Stupidity reigns on NAFTA

Hillary is going after Barack Obama on the rumor/story that Barack Obama's top economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, visited the Canadian consulate and said, in effect, you might hear a lot of NAFTA-bashing on the campaign trail, but don't worry, it's only politics. Interesting in that the first couple of stories on Canadian TV, which they still defend as sourced from top people in the Canadian government, said some of Hillary's people had done something similar.

What's really appalling, however, is the fact that both candidates are peddling such an ignorant position, arguing in effect, that only bad things come of expanded trade. Anybody with an IQ in double digits knows this is false, and every study shows that NAFTA (which can be legitimately criticized as more like managed trade then genuinely free trade) has had a positive impact on the U.S., even in Ohio. But the two main Democratic candidates are engaged in an unrelenting pander-fest, catering to ignorance and jingoism.