Now, finally, a news item pops up that explains why the Clintons would try to attack Obama on NAFTA.

The attacks—suggestions that Obama supports NAFTA more than he says he does, basically—struck me as odd from the first. NAFTA was passed in the Clinton administration, with Bill Clinton heavily and heavy-handedly in favor. It is Bill and Hillary Clinton who are heavily indebted to corporate donors. It is Hillary Clinton who has drawn more corporate financial support than any other Democratic candidate for high office in history, so far as I know. And yet all of a sudden, in the past week, we find the Clinton camp trying to imply that Sen. Barack Obama is all but cutting some kind of secret deal with Canada.

Today Mrs. Clinton is using the term “closed-door” in regard to Obama, too—this from the former first lady who still has not released documents from her health care task force, apparently dominated by the insurance industry, and has yet to release even her tax returns from 2006. The Clintons have not agreed to release current financials, including whatever money trail might lie behind Clinton’s loan to herself of $5 million this year—revealed belatedly, AFTER the New Hampshire primary that Clinton claims to have won.

Back to NAFTA, and Canada. As Bloomberg News now reports,

“The chief of staff to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that an official from Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign told the Canadian embassy in Washington to take her criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement with a ``grain of salt,'' the Canadian Press reported.”

Well, now, how about that.

The article goes on to report that Ian Brodie, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, “told told reporters ON FEB. 26 that a Clinton campaign official told the embassy staff ``not to worry'' about her calls to renegotiate the trade agreement, the Canadian Press said, citing a person who heard the remarks and wasn't identified by name.”

 
The Clinton campaign denies the report.

 
FURTHERMORE:       “Canada's CTV television network ON FEB. 27 first reported Clinton campaign aides may have told Canadian officials to downplay her Nafta comments. Clinton's campaign denied the story at the time.”

 
Funny how little the U.S. public heard about this item at the time, denials and all. No press attention went to this one. And yet, within days, not only do we have a pre-emptive strike by the Clinton campaign—accusing the Obama campaign of exactly what the Clintonistas themselves did, according to the Canadian sources. We also get Hillary Clinton complaining about how the media are siding with Obama against her.

 
That complaint also ignores the half a billion worth of free media that former first lady Hillary Clinton received from 2003 on, incidentally.

 
From here on out, one simple guideline should be applied by every observer of the campaigns: Whatever line is issued by the Clinton campaign is not only diametrically opposed to the truth, it should be taken also as a clear give-away about what the candidate herself has done. She is employing the abusive juvenility toward this country that Bill employed toward her.

 
Canadian prime minister Harper, “who on March 4 denied Brodie was the source of the leak, said the circulation of the memo was ``unacceptable'' and that an internal investigation is under way.”

 
We could use a few of those closer to home. But between the Bushes and the Clintons, we have little chance of seeing much daylight.