Here’s a little reminder about who Mickey Kantor is:
Mickey Kantor served as U.S. Trade Representative, 1993 to 1997, and as Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton, 1996 to 1997. Kantor was the lead U.S. negotiator in the creation of the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. He oversaw some 200 trade agreements between the United States and other countries. Kantor served as national chairman for the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992, and is a member of the board of several prominent corporations including Monsanto.
And here’s a little reminder about what he thinks of Hoosiers:
Kantor was a Friend of Hillary for her 2000 Senate run (along with FOX News creator/owner Rupert Murdoch) and was recently used in the Indianapolis Star to perpetrate a lie about Hillary Clinton’s early opposition to NAFTA.
Clinton’s campaign pointed to remarks by former Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor, former Clinton adviser David Gergen and former Clinton spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers who have said they remember Hillary Clinton being skeptical and unenthusiastic about NAFTA.
But those character witnesses were quickly exposed as unpaid shills:
What is the proper word for the claim by Hillary Clinton and the more factually disinclined supporters of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination – made in speeches, briefings and interviews (including one by this reporter with the candidate) – that she has always been a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement?
Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA; now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal; now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement. Now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary’s heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?
Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that “her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA” and that “there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;” now that we have these details confirmed, what should we make of Clinton’s campaign claim that she was never comfortable with the militant free-trade agenda that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of union jobs, that has idled entire industries, that has saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined the security of working families in the US and abroad, and has forced Mexican farmers off their land into an economic refugee status that ultimately forces them to cross the Rio Grande River in search of work?
The Clinton’s architect for implementing NAFTA was Mickey Kantor, who says that Hoosiers ‘are shit’. And that’s not all that different from how Hillary views hardworking people that don’t vote for the Clintons.
…a telling anecdote from her husband’s administration shows Hillary Clinton’s attitudes about the “lunch-bucket Democrats” are not exactly pristine.
In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.
“Screw ’em,” she told her husband. “You don’t owe them a thing, Bill. They’re doing nothing for you; you don’t have to do anything for them.”
Hey, maybe you like free trade. Maybe you like being lied to and called ‘shits’. Maybe you don’t mind having Hillary Clinton advise the president to ‘screw you’. Maybe you should vote for her.
Update [2008-5-2 10:9:30 by BooMan]: This YouTube is even worse.
