Reeling from a trade controversy that forced her to demote her chief strategist, Hillary Clinton criticized Barack Obama Tuesday for not punishing an aide accused of causing his own trade flap.
By turning the tables on her Democratic rival, Clinton sought to limit the damage caused to her campaign by the revelation that chief strategist Mark Penn was being paid by Colombia to help enact a trade deal that Clinton opposes. The disclosure threatened to undermine Clinton’s pro-labor message in states scheduled to hold primaries soon, especially Pennsylvania.
So Clinton lashed out at Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee, who has been accused of assuring Canada that Obama, contrary to his public pronouncements, supports the North American Free Trade Agreement. Goolsbee remains a part of the Obama campaign.
“I took appropriate action with respect to my campaign,” she told ABC Tuesday. “I notice that Senator Obama has never said or done anything with respect to his campaign.”
But Clinton did not fire Penn outright, opting to keep him on her campaign as an adviser.
“The comparison Senator Clinton tried to make today is laughable, but also typical of a candidate who has said one thing but done another this entire campaign,” said Obama’s spokesman Hari Sevugan.
The Obama campaign also deployed surrogates to accuse Clinton of exaggerating her opposition to trade deals. But Obama surrogate James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, ended up calling on Goolsbee to “make a statement” to explain his meeting with the Canadian government.
“Let’s end this mystery about what happened,” Hoffa told reporters on a conference call.
However, Hoffa said there was “no comparison” between Goolsbee, who was not paid by the Canadians, and Penn, whose firm was paid $300,000 by the Colombians.
