Obamagoguery

It's Goolsbee?

I love to bash the Democratic front runner as much as the next guy, but I did not think that the CTV story had legs. CTV had claimed that an Obama advisor told the Canadian Government to ignore Obamagoguery as campaign rhetoric, just a workin' man tryin' to pick up a few Buckeye State delegates.

Today, the chatter is that it is Austen Goolsbee, the Chicago wunderkind and Obama economic advisor. If this is true, this story is serious. People in the know were all wondering when or whether Goolsbee was going to reign in Senator Obama's protectionism. If he was complicit in an orchestrated lie, this will not go away.

Unless Goolsbee does. And Goolsbee is the Senator's last tether to real economics. A lot of centrist bloggers threw their support to Obama early on, based on the Goolsbee connection. The nutroots are not gong to leave him, but center left libertarian types will lose their comfort.

HotAir is on this story without really appreciating who Austen Goolsbee is (they don't collect Economist Trading Cards over there). Jake Tapper has ABC confirming a refusal to deny:

ABC News' Jennifer Parker spoke to Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economics professor, Thursday who would not confirm or deny that he had a conversation with Georges Rioux, the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago. Rioux, in meetings this week in Ottawa, would also neither confirm nor deny any conversation took place. Both men did say that they know each other.

Both Obama and the Canadian Embassy have denied that the CTV story is true.

If you're not having fun, you're not paying attention.

Dem2008 Primary Posted by jk at February 29, 2008 1:15 PM