Saturday, March 08, 2008

I guess they really aren't fully vetted

By Edward Copeland

For all their bellicose ranting that there's "no more surprises" and there's nothing to see here, the Clintons still are trying to block the release of certain documents relating to Bill's presidency, this time all those concerning Bill's pardons. As reported by USA Today:

LITTLE ROCK — Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.

The archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.

Clinton's legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.

I wonder: Will those archivists now be accused of Ken Starr-like tactics by reviewing their orders? Perhaps they'll have to come up with a new one, since they've already used Karl Rove, Dubya, Reagan, Starr and "friend of Holocaust denier" labels on Obama.

Meanwhile, it bears repeating the continued unfolding of the NAFTA-Canada brouhaha, you know, the one where the Clintonistas accused an Obama adviser of secretly telling the Canadian government he didn't mean what he said about scrapping NAFTA when in fact it was Hillary's people who first told that about her stance to a Canadian official. Of course, Hillary keeps repeating the lie about Obama's part because she's not one to let a little thing like the truth get in the way of scoring political points. As reported by The Globe and Mail on Friday:

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised Thursday that an internal investigation would probe all facets of how information was leaked that may have influenced the U.S. Democratic presidential primaries, including the alleged comments by his own chief of staff, Ian Brodie, and the subsequent leak of a sensitive memorandum.

*****

"New reports indicate very clearly that it was Ian Brodie, the chief of staff," New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton said yesterday in the Commons. "My question to the Prime Minister is very simple. Will he now apologize to this House, the American people and Senator Obama, and will he fire his chief of staff?"

*****

The controversy began after Mr. Brodie allegedly told a group of journalists from CTV News that candidate Hillary Clinton was not serious about earlier suggestions that she would reopen NAFTA if she became president. The network later reported that it was Mr. Obama's campaign that had informed Canadian diplomats not to be overly concerned that he would fundamentally change the deal. The network also reported that Ms. Clinton's officials indirectly tried to deliver the same message, a report the campaign denied the next evening.

Of course, the biggest part of this so-called scandal may be the attempts of Stephen Harper's Conservative government to make mischief in the Democratic primaries to help the GOP hold the White House.

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  • PMO: Canadian officials only got briefing from Obama campaign - not Clinton

    1 day ago

    OTTAWA — Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton never gave Canada any secret assurances about the future of NAFTA such as those allegedly offered by Barack Obama's campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office said Friday.

    With the NAFTA affair swirling over the U.S. election and Canadian officials skittish about saying anything else that might influence the race, it took the PMO two days to deliver the information.

    After being asked whether Canadian officials asked for - or received - any briefings from a Clinton campaign representative outlining her plans on NAFTA, a spokeswoman for the prime minister offered a response Friday.

    "The answer is no, they did not," said Harper spokeswoman Sandra Buckler.

    That response will come as a relief to the Clinton campaign, which has angrily denied that it has engaged in the kind of double-talking hypocrisy of which it accuses Obama.

    The so-called NAFTA-gate affair took a bizarre twist this week that threatened to ensnare Clinton after having already damaged Obama at a critical phase of the U.S. election.

    Obama had stinging criticism for the North American Free Trade Agreement while campaigning two weeks ago in Ohio. That rust belt state has lost thousands of jobs and the unions courted by Obama have blamed the trade pact for their job losses. Clinton was also unsparing in her criticism of NAFTA, stating flatly that the United States should withdraw from the agreement if it could not be renegotiated.

    Suggestions of hypocrisy cost Obama critical votes in the Ohio and Texas primary - both of which were won by Clinton - and put a stop to his streak of a dozen straight primary wins.

    The Associated Press obtained a Canadian government memo that suggested Austan Goolsbee, Obama's senior economic policy adviser, met Canadian diplomats the consulate in Chicago last month.

    It was revealed this week that Harper's chief of staff Ian Brodie initially tipped off a television news station to the story on Feb. 26, when in an off-the-cuff conversation he suggested Clinton's attacks on NAFTA were less than sincere.

    After investigating the story, a television news station reported the next day that the Clinton and Obama campaigns had both offered Canada assurances that they would leave NAFTA untouched. Both camps issued denials.

    But Obama's campaign was further torpedoed by the leak of the diplomatic memo. Goolsbee insists the Canadian memo mischaracterized his position.

    Harper has called in an investigation unit to find out who leaked the document to the American media - a probe that will see government employees interviewed and their electronic records searched.

    But the opposition says that's not good enough.

    They want Brodie fired or suspended for his alleged indiscretions.

    And they want the Mounties called in to determine whether any security-of-information laws were broken - just like they were called in when a junior staffer at Environment Canada allegedly leaked climate-change documents to the media last year.

    NDP Leader Jack Layton says this incident is far worse.

    "It created a political storm," Layton said.

    "It has changed the dynamic of the U.S. primary for the Democratic party and it has given a club to the Republican candidate which he can use time and time again to go after whether it's Senator Clinton or Senator Obama."

    The revelations about Brodie's conversation with the television news station have left a key unanswered question that holds some implications for the U.S. election.

    Sources who overheard that conversation say he specifically mentioned that Canadian diplomats did get assurances from the Clinton camp - and he never raised Obama's name.

    That begs the question: why was Clinton's name raised at all?

    Brodie does not deny downplaying the Democrats' anti-NAFTA rhetoric in a conversation with the television news station, but he says he cannot recall mentioning any specific presidential candidate.

    Clinton's team reacted furiously to the Brodie story and offered the Canadian government "blanket immunity" to publicly release the name of any campaign official who might have offered such back-channel assurances.
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    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:29 PM  

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