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Obama's Advisors Intentionally Lied

By wt

Senator Obama was taken in by two of top advisers last week, and the truth about these advisers' efforts was finally revealed yesterday.

A few months ago, Senator Obama's senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, spoke with Canadian officials to let them know that Obama's anti-NAFTA talk was generally bluster, rather than genuine hostility to the free-trade agreement that, of course, includes Canada.

When a memo from the Canadian officials was released, the Obama campaign issued a series of blanket denials, going so far as to state that no meeting ever occurred. Fortunately, the Clinton campaign has compiled a list of these denials here, all with convenient links to external articles.

In addition to Goolsbee, Senator Obama's Campaign Spokesperson, Bill Burton, issued the denials.

Senator Obama himself made, what was in retrospect, a fairly reckless denial that "it did not happen." Vague of course, and again, we have parsing issues of what "it" means.

What is clear, however, is that even if Obama engaged in the minor sin of making an overly-aggressive denial, two of his top campaign officials lied, point-blank, about Goolsbee's discussions with Canadian officials.

For now, if nothing else comes up, I think Obama is in the clear. He was naive to issue such a strong blanket denial. But that speaks to his political immaturity, not his ethics.

No such defense is possible for Burton and Goolsbee.

So we'll see if Senator Obama is willing to fire Bill Burton and Austan Goolsbee for intentionally lying to the press.

If not, I think that speaks poorly the Senator.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on March 04, 2008 (boomark / email).