Hypocrisy alert – Lots of Clinton and a little Obama on trade

It’s not the first article, but I hope it’s not the last one, either, as long as both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama keep lying (her the worse but him no slouch about their stance on trade pacts. The LA Times has a good takedown.

Since 2001, Clinton has backed pacts with Jordan, Chile, Singapore, Australia, Morocco and Oman that were opposed by numerous labor, farming and environmental groups concerned that the deals contained insufficient safeguards for American workers and consumers.

As recently as November, Clinton supported a free trade agreement negotiated by the Bush administration with Peru. …

Time and again over the last seven years, Clinton backed trade deals that other lawmakers rejected.

When the Bush administration in 2003 pushed for congressional approval of bilateral agreements with Singapore and Chile, more than 30 senators, including several Republicans, voted against each.

See the story for her hair-splitting “then and now” comments.

But, not so fast there with Pennsylvania voters, Obama:

Obama also has backed bilateral trade agreements since he came to the Senate in 2005, and like Clinton has stepped up his criticism of trade deals more recently. Unlike her, he has not urged a trade deal moratorium.

Both of them get enough money from enough big donors that neither one will truly tackle trade issues. Neither will truly fund trade-lost job retraining assistance.