The Obama campaign is now in the middle of a flap where they have handled the matter even worse than Hillary Clinton and her campaign have been handling stuff recently.

Round one: Canada’s CTV reported that the Obama campaign had reassured Canadian diplomatic channels that Obama did not really mean the heavy anti-NAFTA rhetoric he has been spouting on the campaign trail. That it was all just political posturing.

We spent quite a bit of time yesterday on that story by Canada’s CTV on the Obama camp giving a wink and a nod to the Canadian ambassador about Obama’s heavy anti-NAFTA rhetoric. Basically, the alleged backchannel communication was: Don’t worry, he’s not as bad as he sounds.

The Obama campaign initially, in an on-camera interview by a spokesperson, didn’t deny the report. Later it made an artful and very general “the story is inaccurate” denial, the precise inaccuracy not being identified. That was followed by about as categorical a denial as you can have, from the Canadian embassy in Washington.

Now CTV has followed up, not only standing by its story, but naming the Obama adviser who allegedly talked with Canadian representatives. He is reported by CTV to be Obama senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. According to CTV, the conversation took place not with the D.C. embassy but with the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago. Goolsbee is on the faculty at the University of Chicago School of Business.

Goolsbee “refused to say whether he had such a conversation with the Canadian government office in Chicago,” when contacted yesterday by CTV.

Round two consisted of clear, unambiguous denials, both from Goolsbee and from Obama’s campaign:

The New York Observer managed to track down Austan Goolsbee, the Obama adviser who, according to the latest report on Canada TV, was the one who may have told a Canadian official that Obama’s anti-NAFTA stump speech is merely “campaign rhetoric.”

And Goolsbee denies it:

“It is a totally inaccurate story,” he said. “I did not call these people and I direct you to the press office.”

Meanwhile, Obama spokesperson Bill Burton also denies this latest round, via email:

This story is not true. There was no one at any level of our campaign, at any point, anywhere, who said or otherwise implied Obama was backing away from his consistent position on trade.

And then, in round three, AP got its hands on a memo written by Joseph DeMora, who works for the Canadian consulate, summarizing what Goolsbee said at the meeting (which DeMora attended). Turns out that:
a) Goolsbee, senior economic adviser to Obama, did indeed talk to the Canadian consulate about NAFTA.
b) He did indeed say exactly what he was alleged to have said, and what he and the Obama campaign categorically denied he had said.
There are no other words for it. Goolsbee and the Obama campaign have been caught with with their pants down. (And they are definitely on fire, too.)

The memo obtained by the AP was widely distributed within the Canadian government. It is more than 1,300 words and covers many topics that DeMora said were discussed in the Feb. 8 “introductory meeting” between himself, Goolsbee and the consul general in Chicago, Georges Rioux.

Goolsbee “was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy,” the memo’s introduction said.

Here’s the juiciest bit from the memo:

“Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign. He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”

At this point, the bout should really be over. If the memo surfacing didn’t constitute a knockout punch, at least the referee should have stopped the bout in a mercy intervention. But the punchdrunk Obama campaign refused to stop, and came out for round four, making an even bigger fool of itself in the process. Goolsbee is reduced to claiming that he was misquoted. He disputes the passage I labeled the juiciest bit:

“This thing about ‘it’s more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,’ that’s this guy’s language,” Goolsbee said of DeMora. “He’s not quoting me.

“I certainly did not use that phrase in any way,” Goolsbee said.

Scoring it at home, it looks very much like Goolsbee is trying to hide behind: “Hey, those were not my exact words!”

(The AP story contains a more extended denial by Goolsbee. He tells a good story, but he might have a little more credibility if he hadn’t previously denied that the meeting took place at all.)

The Obama campaign has picked an even more unconvincing fig leaf (one that’s perfectly see-through, it seems to me):

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Goolsbee’s visit was not as an emissary from the campaign, but as a professor from the University of Chicago. He was not authorized to share any messages from the campaign, Burton said.

Come on, guys, that’s the best you can do? After first denying that anyone connected to the campaign said any such thing to anyone, you really expect to lay the story to rest by saying: “Oh, that was our senior economic adviser, but he was speaking as a private citizen?”

The Clinton campaign now has all day to make political capital out of this, certainly in Ohio — where NAFTA is a very sensitive topic, and hypocritical attacks on NAFTA for political purposes are not likely to go down very well at all — and probably in Texas too, simply because of how obviously the campaign has got caught in a very embarrassing lie.