A source close to the Canadian prime minister’s office tells ABC News that the original communication was between Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s senior economic adviser and an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and Georges Rioux, Canada’s consul general in Chicago, about Obama’s rhetoric against NAFTA.
According to the source, Wilson exaggerated the communication between the Obama campaign and the Canadian official during discussions this week with Ian Brodie, the prime minister’s chief of staff, who leaked the story to CTV. …
A Toronto Star blogger has the view of an opposition Liberal: “This is Republican International in action. The Harper government is so ideological and so tied to the Republicans that they will use any opportunity to throw a wrench into the Obama campaign.”
[NB: that "opposition Liberal" is Bob Rae.]
Me, I say that if the PMO is tossing wrenches into the works of an anti-free trade candidate, they’re defending Canadian interests.
As for what the Americans think about Canadian interference in their internal affairs, on the other hand… :p
Our generals carrying out their duties, including the duty to warn, or an unwarranted intrusion into political affairs & a dangerous diminishing of the civilian control principle?
Or would it? If this story is true, not so much — Obama and Clinton may be playing Ohioans for fools.
I stand by this: it is in Canada’s interest for a Republican administration to keep the White House. (Free trade, a strong continental defence. To the extent that domestic social issues encourage liberal Americans to emigrate, it’s also to the good. Bring on the hordes of gay emigrants!) But I should add one caveat — if a Democrat comes to power promising to nationalize health care (Clinton and Obama aren’t quite there yet), that’s in Canada’s interest. Why? It means that there’s one less place for Canadian doctors to flee to.
***
Although events in Canadian politics are getting more interesting by the day, I suspect I’ll continue posting more on the Americans. The stakes are higher. And I really, really like John McCain. (more…)
All right, I’m early for a lunch date on my last full American day, so I can make one little post before heading back north of the border tomorrow afternoon.
Am moving apartments; also, the laptop has died. Am leeching off the old school for this, and am taking the wreckage to Staples to use their one-year warranty. Should buy a desktop next time, I think.
If you look at the numbers, if the general election were held today, Barack Obama would beat John McCain by a solid margin. (McCain would beat Clinton — another reason the super-delegates are unlikely to foist her on the party.) But the performances of the candidates on primary night — and the performances of their wives on Monday and Tuesday — suggests that may not always be the case.
Obama’s cut-and-paste job does respond to the complaint that he is without substance. But it’s hard to mix poetry and prose and come up with an appealing product. Particularly when, as columnist Robert Samuelson points out, there’s not much that’s interesting about the substance.
Then there are the wives. In Milwaukee on Monday, Michelle Obama, who has spoken frequently in the campaign, said: “Hope is making a comeback, and let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
For the first time in her life? Coming from the realm in which Michelle Obama has lived her adult life — Princeton, Harvard Law, a top law firm, a $342,000-a year job doing community relations for the University of Chicago hospital system — this may not sound out of the ordinary. As Samuel Huntington has pointed out, people in this stratum tend to have transnational attitudes — all nations are morally equal, except maybe for ours, which is worse.
This is not, to say the least, the view of most Americans, including very many who regularly vote Democratic. And it undercuts Barack Obama’s most appealing rhetoric, which emphasizes what Americans have in common.
We — as I tend to say, in these posts — will see.
Michelle Obama’s words were a gaffe in the Kinsleyan sense — for the first time in my life, when I was watching Senator Obama’s victory speech in Iowa, I saw a Democratic crowd spontaneously start chanting “USA, USA, USA!” And I see a similar process here.
Basically — these folks are becoming proud to be Americans again, in a way that the majority of people on that part of the political spectrum from that (privileged/educated) class haven’t been since perhaps the assassinations of 1968.
I always enjoy watching John McWhorter on Bloggingheads.tv. Here is half of his diavlog with Randall Kennedy, who is a law prof at Harvard & a public intellectual.
Their thoughts on language, culture, blackness, and all that are pretty interesting.
Update/aside: Incidentally, the fact that someone like McWhorter likes Obama is enough for someone like me to take him (Obama) seriously. (Though I still think that he’s an unreconstructed leftist.)
