CTV Report on Obama’s NAFTA Stand Looking Like Swiss Cheese

My yesterday’s post about Obama, NAFTA, and the Canadian government is up, in revised and updated form, at The Moderate Voice.

Just to recap: Late Wednesday evening, CTV.ca, a Canadian broadcaster, published an article alleging that “a senior member of [Obama’s] campaign team told a Canadian official” that Obama was not serious about campaign pledges that he would opt out of NAFTA if attempts to renegotiate labor and environmental provisions in that treaty failed. After Obama and the Canadian embassy both said no such conversation had taken place, Taylor Marsh (an enthusiastic Clinton supporter) called CTV and announced that Greg McIsaac, communications manager for news and current affairs at CTV, confirmed that “the facts of our story are accurate.”

Although the traditional media has failed to show much interest in this latest salvo in the Clinton campaign’s attempt to discredit Obama and erase his lead in the race, the political blogosphere has been following it closely. Predictably, right-wing bloggers and hardcore Clinton supporters are overjoyed by the CTV report, and are not inclined to look too closely at how well it holds together — which is to say, not very well at all.

One of the many disturbing aspects of this controversy, along with all the others that came before it, is that there is a subset of Clinton’s supporters in the blogosphere who are so fanatically committed to a Clinton presidency that, seemingly, they would rather help Republicans destroy Barack Obama than see Obama win the nomination. Now, if there were solid, nailed-down, incontrovertible evidence that someone in Obama’s campaign really had told Canadian officials that his opposition to NAFTA was not meant to be taken seriously, then I would be the first to condemn him for it. I don’t believe in covering up or denying wrongdoing or unethical behavior in the name of partisan politics.

But that is far from being the case with these allegations. There are enough — actually, more than enough — holes, inconsistencies, vague assertions, and just plain fishy stuff in this report that bloggers who prioritize healing this Bush-whacked country over getting the one candidate they are crazy for into the White House could be reasonably expected to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. To say the very least.

Instead, some Clinton partisans (but not all) are joining with Bush conservatives in jumping feet first onto a follow-up piece from CTV that they insist proves Obama did tell Americans one thing and the Canadian government another.

Upon close reading, however, the article in question creates more questions than it answers. At least one member of the reality-based community thinks CTV is backing away from the original story:

The Canadian network CTV reports that a senior staffer for the Obama campaign called the Canadian Ambassador to the US and said that he should ignore whatever Obama said about wanting to renegotiate NAFTA, because it was just for domestic consumption.

Obama denies it. The ambassador denies it. McCain, having first said he didn’t know whether it was true, later decides to assume it is true and use it to attack Obama’s integrity.

Turncoat Democrats are all over it; CTV originally stands by its story, which to fever-swamp residents like Taylor Marsh and Larry Johnson proves that it must be true. After all, since people in the Bush administration have told lies, anything a Canadian official says should be assumed to be false. (No, I don’t follow that logic, either.)

Just one thing, though: the story reeks of fish, and CTV, far from standing behind it, is rapidly backing away from it. The original account vaguely mentions “Canadian sources.” The follow-up, which includes denials from Obama and from the Ambassador, gets a little more specific: now the source is said to be “a high-ranking member of the Canadian embassy.” But suddenly that source isn’t so sure he had it right in the first place: “He has since suggested it was perhaps a miscommunication.”

Swiftly switching gears, CTV now claims to be pursuing, not a conversation between a senior Obama staffer and the Canadian Ambassador, but a phone call between Austan Goolsbee — not a staffer but an academic at the University of Chicago who has been advising Obama — and someone (unnamed, of course) in the Canadian Consulate-General in Chicago.

Since we have no evidence for any of this save the word of CTV, and since CTV can’t get its story straight, anyone who claims to believe the story — that is, McCain and his odd bedfellows Marsh and Johnson — ought to be presumed to be in bad faith. It might be true, but there’s no reason for any fair-minded person to believe that it’s true.

These are reasonable and fair questions. Someone among the partisans who are attacking Obama should try to answer them.

Foreclosures

Historically, way back in the past, in the 19XXs, foreclosures happened.  Occasionally.  Once in a while. Personally, I never knew anyone (prior to the sub-prime mess) who had their house foreclosed on.

Fast forward to seven years of malignant neglect by Bush and his sychophants and we have a record number of foreclosures.  According to MSN Real Estate the

number of homes entering some stage of foreclosure — from notice of default to bank ownership — increased 45% in January from the same period a year earlier, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac.

