18 hours to go

With less than 18 hours until the FTA agreement notification must be made to the US Congress for an up or down vote, there is optimism at least by some parties in South Korea.
But no news has come of the issue of beef, autos, rice, or the Kaesong Industrial Complex. It seems questionable to me that the priority of economic cooperation between the two countries is paramount (as both Roh and Bush have said repeatedly) if such an important policy for both countries must come down to literally the very last minute.

Not the last minute you say? The special authorization is not the "last call" of the economic agreements world for this administration?

Well that may be true, the deadline actually only affects the process that Congress goes by to ratify the agreement - precluding the lengthy amendment process wherein so much beloved pork may be floated. But given the attack on superfluous spending that the President launched today in his Radio address concerning the Iraq funding bill (peanuts anyone?), perhaps this opportunity to pass the agreement sans pork loading would be very important. No doubt it was much of what Bush and Roh talked about during their 20 minute conversation, as reported on Thursday. Yet we will all have to wait until Sunday night or possibly Monday morning to find out the resolution. Guess the government and much of the student body have something in common - both wait til the last minute to slap something together.