The original CTV story came out on Wednesday night, and its main thrust was this:

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

Understandably, this set off a strong reaction. On Thursday, both the Canadian embassy in Washington and the Obama campaign issued denials. The Canadian embassy statement read as follows:

Washington, D.C., February 28, 2008 -- The Canadian Embassy confirms that at no time has any member of a Presidential campaign called the Canadian Ambassador or any official at the Embassy to discuss NAFTA. Last night the Canadian television network, CTV, falsely reported that such calls had been made. That story is untrue. Neither before nor since the Ohio debate has any Presidential campaign called Ambassador Wilson or the Embassy to raise NAFTA.

The Obama campaign denial was not quite as categorical:

"The news reports on Obama's position on NAFTA are inaccurate and in no way represent Senator Obama's consistent position on trade. When Senator Obama says that he will forcefully act to make NAFTA a better deal for American workers, he means it. Both Canada and Mexico should know that, as president, Barack Obama will do what it takes to create and protect American jobs and strengthen the American economy -- that includes amending NAFTA to include labor and environmental standards. We are currently reaching out to the Canadian embassy to correct this inaccuracy."

Given the length of CTV's article, it is not clear what the Obama campaign meant by only calling it "inaccurate". Nonetheless, it is fair to say that  the intended impression is that the story was completely false, and there was no contact between the Obama campaign and the Canadian government about NAFTA, and certainly nothing to suggest that Obama was not sincere in his anti-NAFTA rhetoric.

On Thursday night, however, CTV essentially reiterated its story with some minor tweaks and new revelations. CTV strongly suggested that the senior Obama official was top economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, and that he had communicated with an official at the Canadian consulate in Chicago (not the ambassador, as originally reported). The network also noted that Goolsbee had referred all questions to the campaign, which was refusing to confirm or deny whether any such conversation had taken place:

Despite repeated requests, Barack Obama's campaign is still neither verifying nor denying a CTV report that a senior member of the team made contact with the Canadian government -- via the Chicago consulate general -- regarding comments Obama made about NAFTA.

On Wednesday, CTV reported that a senior member of Obama's campaign called the Canadian government within the last month -- saying that when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn't worry. The operative said it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.

The Obama campaign told CTV late Thursday night that no message was passed to the Canadian government that suggests that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.

However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama's senior economic adviser -- Austan Goolsbee -- and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago.

It should be noted that by modifying the story to name a consulate official and not an embassy official, the story is now completely consistent with the Canadian embassy statement. CTV also said that one of their sources allowed there might have been some miscommunication.

ABC News added some additional information, reporting via its own source that the consulate official is Georges Rioux, and that the content of this conversation was passed through Ambassador Wilson to Ian Brodie, the chief of staff of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. ABC's source also said that Wilson may have exaggerated the conversation.

However, a source close to the Canadian prime minister's office tells ABC News that the original communication was between Austan Goolsbee, Obama's senior economic adviser and an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and Georges Rioux, Canada's consul general in Chicago, about Obama's rhetoric against NAFTA.

According to the source, Wilson exaggerated the communication between the Obama campaign and the Canadian official during discussions this week with Ian Brodie, the prime minister's chief of staff, who leaked the story to CTV.

ABC also contacted Goolsbee, Rioux, and the Obama campaign:

ABC News spoke to Goolsbee, Thursday, and who denied calling the Canadian embassy in Washington, or calling Rioux, but wouldn't confirm or deny whether he had spoke to Rioux about Obama's NAFTA rhetoric.

"It's not correct that I contacted them," Goolsbee told ABC News Thursday. "They contacted me at one point to say 'hello' because their office is around the corner but it is not correct that I contacted them at all," he said.

"I am not confirming or denying any meetings with anyone," Goolsbee told ABC News, directing queries to Bill Burton, Obama's campaign spokesperson.

Rioux, who was in Ottawa for meetings this week with the Prime Minister's Office, told ABC News that he too will neither confirm nor deny whether he spoke to Goolsbee.

Both men live in Chicago, where Obama's campaign is headquartered.

The Obama campaign isn't responding to requests for information about the reported conversation between Goolsbee and Rioux.

Note that Goulsbee denies ever calling the Washington embassy or Rioux, but refuses to say whether he met with anyone, and acknowledges that he has talked with the consulate (to say "hello").

On Friday, Goolsbee told the New York Observer something similar:

"It is a totally inaccurate story... I did not call these people and I direct you to the press office."

For his part, Obama spokesperson Bill Burton added this:

This story is not true. There was no one at any level of our campaign, at any point, anywhere, who said or otherwise implied Obama was backing away from his consistent position on trade.

As far as I know, this is the latest information. Please let me know if I missed something.

What can we conclude from this?

The above, I think, is fairly objectively presented. The subjective part is what we conclude from all of this. For my part, these are my tentative beliefs:

(1) It seems quite clear that Goolsbee did have a conversation with someone in the Canadian government, likely Rioux. Their refusal to deny this, coupled with Goolsbee's acknowledgment of contact and artfully phrased non-denial makes it hard to believe otherwise.

If someone can tell me why Goolsbee, Rioux, and the campaign would not simply deny a conversation if none had occurred, please do so. I don't see any way around this.

(2) The Obama campaign's denial on Thursday was perhaps technically true, in that nobody called the embassy, but it was clearly misleading and very likely intentionally so. It left the impression that no relevant contact of any sort had been made, and this appears to be contradicted by the above.

This doesn't mean that the main thrust of the CTV story--that Obama's campaign assured the Canadian government that his rhetoric was not to be taken seriously--is true, but it does mean that the campaign did try to mislead the public.

(3) It is not clear what was said. However, whatever was said was apparently considered important enough to communicate to the ambassador, who then sent it on to Brodie, the chief of staff of the prime minister. That is a remarkably high level of government, and suggests that whatever was said was considered authentic and serious.

We're left with two main possibilities--that Goolsbee said that Obama's rhetoric was not genuine, or that Goolsbee didn't say this.

If we believe ABC's reporting that Brodie was one of CTV's sources, then Brodie thought that Obama was not serious about his anti-NAFTA rhetoric. It is possible that Wilson exaggerated the story, as ABC's source claims.

On the other hand, Burton says that nobody told anyone that Obama was backing away from his "consistent position on trade." This is also open to a lot of interpretation. What exactly is Obama's consistent position on trade? Is vague support of NAFTA with a view towards fixing labor and environmental agreements part of it?

I personally give the benefit of the doubt to CTV on this. From all appearances, their version of the story (despite some tweaks) is much closer to the truth than what the Obama campaign initially claimed. My guess is that Goolsbee did in fact reassure the Canadians that Obama was not as anti-NAFTA as he might appear to be, though it's possible the degree of this was amplified in retelling. It also seems that if Goolsbee had not said this, the campaign response would have been "Yes, Goolsbee did have this conversation, but he didn't say that," instead of this painful dance about who called whom and refusing to confirm or deny this or that. I do understand, however, that other people will reach different conclusions.

One last note: I've seen it argued elsewhere that Goolsbee was a mid-level staffer going off the reservation. It's possible he was speaking without authorization, but he is not a mid-level staffer. He's one of Obama's three top economic advisers (along with Jeff Liebman and David Cutler) and has been widely written up because of his importance to the Obama campaign. For whatever it's worth, he's also a very highly respected economist.