CBC: Harper aide accused of sparking NAFTA-gate

[tuvor]

Sources accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper's top aide of leaking information about Barack Obama's controversial NAFTA views on Wednesday, just as the prime minister himself was vowing to find out exactly who was behind the leak.

CBC News confirmed Wednesday that Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie, was the source of what is now being dubbed NAFTA-gate.

...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/05/canada-obama.html

(Stephen must be ever so pleased. Now he has a scandal with the Republican suffix "-gate" to add to his resume.)

[Hand]

1. Brodie's going under the bus.

Then he's quietly going to work for big oil in Alberta if he doesn't just take on a bunch of lucrative no-show directorships. You read it here first.

By the way, it's "Steve", not Stephen. :evilgrin:

[Bragi]

2. The Globe story is even weirder...

Reading between the lines of today's Globe story on Brodie and NAFTA-gate, maybe there were two diplomatic indiscretions, one aimed at Hillary, the other at Obama, each claiming that the NAFTA complaints of each of the candidates wasn't to be taken seriously?

I can't believe that Obama's people aren't all over this.

See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080305.wnafta06/BNStory/National/home

[daleo]

3. Here is an odd quote from Stephen Harper about this

From my copy of the Edmonton Journal today:

"The way the leak was executed was blatantly unfair to Senator Obama and his campaign."

He seems to be saying they wanted the leak, they just thought it was not well done from some tactical point of view.

[Spazito]

4. I am even more cynical....

harper's comments are deliberately phrased the way they are to try and keep the lie that the memo was factual re Obama alive as opposed to addressing the fact the memo was a subjective opinion of a low level Embassy staffer who had his facts wrong.

It is, as usual, an attempt to divert the focus from his own Chief of Staff's comments that it was the Clinton campaign that gave the 'wink, wink, nod, nod' explanation via a phone call.