Remember the KORUS FTA? Ron Kirk does.

And he thinks it will pass with strong backing.

That is, if the Republicans don't succeed at holding the more widely supportable Korea-US FTA hostage by insisting that it must be voted on along with the FTAs the United States signed with Panama and Colombia. That is, they know that Panama and Colombia are a tougher sale in terms of labor rights, benefit to the US economy, etc., and so they are pushing them as a package because they know a lot of folks (on both sides of the aisle) don't want to see the Korea FTA fail.