So the story all weekend was about how one of Obama's advisors has assured the Canadians that when it came to NAFTA, he was all talk. Clinton hammered him for this all weekend, and worse, it took him several days to get his story straight. Not the way you want to go into a primary.
Now we learn there's more to the story.
Seems the NAFTAgate leak started with -- surprise, surprise -- the Chief of Staff to Canada's conservative PM Stephen Harper. Only the first hint wasn't about stuff the Canadians had heard from the Obama camp. It was about reassurances the Canadians got from the Clinton campaign. According to a reporter who heard the original conversation, Brodie said "someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."
Only somehow this evolved into a story about the Obama campaign giving such reassurances.
Following the trail to the Globe and Mail, we learn this:
If the Prime Minister is seeking the first link in the chain of events that has rocked the U.S. presidential race, he need look no further than his chief of staff, Ian Brodie, The Canadian Press has learned....
What is now a swirling Canada-U.S. controversy began on Feb. 26, when the usually circumspect Mr. Brodie was milling among droves of Canadian media on budget day in the stately old building that once housed Ottawa's train station.Reporters were locked up there all day, examining the federal budget until they were allowed to leave once it was tabled in the House of Commons at 4 p.m.
Since the budget contained little in the way of headline-grabbing surprises, some were left with enough free time to gather around a large-screen TV to watch the latest hockey news on NHL trade deadline day.
Mr. Brodie wandered over to speak to Finance Department officials and chatted amiably with journalists -- who appreciated this rare moment of direct access to the top official in Mr. Harper's notoriously tight-lipped government.
The former university professor found himself in a room with CTV employees where he was quickly surrounded by a gaggle of reporters while other journalists were within earshot of other colleagues.
At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio's anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.
Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.
Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.
"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room.
"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."
...the content of Mr. Brodie's remarks was passed on to CTV's Washington bureau and their White House correspondent set out the next day to pursue the story on Ms. Clinton's apparent hypocrisy on the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Although CTV correspondent Tom Clark mentioned Ms. Clinton in passing, the focus of his story was on assurances from the Obama camp.
He went to air on Feb. 27 with a report that the Democratic front-runner had given advance notice to Canadian diplomats that he was about to engage in some anti-NAFTA rhetoric, but not to take it too seriously.
The report wound up on YouTube and caused an uproar in the U.S. race -- influencing the final days of the critical Ohio primary, with every indication it will also play a role in the upcoming Pennsylvania vote.
So the real story may be that people from both of their campaigns were saying things that they never should have said, but for whatever reason, CTV decided to focus on Obama. Wonderful, no?
Back to TPM's Eric Kleefeld:
Hillary's people were able to use NAFTA-Gate very effectively in questioning Obama's honesty in the Ohio and Texas campaigns, ultimately pulling off some decent wins. But if this thing doesn't die down, and the focus turns from Obama over to Hillary, they could very well see the story come back to bite them.
UPDATE: More from CBC News. Looks like this story may have some legs
Brodie allegedly told a group of CTV reporters that Obama advisers had privately told Canadian diplomats that Obama's promise to reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement was just empty talk aimed at winning votes in Ohio.
Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the United States, news that Obama, a front-runner in the race to be the Democrat's presidential candidate, would be interested in renegotiating the free-trade agreement would be of concern to Canadians.Brodie's alleged disclosure occurred as he and the CTV reporters and employees were hunkered down in a room in Ottawa on Feb. 26, reviewing the contents of the federal budget.
Brodie allegedly also discussed musings by Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, saying people from her camp also told Canadians to take her NAFTA concerns with a grain of salt.
CTV News went to air with the information on Feb. 27, focusing on the Obama side of the story, and it caused an uproar in the United States. Clinton accused Obama of double-talk, while the Republican front-runner and now nominee, John McCain, said Obama wasn't a straight-talker....
Soon after the leaked information emerged, and was promptly denied by Obama and the Canadian government, someone leaked a diplomatic memo to the Associated Press describing a conversation between Obama's economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and Canadian Consul General Georges Rioux.
The memo, written by a consular employee, says Goolsbee privately told Rioux that Obama's attack on free trade is "more reflective of political manoeuvring than policy."
In the House of Commons on Wednesday, Harper condemned the leak of the memo.
"This kind of leaking of information is completely unacceptable and, in fact, it may well be illegal," Harper said.
"It is not useful, it is not in the interests of the government of Canada, and the way the leak was executed was blatantly unfair to Senator Obama and his campaign."
The leak came in the final days before Tuesday's primary in Ohio, where voters are concerned about the impacts of NAFTA on their state's economy. Obama ended up narrowly losing the primary to Clinton.
Harper told the House that the Clerk of the Privy Council is working with the Foreign Affairs department to conduct an "internal security investigation" to find out who was behind the leak and that the government will take "any action that's necessary."
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