The Candidate for Change and Politics as Usual

Canadian Leader on Obama Leak

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: March 6, 2008

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Wednesday that the leak of a Canadian diplomatic memorandum about Senator Barack Obama’s position on NAFTA was unfair to his campaign for the Democratic nomination and possibly illegal.

The note was based on a meeting between Canadian diplomats in Chicago and Austan D. Goolsbee, a professor of economics and Mr. Obama’s senior economic adviser. It suggested that Mr. Obama’s criticisms of NAFTA were just maneuvering. While the Obama campaign said the memorandum was not an accurate account of the meeting, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton accused Mr. Obama of hypocrisy.

I am so glad that both campaigns and the prime minister all agree there really is an Austan D. Goolsbee. Otherwise one would have to assume the Times had invented him.

It is also interesting that by publicly apologizing for the memo, Prime Minister Harper confirmed that it was real and took away whatever deniability the Obama campaign might have had.

Was Harper being smart and devious or just Canuck dumb? The content of the memo was that Canada has nothing to fear from an Obama administration. So Harper had no reason to embarrass the Obama campaign.

From which follows a confirmation of our worst suspicions of our northern neighbors -- they are as honest and naive as they seem.