The transparency of the CTV smear

[ContinentalOp]

The Canadian conservatives engineered this smear in a pretty slick way. The original story claimed that the Obama campaign called the Canadian Ambassador which was denied. Whoever orchestrated this story knew that they were putting out inaccurate information and they did it in order to get a denial. Then they changed it up to the Canadian Consulate in Chicago with whom Goolsbee admits to meeting. So now they have a denial they can quote and it looks like Goolsbee is caught in a lie, even though his original denial is 100% accurate. Most American's will not be following the details of the story that closely and will think all of the BS quotes about "just campaign rhetoric" are true. Mission Accomplished for the right wing free-traders of North America (be they Canadian or Clintonian).


2-27-08 The original story:
"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...
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."

2-29-08 Goolsbee Denies Canadian NAFTA Story:
"It is a totally inaccurate story,” he said. “I did not call these people and I direct you to the press office."


2-29-08 New CTV Story:
"Despite repeated requests, Barack Obama's campaign is still neither verifying nor denying a CTV report that a senior member of the team made contact with the Canadian government -- via the Chicago consulate general -- regarding comments Obama made about NAFTA."

[Little Star]

1. Link?

[liberal N proud]

2. Those are not required on DU any longer

This has become a mud pit


:sarcasm:

[ContinentalOp]

3. Here are the articles in question:

2-27-08 The original story:
"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...
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."

2-29-08 Goolsbee Denies Canadian NAFTA Story:
"It is a totally inaccurate story,” he said. “I did not call these people and I direct you to the press office."


2-29-08 New CTV Story:
"Despite repeated requests, Barack Obama's campaign is still neither verifying nor denying a CTV report that a senior member of the team made contact with the Canadian government -- via the Chicago consulate general -- regarding comments Obama made about NAFTA."

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

4. Maybe You Should Actually Be More Concerned About The Words In The Memo And His Deceit, Than With

conspiracy theories. I mean, I can understand why you'd want to deflect it away and all, but try and have a bit more integrity. Your concern should be about the actual words in the memo, and how they appear to be damning is it relates to the Obama camp and their honesty.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. Psst.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4857797&mesg_id=4858907


I thought you were out fact gathering. Guess not. x(

Let's discuss those facts. Your turn.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

8. Will You Please Stop Acting So Ignorant?

The relevant quotes are all over DU. Stop being so disingenuous. It's quite pathetic.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. And I posted them.

See ya later.

[ContinentalOp]

7. OK, let's talk about the actual words in the memo.

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

Part of the memo claims that
"He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

Goolsbee denies this pseudo quote. Notice that nobody has any actual quotes. It's all just paraphrasing and the language keeps changing.

"Goolsbee disputed the characterization from the conservative government official.

"This thing about 'it's more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,' that's this guy's language," Goolsbee said of DeMora. "He's not quoting me.

"I certainly did not use that phrase in any way," he said."

The memo also says:

"On NAFTA, Goolsbee suggested that Obama is less about fundamentally changing the agreement and more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more `core' principles of the agreement."

Which is totally consistent with what Obama has been saying and is in no way objectionable to me. Goolsbee agrees:

"Goolsbee said that sentence is true and consistent with Obama's position. But he said other portions of the memo were inaccurate."

All quotes are from http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jrFPkleRZmbmPtPxHBGNAPSzfUtwD8V61MF01

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

9. Oh I See, So What You're Saying Is: The Parts That Sound Good Are Real, The Parts That Don't Aren't

Do you not see how silly that makes you all look?

Seriously: All of you dismissing this so out of hand by saying "Those were someone ELSE'S words, not HIS!!!!!" look every single bit as pathetic, naive and ignorant, as all the RW'ers that said the same thing about the downing street memo.

Try. Just try and take your blinders off for god's sake.

[ContinentalOp]

11. Look, this is all you've got:

"He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

Which is hardly objectionable to begin with. And even so Goolsbee has said it is a misinterpretation of what he actually said. That's a far cry from CTV's original claim that "The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value."

This whole bullshit story is based on insinuation and you fell for it.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

12. Well, We'll Just Have To See How Hardly Objectionable Ohioans Find It To Be, If The Media Does Their

jobs.

[Kokonoe]

5. This opinion is not OK yet. please check M$M first. n/t