Barack Obama, in an interview today with Fortune:
"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.
How convenient! Now that he's the presumptive nominee, let's hope Obama renounces some of the other, nuttier things he said on the campaign trail to win over the Left.
--James Kirchick