Different parts of the country have different numbers and rates of foreclosure

The areas of the country with the highest foreclosure rates on a per capita basis were Georgia, Nevada and Colorado.

• One out of every 422 households was in some stage of foreclosure in Georgia in January — an 88% jump from the previous year. Georgia also came in at No. 5 for the highest total number of foreclosures.
• Nevada was second, with 1,795 properties entering foreclosure; 2 1/2 times the number reported the year before and one for every 483 households.
• Colorado came in at No. 3, with a 36% rise to 3,747 properties, or one in every 488 households.

Economists speculated that lost jobs in and around the Atlanta and Denver areas were the main culprits. Realtors say the hardest-hit areas appear to be houses in lower-income urban neighborhoods.

[snip]

The states with the largest total number of foreclosures were Texas, with 14,669 foreclosures; Florida, with 10,334; and California, with 9,354.

Some folks are taking a pro-active approach to foreclosure.  According to The Agonist which begins this way

 When Raymond Zulueta went into default on his mortgage last year, he did what a lot of people do. He worried.

In a declining housing market, he owed more than the house was worth, and his mortgage payments, even on an interest-only loan, had shot up to $2,600, more than he could afford. “I was terrified,” said Mr. Zulueta, who services automated teller machines for an armored car company in the San Francisco area.

Then in January he learned about a new company in San Diego called You Walk Away that does just what its name says. For $995, it helps people walk away from their homes, ceding them to the banks in foreclosure.

Last week he moved into a three-bedroom rental home for $1,200 a month, less than half the cost of his mortgage. The old house is now the lender’s problem. “They took the negativity out of my life,” Mr. Zulueta said of You Walk Away. “I was stressing over nothing.”

However, what makes the most common sense is this comment to the above post

until somebody takes the time to gather owners and mortgagers together, and they (the mortgagers) hammer out what they need to do, to keep the money coming in and keep their homeowners in the homes, they’ll be between the figurative rock and hard place.

Any way I see it, Mortgagers are gonna lose: if they don’t figure out a way to keep owners in the homes and paying, they lose that revenue stream, and are then saddled with the lending loss *and* the property they from which that loss cannot be recouped. Even if they work with the homeowners, they’ll lose: more than likely they’ll need to reassess the property value, and through negotiation, re-level the loan and equity to a new payment level that keeps the people living in the home, and their money coming into the bank.
Loss is still encountered, but (Numerian and others may be able to put figures to this) I suspect it would be less in the mid-to-long term than to have to deal with abandoned properties.

So….how to get the necessary people talking to each other to hammer out what will be needed? The cynic in me tells me that as long as the present Government is in place (and I don’t see Obama or Hillary making any changes early on, either), we’ll see more people just walking away from boat-anchor mortgages, and banks failing from loss of liquidity, as they’re saddled with properties they cannot unload for a profit. Banks lose, Government loses as they try to bail them out, and the taxpayer loses since we will pay for it all in the end.

But…..if the banks and the owners could re-asses the property values, re-level the loans (taking into account equity–no *way* owners will negotiate a total loss of equity, so I’d think there may need to have some middle ground), and essentially generate a new mortgage based on the new valuation. Homeowners will likely lose some equity–necessary since both sides need to feel pain to make the theory work in practice, Banks will still have to write off lost value of unworkable mortgages as they’re re-worked out of existence, and the Government will still need to bail out institutions. But what I see in this exercise is the owner loses less, the Bank loses less, the government loses less, and the Taxpayer will have to cough up less in the end.

Full Disclosure:  We sold our house at the very beginning of the downturn and downsized, putting down over 50% of the price on our new home.

Clinton Supporters Leap on Anonymously Sourced Obama Hit Piece

CTV.ca published yesterday an article alleging that an Obama campaign staffer had contacted the Canadian embassy and told an official there that Obama’s opposition to NAFTA is “just campaign rhetoric.”

Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.

Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers’ jobs.

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama’s campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

But Tuesday night in Ohio, where NAFTA is blamed for massive job losses, Obama said he would tell Canada and Mexico “that we will opt out unless we renegotiate the core labour and environmental standards.”

Late Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign said the staff member’s warning to Wilson sounded implausible, but did not deny that contact had been made.

“Senator Obama does not make promises he doesn’t intend to keep,” the spokesperson said.

Low-level sources also suggested the Clinton campaign may have given a similar warning to Ottawa, but a Clinton spokesperson flatly denied the claim.

During Tuesday’s debate, she said that as president she would opt out of NAFTA “unless we renegotiate it.”

