Why Obama shouldn't cave on trade

By Roger Bybee

Like torch-bearing villagers descending on a heretic's home, leading commentators in the United States and from the United Kingdom have warned US Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama in menacing terms: stop "pandering" to unions on the issue of unrestrained corporate globalization.

"The kinds of conditions that he has promised labor he would try to negotiate are really non-starters," MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell ominously declared on July 1. "All bets would be off. You can't go there."