Angelica asks:
Why do libertarians and other free-trade cheerleaders feel the need to give CAFTA their (infinitely reluctant) backing when it is nothing more than a trojan horse bearing monopoly-extending intellectual property rules ignominiously rushed pass a dracula session in congress by bribing reluctant congressmen with porktastic protectionist measures that favor their home states?
I wish someone would write a book on the total abdication of ideological responsibility on all sides of the spectrum. Welcome to 2005, politics is tone, partisanship is volume, extremism is aggressiveness. 2004's liberal hero was an ardent free trader who blocked gay marriage in his home state, wanted to add 40,000 troops to Iraq, had little patience for liberal social programs when they blew the deficit, who rejected public financing in Vermont, and had been a DLC golden child only years before. But Howard Dean stood up, spoke out, and became the great hope for progressives, the feared demon of the DLC, and an electorally active Michael Moore to Republicans.
