This, from the Washington Post's big piece on CAFTA, strikes me as a very strange paragraph:
But the Democrats' near-unanimous stand against CAFTA carries long-term risks for a party leadership struggling to regain the appearance of a moderate governing force, some Democrats acknowledge. A swing toward isolationism could reinforce voters' suspicions that the party is beholden to organized labor and is anti-business, while jeopardizing campaign contributions, especially from Wall Street.
First, what's up with "acknowledge"? Doesn't that mean to recognize a truth? Aren't newspapers supposed to pretend that there is no truth, or at least that they don't know what it is? So called liberal media indeed. Second, is there really some voter roundtable desperately puzzling out whether Democrats are too beholden to Big Labor? As I remember it, voters didn't exactly reward us for passing NAFTA in 1993. 1994 was not our finest year.
The rest of the article is the usual spin from the usual suspects, decrying Democratic swings from moderation and divining the deepest, most hidden, and surprisingly sophisticated values judgments being made by the average voter. Of course, no mention is given to the many polls showing the public's split on NAFTA. The article simply speaks to those who know that on a truer, more subconscious level, the American voter flees the protectionist politician.