Despite the fact that (a) the Obama “campaign staffer” was not named, and that (b) the allegations in the story were blindly sourced — meaning that the article does not state how they got this information, who told them about the campaign staffer, who they interviewed for the story — Clinton supporters jumped on the charges without hesitation:

… The above should be even more alarming to the Obama campaign than the other video being circulated. A report out of Canada says Obama’s promise on NAFTA is just words. …

When contacted, an Obama aide basically delivers a non-denial denial, as you can see in the video. Obama keeps his promises? What kind of blathering is that? When you think about Obama’s moves on Exelon, rewriting legislation for them, juxtaposed against him telling Iowa voters tougher legislation had passed, instead of the truth, I’ve done enough research on the guy to know when smoke is being blown for votes. Obama’s team is not denying the conversation CTV is reporting and it’s quite plausible the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value, and to add, because Obama has no intention of doing what he’s campaigning on with regards to NAFTA. Obama welshing on his pledge to take public financing for the general election also comes to mind. It’s not like Obama hasn’t said one thing then done another before.

Over the screaming headline Shocker: Obama Reveals Fake Stand on NAFTA, Larry Johnson writes:

A Canadian medical professional (no more to protect anonymity) reports to me: “This story made headlines tonight in Canada in all major Canadian news networks. Barack Obama has been caught lying. Spread this as much as you can because it is true and factually supported. I think the people of Ohio as well as the rest of America, deserve to know this.”

(Original) Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Canadian media reveal Obama’s posture on NAFTA is solely “campaign rhetoric.” …
[snip]
Oh, that bamboozler. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re the head of state or diplomatic corps, or one of the chief politicians or government officials, for the hundreds of nations across the world. Wouldn’t you read this article and wonder WHICH OBAMA you’ll be dealing with, and IF he means anything he says?

Well, today, the Canadian embassy said the CTV report was not true:

A spokesman for the Canadian Embassy to the United States, Tristan Landry, flatly denied the CTV report that a senior Obama aide had told the Canadian ambassador not to take seriously Obama’s denunciations of NAFTA.

“None of the presidential campaigns have called either the ambassador or any of the officials here to raise NAFTA,” Landry said.

He said there had been no conversations at all on the subject.

“We didn’t make any calls, they didn’t call us,” Landry said.

“There is no story as far as we’re concerned,” he said.

Larry Johnson’s SusanUnPC’s response:

Obamadroids Frantic: Attack Canadian Media NAFTA Story

UPDATE: “The facts of our story are accurate.” – Greg McIsaac, Communications Manager, News Information and Current Affairs, CTV (Taylor Marsh has the report in “CTV Stands by NAFTA Story.” Besides, this is a first-rate national news organization that wouldn’t go with an off-record story that wasn’t solidly vetted.)

Original: Now competing with my diary in the recommended list at MyDD:
BREAKING: Canadian Embassy: Obama NAFTA call story is a lie
by Bob Johnson, Thu Feb 28, 2008 at 12:24:57 PM EST

So one person for the right Canadian government — a single official — issues a public denial to Politico’s Ben Smith, and that’s it? Even though the entire Canadian media are all over this story? Nationwide? And it’s the top story in Canada?

REMEDIAL POLITICS/GOVERNMENT 101: How many times has the Bush administration denied everything? (Along with every governnent on the face of the earth, thousands of times?)

And you’ve believed Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld — and every “official” government statement around the world — every time? Really? From a single official? Really?

Do I have a bridge to sell you!

Yet SusanUnPC has no problem believing a story that Obama is deliberately staking a position on NAFTA that he has no intention of honoring, based on a single official. And with the Obama staffer who allegedly contacted this single official unnamed and unidentified; presumably not even known to CTV; and with no independent confirmation from any other source.

Sure, that makes sense.

Reject? Denounce ?

This from Talking Points Memo. Here’s the gist of it

During a series of satellite television interviews, [Hillary] Clinton was questioned by Dallas station KTVT about comments by Adelfa Callejo, a local activist who supports Clinton candidacy. The interviewer quoted Callejo as saying “Obama’s problem is he happens to be black” and asked Clinton to respond.

[snip]

The interviewer asked Clinton whether she rejected or denounced Callejo’s comment.

“People have every reason to express their opinions, I just don’t agree with that,” she said, adding “You know, this is a free country. People get to express their opinions.”

Free country? Express opinions?   Chief to Hillary: Get Real. You need to denounce, disassociate and fire the cretin. Period

Thought of the Day

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

— Mahatma Gandhi

The Full, and Ugly, Truth About an Icon

Let’s start with the positive. William F. Buckley was smart, literate, well-read, and from everything I’ve read and heard, had a rapier wit. I’m sure he was a great conversationalist and a fascinating person to talk to even if you did not agree with his political philosophy (maybe especially then). He also was a seminal figure in the U.S. conservative movement.

