Okay, let's take the Bush administration at its
word, however mutable that
word may be. Let's say only a handful of officials--the commerce and treasury
secretaries, and (according to a subsequent clarification) several lesser
officials at Treasury, and (oh, yes, we forgot) White House Chief of Staff Andy
Card--knew about Ken Lay's phone calls imploring the administration to do
something that would head off Enron's impending bankruptcy. Let's say that none
of these presidential confidants thought to tell George W. Bush or Dick
Cheney--or Karl Rove, for that matter--that the largest donor to the Bush family,
the dominant corporation in W.'s hometown and home state, the seventh-largest
Fast track has gone to the Senate, where its passage,
alas, is assured. "I don't think we stand a chance of defeating it," says one
dispirited union official. Indeed, labor lobbyists aren't even focusing on the
trade legislation itself, but on an expansion of assistance for displaced workers
that they hope the Senate will muster enough votes for, even as fast track
breezes through.
The strongholds of municipal liberalism are gone; the coalition of immigrants, unionists, poor people, and neighborhoods has been replaced by alliances between tough-on-crime Republican mayors and organized business. But the seeds of a revival are there.
