Hypocrite Alert

by A.B. Stoddard - 03/07/08 1:07 PM ET

As fellow blogger Brent Budowsky points out today, we have a Hypocrite Alert.

Turns out the campaign of Hillary Clinton, which has been bagging on Barack Obama for a “kitchen sink” of grievances, gave “the old wink-wink” themselves to the government of Canada about NAFTA — the very thing they accuse him of.

Hard to find it in the papers today, but it was on the Agence France-Presse wire last night. According to that Ian Brodie, chief of staff to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who keeps getting in so much trouble: Clinton’s campaign reportedly contacted the Canadian Embassy in Washington to tell officials to take her anti-NAFTA statements “with a grain of salt.”

Who is surprised? Both Clinton and Obama, who voted recently for the trade deal for Peru, have been supportive of NAFTA-style trade deals but are campaigning now for a “renegotiation” of NAFTA. Note they never say “repeal.”

Do Obama and Clinton plan to ride in to Pennsylvania with the same protectionist posture they assumed in Ohio, or will they temper it a bit? Now that they have both been caught being disingenuous, have they neutralized this as an issue?

Can’t wait to find out.

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