hillary Clinton:
Mr. Brodie, apparently seeking to play down the potential impact on Canada, told the reporters the threat was not serious, and that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign had even contacted Canadian diplomats to tell them not to worry because the NAFTA threats were mostly political posturing.The Canadian Press cited an unnamed source last night as saying that several people overheard the remark.The news agency quoted that source as saying that Mr. Brodie said that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign called and was "telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt."The story was followed by CTV's Washington bureau chief, Tom Clark, who reported that the Obama campaign, not the Clinton's, had reassured Canadian diplomats.The whole thing is very, very strange. On the one hand, both the Clinton and the Obama campaigns were playing Ohioans, pretending to be viciously opposed to NAFTA even as they've no intention of seriously changing the agreement. On the other, leaks from foreign governments that are meant to influence American elections are not a good thing, and it gets even weirder when the leak apparently went in one direction and was reported in the other. And on the third, this was a pretty hypocritical attack on the part of the Clinton campaign. That was always true, to be sure, but now it's even more so.
