Hillary Clinton thinks it's a major issue when a campaign adviser meets with a foreign government about a trade deal. Or she did last month anyway.

Last night, we learned from the Wall Street Journal that Mark Penn met with his client, the Colombian government, to strategize about a trade pact his client, Hillary Clinton, opposes.

Via Ben Smith at the Politico, we learned that not too long ago, just last month actually, Clinton was pretty clear that a meeting between top campaign adviser and foreign governments should be a major issue:

 Quote:
Peering at the 50 or so reporters packed into a small hotel conference room here, she added: "I would ask you to look at this story and substitute my name for Sen. Obama’s name and see what you would do with this story ... Just ask yourself [what you would do] if some of my advisers had been having private meetings with foreign governments."


Jed thinks the Penn-Colombia meeting "is a pretty remarkable act of hypocrisy" from the Clinton campaign. Jed is right. His latest video shows just how adamant Clinton was that this should be a major controversy:





So, are we dealing with yet another double standard from Hillary Clinton? And, keep in mind, Penn isn't just any campaign adviser. Penn is the ultimate Clinton campaign strategist.

(I'm sure the Colombian government would never assume that hiring Mark Penn would get them access to Hillary Clinton. Perish the thought.)