O-Bom-A-Da (Oh Canada)

In case you missed it, Barak Obama when asked at the 3,256th Democratic Presidential Debate hosted by the AFL-CIO last week said:

I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labour agreements in that agreement right now.

One slight problem -- Canada doesn't have a president. It has a prime minister. Conservative columnist David Frum points out that while some may call Obama's latest foreign policy gaffe a mere slip of the tongue (like Richardson's slip that being gay is a choice) there are three insights you can take from the gaffe:

1) Obama's foreign policy inexperience. BTW -- Canada is Illinois' most serious foreign trading partner. You would think an Illinois Senator would have a bit more knowledge about such an important entity, no?

2) Iraq has sucked all the oxygen out of the room for other international issues -- and the stability of the western hemisphere is an emerging issue that Dems (and Repubs) are ignoring.

3) Dems aren't thinking seriously about energy policy as they claim to be -- Canada is not just America's biggest newscaster and cheesy pop diva supplier -- it is America's largest foreign energy supplier.


I'll add a fourth. Frum makes the case that, even overlooking Obama's basic ignorance of Canada's constitutional structure, his proposal is a non starter:

"[Mexican president] Felipe [Calderon]," President Obama would be saying, "I'd like to revise NAFTA in ways that would price your workers out of U.S. markets. Can I count on your support?"

In other words, Obama was pandering to his labor union hosts. So much for a different kind of politics.