When we last visited the campaign fallout from President Clinton's deal to admit China to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the AFL-CIO was gearing up to make the deal's defeat a top legislative priority, even at the cost of weakening the Democratic nominee. That would presumably be Vice President Gore, whom labor has endorsed. Meanwhile, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, frantically working to avoid a NAFTA-style donnybrook, was trying to broker some kind of compromise that would keep labor on board.

So Alan Greenspan is a political
animal. What--you were expecting a philosopher-king? A lot of people
who should know better were taken by surprise when Fed Chairman
Greenspan made George W. Bush's inaugural week by embracing a big tax
cut. But it's not as if Greenspan got this far on, say, charm. As Bob
Woodward's recent biography of him makes clear, Greenspan for more than
a decade outmaneuvered other members of the Fed's board of governors and
made such tactical alliances as he needed to survive.