Mark Penn Should Resign After Columbian Meeting

UPDATE: It appears Mark Penn has finally resigned, but will continue to advise the Clinton campaign, which seems to me not much like resigned at all. Anyone found any further clarification on this? </UPDATE>

When the self-described chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is making mistakes that even George W. Bush knew to avoid he should probably realize that he’s hurting his candidate more than helping her. Last week Mark Penn met with the Columbian Ambassador to discuss a free-trade pact that his candidate has opposes. This is just the latest in a series of missteps from Mark Penn that are doing significant harm to Hillary Clinton’s chances for the democratic nomination.

I am happy that at least one member of the Clinton campaign is breaking from the democratic party line of ‘Trade BAD! Protectionism GOOD!’ it is tempered by the fact that this is the most blatant conflict of interest imaginable: the top strategist for a presidential campaign lobbying on behalf of a foreign government for a trade pact that his candidate opposes. If Mark Penn does not resign from Hillary’s campaign soon he should be fired. If he manages to stay on with the campaign after this I would view it as yet another failure of judgment on the part of Hillary Clinton. In 2000 Bush insisted that Karl Rove resign his other positions to avoid something just like this. Even after the damage has been done, what happens internally in the Clinton campaign will speak to whether these obvious problems are being taken seriously.