THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1988
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Highlights of This Page
Rush Limbaugh begins broadcasting nationally. Anthony Kennedy joins Supreme Court. Operation Anfal in Iraq kills thousands of Kurds. Iran-Contra indictments. Halabjah massacre. Soviets begin withdrawing from Afghanistan. US directly attacks Iranian forces and civilians. Al-Qaeda founded. Echelon launched. Iran-Iraq war ends. George H.W. Bush becomes President. Pan Am Flight 103 bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, by Islamic terrorists.
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- During the year, the US vetoes five UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli repression of Palestinians. (ZNet)
- Jeb Bush and GOP fund-raiser David Eller set up a company for the marketing of flood control pumps made by Eller's MWI Corporation; the sale goes through, financed by a timely $74.3 million loan from the US government. In 1989, Bush will visit Nigeria, where he assures President Ibrahim Babangida that his father, the US president, will increase aid to Nigeria and other developing countries. (The pilot of Bush's plane later states that Bush is accompanied by a Nigerian official carrying suitcases full of Nigerian currency to be used for bribes.) In 1992, Bush and Eller's corporation will receive $74 million in US Export-Import Bank financing, an unusual amount of money for a company the Ex-Im considered a bad risk. Bush claims he never made "a dime on business with Nigeria," but tax records show that the "Bush-El" partnership paid him $300,000 (the figure may be closer to $650,000). By 2002, the covers come off the partnership. Prosecutors will charge that MWI used over $28 million of the Ex-Im funds to bribe Nigerian officials and MWI insiders. Bush slithers out from any criminal charges by insisting that he had nothing to do with the Nigerian deals, even though records show he visited Nigeria twice on MWI/Bush-El business and MWI marketing videos emphasize the Bush family connection. (Kevin Phillips, Joe Conason)
- Hillary Clinton, a lawyer with the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock, Arkansas, takes over control of the Whitewater Development Corporation after their partner, Jim McDougal, moves to California. The records from the corporation are haphazard at best, disordered and with many documents missing altogether. She finds that one owner of a lot has gone bankrupt without ever being notified by McDougal, and that McDougal has failed to pay state franchise fees for years. In November 1986, McDougal, who was recovering from a stroke and has been diagnosed with manic depression, makes the Clintons a bizarre offer: to buy back their shares of Whitewater for half the amount of their losses, which he will then claim on his income tax. The problem with the offer is that the company still owes $90,000 to the bank and will not release the Clintons from their liability; in essence, McDougal is offering to take over their shares of what they mistakenly believe is an asset in return for assuming a $90,000 debt. Clinton refuses the offer and demands to see the Whitewater accounting records, infuriating McDougal. He then informs the Clintons that the bank has agreed to reduced payments and they don't owe him any money; the bank has made no arrangements with McDougal. When Clinton takes over the company in 1998, she finds, in the words of authors Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, "an empty shell, [a company with] its assets stripped, its debts and taxes unpaid, its records disordered and incomplete." (Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
Rush Limbaugh begins broadcasting nationally
- Rush Limbaugh takes his Sacramento, California political talk show national, now broadcasting from WABC-AM in New York. His listenership soars, and over the next few years, Limbaugh, a former sportscaster, becomes a spokesman for the far right. While he styles himself a "journalist in relentless pursuit of truth," in actuality, Limbaugh, who admits to being more of an entertainer than a well-informed political commentator, produces a farrago of facts, misrepresentations, and outright lies that find an enthusiastic audience across the American right. He tells his listeners, "I will do all your reading and I will tell you what to think about it." He informs his audience, "The American people are more and more turning to what is called traditional family values, rejecting what is abnormal or perverted," including "commie libs," "feminazis," and "environmental wackos." He advocates the forcible sterilization of the homeless, and relentlessly attacks gays and blacks, saying that all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson, and advising one black caller to "take that bone out of your nose and call me back." Women callers are told to send pictures of themselves if they want to get on the air, and Limbaugh boasts of a sign over his office that reads, "sexual harassment will not be reported, but it will be graded." The relatively apolitical Limbaugh chooses to become an extreme conservative in part because he begins his national show "sandwiched" between two center-left talk show hosts, Joy Behar and Lynn Samuels. Limbaugh begins using his "Excellence in Broadcasting" moniker while in his first year at WABC, though there never has been an actual business organization of any kind of that name. For years he will tell his audience that he is broadcasting from "high atop the EIB Building in New York City." The building, of course, is not named such. His highwater mark as a right-wing broadcaster comes during the first term of the Clinton presidency, during which time Limbaugh begins his broadcasts by intoning, "Day __ of America held hostage!" In November 1994, the incoming group of Republicans who take over the US House of Representatives, led by future Speaker Newt Gingrich, will name Limbaugh as an honorary member of Congress for his invaluable assistance in getting them elected.
