"I'd ignore a lot of people"

Reuters has a fascinating report:

A senior Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday defended a trade deal reached last week with the Bush administration, in response to criticism from some party members. "I think there's a lot of misunderstanding with the agreement," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, told PBS' Nightly Business Report. "I cannot see how anybody would be upset in the Democratic Party, except for one thing: they were not included when we had the press conference."...

In the interview, Rangel offered no apology for the deal that was struck and said the only thing he would do differently was to reach it "much faster. I'd ignore a lot of people that really was just wasting my time, and didn't intend to support it all."

For those of who are keeping track, here is the list of fixes (PDF) that fair trade groups demanded many months ago in order to not oppose the Peru and Panama FTAs. Here are the ways they fall short. And here are just a few of the on-the-record alternative policies that fair trade groups said would constitute a new direction on globalization they could support.