It is perhaps not so remarkable that Buckley had such an impressive intellect and achieved so much professionally: He was born to enormous wealth, and grew up in lush, tony surroundings with only the best, and nothing but the best, of everything:

The elder Mr. Buckley made a small fortune in the oil fields of Mexico and Venezuela and educated his children with personal tutors at Great Elm, the family estate in Sharon, Conn. They also attended exclusive Roman Catholic schools in England and France. Young William absorbed his family’s conservatism along with its deep Catholicism. At 14, he followed his brothers to the Millbrook School, a preparatory school 15 miles across the New York state line from Sharon.

He went to Yale. He had been groomed and prepared to go to Yale, or someplace else just like it, since the day he was born. It’s highly unlikely that he ever saw a brown-skinned person except as a servant, or any person who was not wealthy and privileged, from the day of his birth to his adulthood. Heck, he probably never met a Jew until he was out of university (this was the late 1940s, remember).

Could someone with a background like that be expected to understand the conditions in which black Americans lived in the 1950s and 1960s, not just in the South, but anywhere in this country? And if he didn’t understand the conditions in which black Americans lived, or the true reasons for those conditions, or what those conditions did to the bodies, minds, hearts, and souls of the people who had to endure them, how could he possibly disapprove of them, or comprehend that the social arrangements white Americans had devised for black Americans were evil, and based on ignorance, fear, and hatred?

Perhaps some in his social class could have. But William F. Buckley was not one of them. In a very real way, Buckley was profoundly disadvantaged. His life experiences, his family history and background, totally unfitted him to even imagine the reality of African-Americans’ lives, especially in the South at that time, much less understand them in any kind of compassionate or empathetic way, or to grasp the injustice of that reality.

The fact is: William F. Buckley, for much of his adult life, was a racist.

A few people have alluded to this aspect of Buckley’s existence, but no one — at least that I have come across so far — has tackled it head on.

Until 7:34 pm, that is. And I did not read it until 11:58 pm. But better late than not at all:

Conservative icon William F. Buckley was found dead today in his Connecticut study at the age of 82. The magazine he founded is in mourning, with tributes on the National Review’s Web site from political heavyweights like Sen. John McCain, who deems Buckley a “Great American.”

Also weighing in is Charles Murray, the author whose controversial theories link race and IQ. In a piece is titled “WFB the Sweetheart,” Murray writes that Buckley “had the kind of manners that are so good that they cease being manners and become a warming aura. Yes, I know he changed the world, and I’m glad about that. But what so often occurred to me in his presence was that I was talking with an extraordinarily good man.”

Really? Are the following truly the words of a “Great American” — of an “extraordinarily good man” with a “warming aura”? They appeared in an unsigned National Review editorial, probably penned and undoubtedly published by Buckley, that ran on Aug. 24, 1957, titled “Why the South Must Prevail”:

“The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

“National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.”

Buckley undoubtedly had a way with words, and is remembered fondly by friends and family. But a warming aura?

Feels pretty chilling from here.

Indeed. Thank you, Sue Sturgis. Facing South is going on my blogroll.

Another Obama Moment of Integrity

Yesterday, I wrote about Obama’s moral courage, on issues that have most other Democrats quaking in their boots for fear of incurring King George’s wrath. Well, here is another example, from Monday night’s debate in Cleveland:

Towards the very end of last night’s debate in Cleveland, Tim Russert asked Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama if, looking back, there were any vote[s] they’d like to take back. Clinton, coming closer to conceding a mistake than I think I’ve heard before, pointed to her 2002 vote on the Iraq AUMF, before transitioning to talk about why “this election has to be about the future.”

When the question turned to Obama, he brought up a controversy we haven’t heard much about lately.

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, any statements or vote you’d like to take back?

OBAMA: Well, you know, when I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo. And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decisionmaking process of the families.

It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better.

And so that’s an example I think of where inaction…

RUSSERT: This is the young woman with the feeding tube…

OBAMA: That’s exactly right.

RUSSERT: … and the family disagreed as to whether it should be removed or not.

OBAMA: And I think that’s an example of inaction, and sometimes that can be as costly as action.

Good point. Intervention in the Schiavo matter was largely a Republican initiative — Bush, for the first time, even cut a vacation short to sign a congressional measure on this — but the Senate’s initial steps could have been prevented had a Democratic senator stood up to object. None did. Obama regrets that and I found his answer rather encouraging.