- Limbaugh's television career is more problematic. His persona, so effective with his listeners on radio, does not come across so well on television, and the larger and more diverse audiences often take issue with his rhetoric. His first TV stint in 1990, as the guest host of the Pat Sajak Show, is calamitous, with Limbaugh's anti-gay rhetoric provoking a hostile reaction from gay activists and other outraged people in the audience (the episode concludes with the entire audience being removed and the sweaty, flustered Limbaugh making a short, self-justifying statement without the audience being present). In 1993, he provokes another hostile reaction from the audience (as well as the host) of the David Letterman Show, which peaks when Limbaugh compares Hillary Clinton's face to "a Pontiac hood ornament." From 1992-1996, Limbaugh has his own syndicated half-hour TV show, produced by Fox News president Roger Ailes and filmed in front of a carefully screened audience. The show, which never does well in the ratings and is broadcast late at night in many markets, hits a low point in November 1992 when, three days after the election, Limbaugh shows a picture of 13-year old Chelsea Clinton and calls her the "White House dog." In July 2003, Limbaugh accepts a position with ESPN as a football commentator, but in September makes several remarks about quarterback Donovan McNabb that implies McNabb, and other black players, are being unfairly promoted by the NFL, comments that many see as implicitly racist. He resigns shortly thereafter, though he takes no responsibility for the content of his remarks. After his resignation, "sunday NFL Countdown" co-host Tom Jackson, who is black, tells his audience, "Let me just say that it was not our decision to have Rush Limbaugh on this show. I've seen replay after replay of Limbaugh's comments with my face attached as well as that of my colleagues, comments which made us very uncomfortable at the time, although the depth and the insensitive nature of which weren't fully felt until it seemed too late to reply. He was brought here to talk football, and he broke that trust. Rush told us the social commentary for which he is so well known would not cross over to our show, and instead, he would represent the viewpoint of the intelligent, passionate fan. Rush Limbaugh was not a fit for NFL Countdown." In June 2006, Limbaugh has as a radio guest a person who calls himself a colonel in the US military stationed in Iraq, who savages liberals for their political beliefs; Limbaugh is later forced to admit that the "colonel" is not in the US military and even his supposed outfit -- the "336th Tactical Air Wing" -- does not exist.
- In October 2001, Limbaugh admits that he is growing deaf, a condition which is adversely impacting his ability to interact with his callers. A cochlear implant improves his condition somewhat. Though he insists he has an autoimmune disorder which causes his hearing difficulties, it is widely believed that his hearing loss is at least partially attributable to his abuse of prescription drugs (see below).
