Turnaround

Image via Thai Food and Travel.

That's pretty startling:

Less than 24 hours after Senate Democrats blocked President Obama’s free trade push, leaders in both parties agreed Wednesday on a path toward granting the president accelerated authority to complete a major accord ringing the Pacific Ocean.

Brokered by Wyden and Schumer (I just got a letter from the BoldProgressives asking me to thank Schumer for his BoldProgressiveness in voting against the fast-track legislation, and he's already turning around to work for it), the deal is to allow a separate Senate vote on a bill to require the TPP to include provisions against currency manipulation (some economists I greatly respect say the lack of such provisions is the treaty's biggest flaw), allowing the anti-treaty Democrats and presumably Ron Paul to say they've done their best to stop it, so that the majority can then vote it in and the whole machine begin to roll. I think. Like a green mango, the news is not yet ripe enough to release its full perfume.

While later in the afternoon the House

overwhelmingly approved legislation to end the federal government’s bulk collection of phone records, exerting enormous pressure on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who insists that existing dragnet sweeps continue in defiance of many of those in his Republican Party.

Under the bipartisan bill, which passed 338 to 88, the Patriot Act would be changed to prohibit bulk collection by the National Security Agency of metadata charting telephone calls made by Americans. In addition, the legislation would bar permitting bulk collection of records using other tools like so-called national security letters, which are a kind of administrative subpoena.

Which sounds enough like the (Obama-supported) Sensenbrenner-Leahy bill to be the vehicle to do the job. Good news for John McCain! If by "good news" you mean endless opportunities for him to posture on television about how bad everybody is.

The two developments together suggest that Obama's foreign and security agenda is a lot more alive than it seemed about this time last night. The Patriot Act will not die in Congress, but it will learn to behave, and the TPP is likely to survive. Wait for news from Kerry on Syria or Ukraine for the Trifecta! I'm going to post something about the trade pact later, I think, but I wanted to get this out before reality hits, so you can make fun of me tomorrow.

Later—A much better picture of the Senate trade maneuver is available from Greg Sargent (h/t Zandar, whose comments are also, as always, necessary). So far I still think I'm right.