About Time

Someone finally got around to asking Barack Obama some tough questions yesterday about his campaign, his relation to Tony Rezko, and the ballooning mess of his own making over comments made about NAFTA and his campaign's contacts with the Canadian government.

It took months before these questions were finally raised.

Of course, Obama tried to scurry away after just eight questions.

The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.

Reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters went after him for his false denial that a campaign aide had held a secret meeting with Canadian officials over Obama's trade policy. A trio of Chicago reporters pummeled him with questions about the corruption trial this week of a friend and supporter. The New York Post piled on with a question about him losing the Jewish vote.

Obama responded with the classic phrases of a politician in trouble. "That was the information that I had at the time. . . . Those charges are completely unrelated to me. . . . I have said that that was a mistake. . . . The fact pattern remains unchanged."

When those failed, Obama tried another approach. "We're running late," the candidate said, and then he disappeared behind a curtain.

Before he beat his hasty retreat, however, Obama found time to assign blame for the tough questions suddenly coming his way. "The Clinton campaign has been true to its word in employing a 'kitchen sink' strategy," he protested. "There are, what, three or four things a day?"

Flyweight, he is.

His NAFTA-Canada mess should surely raise serious red flags over his competence, but for the fact that the Tony Rezko trial should have done that far earlier. His campaign is bending itself into pretzels to try and avoid what should be self-evident - that he and his campaign lied about what it did or did not do.

The NAFTA mess is of his own doing. Captain Ed sums things up thusly:

The pattern of deception seems rather clear. At each step, the campaign denied what it thought could not be proven. At each step, they have been forced to backtrack and re-make the message. No, we never had contact became Well, we had contact but didn’t discuss NAFTA. That shortly became We discussed NAFTA but they misunderstood us, closely followed by Goolsbee wasn’t representing the campaign, he was representing the university.

Does anyone believe this at all? Why would Goolsbee represent the university at the Canadian consulate? What business did the University of Chicago have with the Canadian diplomatic corps — and if they did, why was Goolsbee discussing the Obama campaign during the entire visit?

Goolsbee had an obvious mission with the Canadians: to reassure them that Obama wouldn’t throw NAFTA on the ashheap. Team Obama thought they could keep this mission quiet while Obama tried stirring up populist passion in Ohio by telling people how much he disliked the trade treaty and how he would demand it be renegotiated.

This is what happens when you have a protectionist demagogue like Obama who needs to win votes in a border state who makes statements about trashing NAFTA, which was passed with bipartisan support in Congress, and the Canadian government seeking to have assurances that the agreement will remain in place. Obama has to lie to someone - and he's clearly trying to get voters to believe that he's going to change NAFTA, while trying to convince Canada that things will remain the same. In other words, he had to lie to everyone. And this is what happens when you get caught.

UPDATE:
Here's video of the encounter with the press:



Eight questions.