Obama, NAFTA, and The Polar Bear Contingent

On Monday, a memorandum surfaced, obtained by The Associated Press, showing that Austan D. Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago who is Mr. Obama's senior economic policy adviser, met officials last month at the Canadian consulate in Chicago.

According to the writer of the memorandum, Joseph De Mora, a political and economic affairs consular officer, Professor Goolsbee assured them that Mr. Obama's protectionist stand on the trail was "more reflective of political maneuvering than policy."

It also said the professor had assured the Canadians that Mr. Obama's language "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

Campaign officials said the memorandum inaccurately described Professor Goolsbee's comments, as well as Mr. Obama's position.

The slicers and dicers in the HRC campaign have succeeded in the past few days in landing blows (above or below the belt, depending on your point of view) about the alleged back-door messages to the Canadian government, asserting that Obama was merely talking tough about the North American Free Trade Agreement in order to win votes in the Midwest.

Now seriously, folks... Haven't we all had more than enough of all of this he said, she said, who said, what said? Can't we stop for a moment and consider the real issues? Or, better said, the real issue? Yeah? Uh, ok.

As some of you may know, a recent video put out by Clinton Supporter Gene Wang features a Polar Bear on an ice floe who is near drowning, seeming to either be sympathetic to Polar Bears or fear-mongering to baby seals. Check it out below:

And as many of you are sure to know, it is quite evident that the Polar Bear vote will weigh heavily on the results of Super Tuesday 2 in Texas and Ohio.

The Obama Campaign chose to fire back in a speech of 3/2/08:

"I served with Polar Bears.
I knew a Polar Bear.
Polar Bears were friends of mine.
Senator Clinton, you’re no Polar Bear."

They also pointed out that, even though Polar Bears are a majority white females, signs point to them voting for Obama in Texas.

Most of the polls (Quinnipiac, and a recent Zogby/Reuters/CNN) suggest that Obama will get a clear majority of the PB vote tomorrow in Texas, which, up until recently, was a severely under-reported demographic in major news media.

However, Ohio’s PB vote may swing towards Clinton because an anonymous internet viral email suggested that she advocates for Ohio to change it's state song to the following:

OHIO!
It's snowing
It's redundant
It's boring
It's stupid
It's flat
OHIO!

The song, written by the popular group Sick of Ohio Politics (SOP) shot to the top of the PBC (Polar Bear Charts) principally because it mentions "snow", which Polar Bears clearly support and, by inference, connects Hillary to an earlier promise (from 9/13/07) of "More Snow" as part of her Ohio Campaign platform (NB: Polar Bears, like many some of you, also find Ohio kind of flat and boring compared to Canada).

On the blogosphere, Rachel Sklar, although an avid Clintonista, admits that Hilary is "Pandering" to the snow vote in Ohio, prompting many of Ohio's Pandas to post irate messages on Ms. Sklar's comment board: "Pandas have long been bamboo-shafted in the primary process" said one Mr. Panda, "and we don't deserve such a bad rap, much less a bad 'Up With the People'-style video that doesn't even include a decent Rap or a Panda." Mrs. Panda, attending a hip-hop summit in Beijing, could not be reached for comment.

In response to all this talk about Rap, it seems that many in the animal kingdom have clamored for faster internet speeds (esp. Road Runner), so they can see the Black Eyed Peas' Obama "Yes We Can" video.

No Peas could be reached for comment, though it is well known--despite them being tasty when slathered with molasses and stuck to a knife--that they have long stood for internet neutrality along with other legumes. Rutabaga, on the other hand, have always been at odds with Pandas because of their long standing relationship with the BS (Bamboo Solidarity) Union.

And, while it may be true that Barack Obama may not be promising more snow for Ohio, he is, in fact, in negotiations with Canada to revise NAFTA to include significantly more snow in return for higher tariff protection for Polar Bears making cars and steel in Ohio. He is also proposing to include some Polar Bear Whelping sounds in new speeches as well as a 4,000 fish tuition credit to Polar Bears in 'Swimming Between Ice Floes Certification School' if they would agree to answer the fictional white house red phone at 3am in certain time zones.

Clinton countered by diving head first into the ice to snatch a burrowed seal cub in her clenched and powerful jaws. Advisers worry, however that a bloody, icy Hillary Clinton covered in baby seal flesh might offend some of the non-Polar Bear vote (not to mention showing Polar Bears to be the horrifically violent, merciless killers of babies that they are and prompting some to say, "you know, I'm really afraid of Polar Bears. They're just as bad as John McCain. We don't need another 100 years of Polar Bears! Let's get drilling in Anwar!")

Lloyd Bentsen could not be reached for comment about the dead Polar Bear vote or to comment on whether or not the very much alive and front-running Obama plagiarized his speech. Yet, in spite of the lack of any contact with the dead for all of time, a sci-fi channel poll is predicting that the dead bear vote seems to be headed clearly for write-in candidate and dead Dead member, Jerry Garcia, over establishment favorite and 'The Dead' dead author James Joyce. One analyst suggested that this is due to the "weird dancing bear thing" on their logo, long a favorite of bears of all kinds.

It is clear that the major networks and news outlets need to spend more time covering important issues like these and less time on things like Obama's middle name, Hillary's appearance on SNL or what Rush Limbaugh said about whom.

At the very least, cover both.