Inside Clinton’s inner circle on Friday, the feeling was that the Thursday night debate in Austin was unlikely to slow Obama’s momentum from 11 straight primary and caucus victories. Some supporters said they had discussed how to raise with Clinton the subject of withdrawing from the race should she fail to win decisively on March 4. One option was to wait a day or two and then dispatch emissaries to former president Clinton to urge him to make the case.
One adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, said Obama’s 17-point Wisconsin victory on Tuesday had started to sink in as a decisive blow, given that the state had been viewed weeks earlier as a level playing field.
“The mathematical reality at that point became impossible to ignore,” the adviser said. “There’s not a lot of denial left at this point.” …
Some Democratic political sources said discussion has begun about encouraging Clinton to transition into a different party leadership role, one that could carry her on a path to becoming Senate majority leader. That course had been discussed even before Clinton announced her presidential campaign. “People who care about her are worried about her long-term future,” the adviser said.
Ouch.
That said, there’s something to be said for her staying in.
On the other hand… if she cares about her party, and thinks it important that it regain the White House come next January, perhaps she should consider stepping aside and working to get her supporters behind Obama — many remain skeptical.
Russia’s ambassador to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, has warned that Russia could use military force if the Kosovo independence dispute escalates.
“If the EU develops a unified position or if Nato exceeds its mandate set by the UN, then these organisations will be in conflict with the UN,” he said.
In that case Russia would “proceed on the basis that in order to be respected we need to use brute force”, he said. …
A commentary in the Vesti Plus analytical programme, on state-run television, called the assassinated former Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, a Western puppet who had “received a well-deserved bullet”.
It said Djindjic had sold national heroes to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
The programme concluded that Serbia - and not only Serbia - must now decide whether to acquiesce in what has happened, or resist.
“The Dogs of War” are loose and the rugged Russian Bear,
Full bent on blood and robbery, has crawl’d out of his lair;
It seems a thrashing now and then, will never help to tame
That brute, and so he’s out upon the “same old game.” …
We don’t want to fight but by jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and got the money too!
We’ve fought the Bear before and while we’re (Yankees?) true
The Russians shall not have (Kosovo?).
“When was the last time we’ve had a presidential candidate of any gender or race or political party who pull together wins in places like Idaho and Utah and Louisiana and Georgia and Maine and Alaska and Missouri, and Illinois?” she said.
Let’s talk about the agreement. The only agreement I entered into was not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. It had nothing to do with not seating the delegates. I think that’s an important distinction. I did not campaign …
We do not want to be disenfranchising Michigan and Florida. We have to try to carry both of those states. I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan are. Therefore, the people of those two states disregarded adamantly the DNC’s decision that they would not seat the delegates. They came out and voted. If they had been influenced by the DNC, despite the fact that there was very little campaigning, if any, they would have stayed home. But they wanted their voices heard. More than 2 million people came out. I mean, it was record turnout for a primary. …
[I'm skeptical about the Democrats Abroad primary -- I think a lot of Dems abroad did as my mother did, and as Republicans do, and voted in their state primaries.]
Bauer argued on a conference call with reporters that the group’s “major purpose” is supporting Clinton, and that it’s “a very clear runaway case of lawbreaking” because it hasn’t filed papers with the Federal Election Commission or reported the money it spent producing its ad and posting it to YouTube.
“There’s going to be a reckoning here,” he warned. “It’s going to be rough — it’s going to be rough on the officers, it’s going to be rough on the employees, it’s going to be rough on the donors.“
“Whether it’s at the FEC or in a broader criminal inquiry, those donors will be asked questions,” Bauer said.
I’m sorry. What were you saying, Mr. Lawyer? You were threatening a group of people for having the temerity of getting together, recording some videos against your candidate, and posting them to YouTube?
Fuck you.
My reaction: “Arresting me for what? Arresting me for what? I’m not allowed to stand up for myself? I thought this was America. Huh? Isn’t this America? I’m sorry, I thought this was America.“
Update, next day: The Wall Street Journal has a smirk at McCain’s expense… [via an amused InstaAlthouse]
