Rob Bishop called to explain, because he knew whichever way he voted, he was going to make enemies.

He also knew he was going to sound somewhat like a John Bircher from the 1950s when he told me his reasons. He was voting for the Central American Trade Agreement because, "Communism is not dead down there."

The House voted narrowly last week to support CAFTA, an agreement that ties the U.S. economy to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Bishop, Utah's 1st Congressional District representative, voted for it despite being against it as late as in June. Given the two-vote margin of passage, his vote made all the difference.

He did so even though, as he said, "It will do absolutely nothing for the people of Utah." The amount of trade this state does with those countries adds up to less than the rainfall we get in July.

He also voted for it despite his belief that NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was bad for Utah. Bishop said that one has harmed farmers and ranchers in his district. It has forced Utah cattlemen to "compete with Canadian cattle that is subsidized."

He also voted for it despite being shocked at how the World Trade Organization was able to more or less declare Utah's laws against gambling unfair this year, in a case brought by tiny Antigua. The United States, even the states within the United States, can't pass laws against Internet gambling because that harms countries like Antigua that rely on this for a large part of their economy, the court essentially ruled.

The right-wing arguments that trade agreements harm national sovereignty, therefore, "should be taken seriously," he said. However, he believes CAFTA is written in such a way that state laws cannot be challenged.

Finally, he voted for it despite his belief that trade agreements don't build ties with other nations. A former high school history teacher, he notes the United States through the decades has tried "Dollar Diplomacy," the "Good Neighbor Policy," the "Alliance for Progress" and the "Caribbean Basin Initiative," which was a Ronald Reagan project. They all failed.

But all of that gets trumped by his worries about communism. If that sounds a bit like the line we heard a lot during the Cold War — the one that ended up justifying a host of strange foreign policy decisions in the name of yanking commies out from beneath everyone's beds — well, those arguments are reflecting a different kind of light these days, ever since 9/11. The United States needs to foster freedom in the world because we have seen what kinds of things spring up amid the weeds of poverty and despair.

This argument got a lot of traction last week, and not just in Bishop's office. Even the Washington Post, which hardly has a right-wing, 1950s type editorial page, supported CAFTA because, "In the past few years. . . an attempt has been made to revive the political challenge once represented by (Fidel) Castro."