Fast-track attack and Davos by the Hudson. (Networks).(presidential trade negotiating authority)(Brief Article)

PRESIDENT BUSH MAY BE granted broader trade-negotiating authority, but he shouldn't feel that he's being handed a political mandate. When the House passed the fast-track bill in a 215-to-214 vote on December 6, the scene, in the words of one union lobbyist, "was like a Sotheby's auction--and just as rigged."

The closeness of the vote partially reflects the effort undertaken by hundreds of labor, environmental, and public-interest organizations to derail it. Public Citizen took out ads in major daily and Hill papers that claimed the legislation would "undermine ...

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