Over the past two days, the leading and most likely candidate for president on the Democratic ticket, Barack Obama, was caught in a blatant self confirmed lie.
During the past two weeks in the Pennsylvania campaign Obama has been saying that he will re-negotiate NAFTA. You don't have to read the title of this blog to know where I stand on NAFTA. NAFTA is one of the most pro-commerce trade agreements ever written and signed by three nations and has generated untold trillions of prosperity for all three countries involved. The treaty is still not fully implemented because unions have blocked the open trucking part of the agreement for 15 years.
The press discovered emails in which an Obama advisor told the Canadian consul in Chicago that Obama was just posturing on the campaign trail. Obama had no intention of ever renegotiation NAFTA. Disgusting and certainly a lie but it was a second hand lie.
Then yesterday Obama owned the lie in his own words: "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities (a lot of small towns in the Midwest) are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
This is clearly a statement that "anti-trade sentiment" is not what Obama believes in. But he campaigns on his own "anti-trade sentiment"
To me this is a clear admission of a lie.
I have not and never will vote for a public person who openly lies. I've stayed out of many elections. This election I have a choice to avoid a liar but Obama supporters don't.