As do I.

But not K-Lo, of course. She thought Terri Schiavo’s “presence at the debate” was “jarring.”

I thought Terri Schiavo was a jarring presence at the debate last night. When Senator Obama was asked what legislative regrets, he didn’t try to walk away from his radical ways any by citing his votes against born-alive infant protection or against banning the transport of children across state lines to circumvent parental notification/consent laws. Instead he said he would have voted to stop Congress from intervening to save the life of Terri Schiavo.

On Meet the Press, John McCain left open the possibility that Congress wasn’t wrong to get involved. He should embrace life (and autonomy!) and get comfortable with running against Barack Obama, a radical on these issues.

You could just as well use that last line as an example of how far today’s “conservatives” have strayed from traditional conservative beliefs, given that Pres. Bush and Congress were not trying to “embrace life” or defend anyone’s “autonomy” when they intervened to keep Terri Schiavo connected to her feeding tube — but rather were meddling in a private and personal family decision that was none of anyone’s business but the people directly involved. Whatever else you might call it when Congress, at the urging of the president, passes a law directing and mandating particular actions in a personal family situation, you certainly cannot call it an example of traditional conservative values.

But getting back to Obama: What a classy, intelligent, principled choice — very revealing of the person Obama is revealing himself to be. You know that he genuinely regrets that episode — because why else would he bring it up? It’s not an issue on anyone’s radar anymore; there’s nothing to be gained by bringing it up. He’s certainly not pandering, because no one would expect Terri Schiavo to be the vote he wishes he’d done differently. Steve really expressed what I’m thinking, with that comment I quoted above: “When the question turned to Obama, he brought up a controversy we haven’t heard much about lately.” That’s it, exactly. This man is an original. He’s an independent thinker. He is, seemingly, utterly unafraid to say what he feels and thinks, regardless of the pressure to funnel his thinking in one particular way.

The Last True Conservative Has Died

John Cole thinks Buckley’s “[p]robably heart-broken at what his party has become.” And he has a few choice words for the ones who are putting themselves forward as Buckley’s ideological heirs:

Watching the right-wing lunatics who destroyed conservatism wrapping themselves up in Buckley’s cold, dead embrace over the next few weeks will be disgusting. Start here, where K-Lo asserts she and the band of frothing brothers at NRO will continue Buckley’s “work”, and then read Malkin. And yes, you are reading Malkin correctly– she did just take the death of one of society’s most privileged members of the last century and use it to… declare that conservatives are victims.

These people are a disgrace and a sick joke.

What Malkin said:

I picked up my first issue of NR in college through the conservative student journalism samizdata. Reading the magazine in public was an act of defiance. Embracing the ideas within was an act of heresy. Mr. Buckley’s Firing Line appearances vaulted him into the mainstream cultural stratosphere, but the enduring power of his written words made him an intellectual supernova. He built the Right’s communications infrastructure and laid the groundwork for the New Media. He was an engaged and engaging Renaissance man who joined conservatism and libertarianism, fought statism, and served the Lord–with trademark good humor and joie de vivre.

Samizdata?

By comparing the National Review to samizdat, she shits on the tens of thousands of Soviet dissidents who, in some cases, were killed for what they read or wrote, in some cases spending years in a soviet prison camp and painstakingly recopying a book by hand onto a roll of toilet paper or the backing of cigarette packs, or on the cigarette papers themselves.

God I hate Malkin.

Join the club.

Municipal Bankruptcy

There are several stories, here and here, but I found this one story to be the most complete. This part is especially interesting

Vallejo’s police and fire unions have been meeting almost daily with city staff to renegotiate their contracts, which include salary, benefit and retirement packages that comprise more than half of the city’s general fund expenses.

Firefighter union President Kurt Hanke told the council that the union reached an agreement late last week with city negotiators for wage cuts that would have reduced Vallejo’s deficit to zero. But he said (City Manager ) Tanner on Monday vetoed the deal.

There is no explanation as to why Tanner vetoed the deal or why he was not actively trying to solve the problem.

Bankruptcy is scary for a number of reasons, most especially for those who have done business with the city.

In Vallejo, contractors the city owes money would be most directly affected by a bankruptcy filing, receiving about 30 cents on every dollar they’re owed, Gloster said.

From a distance it is impossible to tell what is going on here, but if people are willing to negotiate in good faith, every problem is solvable.

Thought of the Day

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

[Blaise Pascal, 1623 to 1662]