Bill Clinton, Colombia, and Mark Penn

Mark Penn's recent reassignment within the campaign of Hillary Clinton came after it was learned that Penn's lobbying firm met with the government of Colombia to promote passage of a trade bill which Hillary officially opposes. The appearance of talking out of both sides of your mouth was something that Clinton knew would damage her chances with working class voters in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere), but, oddly, Penn wasn't fired outright for his indiscretion. Why, you may ask, would Clinton keep Penn on the payroll?

Well, as Sam Stein writes in The Huffington Post:

But within the Clinton campaign, Penn is not the highest-ranking adviser with financial ties to groups and individuals supporting the passage of the measure.

Former President Bill Clinton has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars speaking on behalf of a Colombia-based group pushing the trade pact, and representatives of that organization tell The Huffington Post that the former president shared their sentiment.

So you see, how could HIllary fire Penn for an activity her husband was engaged in, as well?

The larger matter, of course, is central to the contest between Barack Obama and the former First Lady. Each Democrat has made revising already-signed-agreements--so that they are more friendly to workers rights and the environment--a top talking-point.

Both have taken ample shots at NAFTA, and a controversy remains as to which campaign was the one who contacted the Canadian Government to assure them that the anti-trade-agreement rhetoric was just bluster. When that story broke, Obama's campaign was the target, but as more was learned, Clinton's people, too, felt the heat of the spotlight.

Lastly, Hillary Clinton's datebook revealed that she'd spent a whole lot of time pushing for passage of NAFTA, though on the campaign trail she often claims otherwise.

Free and unfettered trade is indeed a sore point with many an American voter, especially those on the losing end of a global workforce re-alignment. Everyday, we witness the further morphing of our economy: away from manufacturing, and into service. With a few notable exceptions (construction, defense, and the tech-sector come to mind), we no longer produce the things people use, we serve that which others have made for us.

You may be asking yourself: Why should we want to restrict or oppose free-trade deals? Isn't protectionism an un-American concept? While there's no simple answer to these questions, a few points raised by the good people at Public Citizen might be worth considering before we expand the NAFTA model to places like Colombia. And as some commentators have pointed out, the time to get these deals right is before they are actually enacted.

In short, it seems likely that neither Clinton or Obama would actually be very successful at amending NAFTA or CAFTA, but hopefully we've learned enough from our past mistakes not to make them all over again.