NAFTAmnesia
Steve Chapman at Reason magazine has put up a great post on the Democratic Presidential candidates’ withdrawal of support for one of Bill Clinton’s greatest achievements: the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Even Hillary Clinton can’t bring herself to defend the deal her husband pushed through. Asked during a recent debate if she thought it was a mistake, she did everything but deny she’d ever met the man.
“All I can remember from that is a bunch of charts,” she chortled, in possibly the least believable statement of the 2008 campaign. “That, sort of, is a vague memory.” In the end, though, Clinton declared that “NAFTA was a mistake to the extent that it did not deliver on what we had hoped it would.”
I think Hillary’s joke is a reference to Ross Perot, whose low-tech slideshow explanation for why he disliked NAFTA was no match for the wit of Al Gore, as memorably demonstrated in their 1993 debate on Larry King’s CNN program. Remember that? Remember when the Gorebot was a New Democrat and Americans didn’t have to be ashamed of voting Democrat anymore? Ah, yes. The Good Old Days.
Some NAFTA supporters thought it might generate enough growth in Mexico to keep Mexican workers at home. When the tide of illegal immigrants grew, it bred resentment here.
That reaction partly helps to explain the Democratic retreat. By denouncing NAFTA, the presidential candidates can appeal to Americans alarmed about our porous borders without offending Hispanic voters.
I think that’s exactly right. The Democrats have done everything they can to avoid taking responsibility for their part in illegal immigration —and have obviously been abetted in this by Big Media as they do. Trashing up NAFTA only now, in service of whatever retarded protectionist agenda now before them as a party, is still something of a surprise, though.
Both parties are guilty on illegal immigration. And the word is guilty. Whichever one of them who can make the most sense on it is going to win in 2008.
