I’m referring to, of course, the leak of information that the Obama campaign told the Canadian government not to take his NAFTA rhetoric too seriously. It seems it partially stemmed from an offhanded remark by Prime Minister Harper’s Chief to a group of media folks.

The leak of a confidential diplomatic discussion that rocked the U.S. presidential campaign began with an offhand remark to journalists from the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Ian Brodie. …

Mr. Brodie, during the media lockup for the Feb. 26 budget, stopped to chat with several journalists, and was surrounded by a group from CTV.

The conversation turned to the pledges to renegotiate the North American free-trade agreement made by the two Democratic contenders, Mr. Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

Mr. Brodie, apparently seeking to play down the potential impact on Canada, told the reporters the threat was not serious, and that someone from Ms. Clinton’s campaign had even contacted Canadian diplomats to tell them not to worry because the NAFTA threats were mostly political posturing.

Ed Morrissey correctly notes that the original CTV report did include the claim that Clinton campaign had contacted the Canadian embassy with the same message. However, CTV was apparently unable to find any confirmation on the Clinton angle, and that part kind of dropped from the story over time.

The Obama angle, on the other hand, was reported with much more strength. CTV had apparently received confirmation of a discussion between the Chicago consulate and senior Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. When the Obama campaign soon denied the reports, the Associated Press obtained the notes of the 40-minute discussion, which included the NAFTA bit as claimed by CTV.

As Ed says:

Despite the argument from Obama supporters, this new development doesn’t change those facts. Obama’s adviser met with Rioux and downplayed the Obama campaign rhetoric to the Canadians. The question is whether Brodie mistakenly named the Clinton campaign, or whether Hillary’s team essentially performed the same hypocritical outreach as Goolsbee conducted on behalf of Obama.

Would anyone be surprised, considering NAFTA went into effect under Hillary’s husband?