The three-nation summit at Montebello, Quebec, was held behind closed doors, well guarded behind an intimidating fence and plenty of police, but the news conference that followed on Aug. 21 revealed more than the three heads of state had planned.

President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon all refused to deny that the Security and Prosperity Partnership is a stepping stone toward a North American Union.

The $64,000 question was posed by Fox News reporter Bret Baier. He asked all three heads of state, "Can you say today that this is not a prelude to a North American Union, similar to a European Union?"

Their response was positively sensational. Not one denied that SPP is leading to a North American Union. The White House transcript of the news conference allows us to assume that the elites of the three countries are, indeed, moving toward North American integration.

Bush insulted the questioner and those who want an answer by accusing them of believing in a "conspiracy." Bush twice said he was "amused" by such speculation, but as Queen Victoria of England famously said, "We are not amused."

Instead of addressing the crux of the question about plans to integrate the three North American countries, Bush resorted to ridicule. He sneered at his critics as "comical," and accused them of engaging in "political scare tactics" and wanting "to frighten our fellow citizens into believing that relations between us are harmful for our respective peoples."

Harper tried to trivialize the Montebello summit. He implied that the SPP meeting was merely about harmonizing different regulations on "jelly beans." Apparently, a Canadian jelly bean manufacturer had demanded standardization of the rules so his company would not have to produce different jelly beans for the United States, which bans a red dye permitted in Canada. Nobody asked: If that's all SPP is about, why such secrecy, and does SPP harmonization mean we must allow food imports using dyes we believe are dangerous?

Harper made everybody laugh when he accused his opponents of speculating that a NAFTA superhighway might go "interplanetary." Harper twice pleaded that SPP was merely a deal he inherited from his predecessor, Paul Martin, the Canadian prime minister who participated in 2005 at the first SPP summit with Bush in Waco, Texas.

Calderon chimed in to brush off what he called "jovial" and "funnier" SPP "myths." Surprise, surprise, he concentrated on demanding that the United States "barriers between ourselves" and put "more investment" in Mexico. Bush also failed to deny, and left hanging, two other parts of the Fox News reporter's well-crafted question: "Are there plans to build some kind of superhighway connecting all three countries?" and what about the "lack of transparency from this partnership?"

Bush couldn't with a straight face deny superhighway plans because Texas has already signed a contract with a Spanish company to build a limited-access, 10-lane toll road from Mexico to Oklahoma. It obviously will not dead-end at the Oklahoma border. Continued...