- Limbaugh, an extreme hawk who cheerleads for the US military to be used to solve just about any foreign policy problem, himself avoids military service through the auspices of a pilonidal cyst and a sympathetic doctor (he will later claim, falsely, that a football-related knee injury kept him from being drafted). A staunch advocate of traditional, Christian family values, Limbaugh's history of marriage is quite chequered. In 1980, his first wife divorces him after less than 3 years, citing "incompatibility." In 1983, he marries a college student considerably younger than himself; while married to her, he meets a married aerobics instructor on the online service Compuserve, and the two engage in an affair before divorcing their respective spouses. Limbaugh and his third wife are married in 1994 at the home of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. Limbaugh divorces this spouse in 2004, possibly in part because of his relationship with CNN anchor Daryl Kagan; these two end their relationship in mid-2006. Limbaugh is well-known for his intolerance of drugs and the people who abuse them, at least on-air; in October 2003, the media learns that for years Limbaugh has been abusing prescription drugs, including Oxy-Contin (with the street name "hillbilly heroin") and other potent painkillers and narcotics. Worse, Limbaugh has been getting his drugs through a variety of illegal means, including "doctor-shopping" and sending his housekeeper to buy drugs from street vendors. Multiple detox sessions have a limited effect, possibly in part because of Limbaugh's unwillingness to be honest about his addiction: he has fought obsessively to keep his medical records private (after roundly criticizing Democratic politicians such as John Kerry for not releasing their own records); has lied about his methods of obtaining drugs; and has claimed that his addiction is because of chronic and severe back pain, though he has routinely been observed playing golf, an activity that he could not perform if he truly suffered from such discomfort as he describes. (Wikipedia, Pensito Review, David Brock)
February 1988
- February: Iraq launches a ferocious assault on Iran's al-Fao peninsula; the CIA and DIA assist Hussein by blinding Iranian radar for three days during the assault. (UPI)
- February 5: US envoy Richard Myers proposes establishing temporary autonomy for the Palestinian people, and implementing procedures that will eventually result in the establishment of a Palestinian state. Upon Myers' departure, the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas (the Movement of the Islamic Resistance) is formed. Hamas organizes labor strikes, punishes Palestinians who fail to comply with its policies, and challenges the PLO for leadership of the Palestinian resistance. Hamas also proclaims jihad against Israel. Other Islamic extremist groups, including Islamic Jihad (formed from the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood), are formed around this time. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)
Anthony Kennedy joins Supreme Court
- February 18: After a bitterly partisan battle over Judge Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, which fails to go through the Senate due to Democratic opposition, and the withdrawal of second nominee Douglas Ginsberg due to revelations about his former marijuana use, Anthony Kennedy is sworn in as Associate Justice. Kennedy is well-known in California GOP circles as a "fixer," a corporate lobbyist and lawyer who won the approval of then-Governor Ronald Reagan by volunteering his efforts to push for Reagan's anti-tax initiative. The initiative failed, but Reagan succeeded in getting Gerald Ford to name Kennedy to the US Court of Appeals. Reagan turns to Kennedy after the two failures of his initial nominees. With Sandra Day O'Connor, Kennedy is considered by some a moderate, "swing" voter, but like O'Connor, Kennedy is more conservative than many understand. He is considered by some an intellectual "lightweight," and his staff is composed mainly of Federalist Society lawyers who are there to keep Kennedy on the straight and narrow conservative path. In 2000, he will author the infamous Bush v. Gore decision halting the Florida recounts and awarding the presidency to George W. Bush. Even so, Kennedy is not trusted by conservatives; in 2005, Christian conservatives will call for his impeachment and will make thinly veiled death threats against him. (Wikipedia, Vincent Bugliosi)
Operation Anfal in Iraq kills thousands of Kurds
- February - September: Towards the end of, and after, the war, Iraq executes "Operation Anfal," a program designed to punish the Kurds for their support of Iran. Iraq uses US-provided chemical weapons against the Kurds, killing over 100,000 civilians and destroying over 1,200 Kurdish villages. During Operation Anfal, the US Department of Commerce approves the shipment of chemicals used in the manufacture of mustard gas to Iraq. In four major battles with Iranian forces between April and August, Iraq will use chemical weapons against Iranian troops, Kurdish resistance forces, and its own civilians, including nerve gas and blister agents such as mustard gas. By this time, the US Defense Intelligence Agency is heavily involved with Saddam Hussein in battle plan assistance, intelligence gathering and post battle debriefing. In the last major battle with of the war, 65,000 Iranians are killed, many with poison gas. Use of chemical weapons in war is in violation of the Geneva accords of 1925. (Human Rights Watch, FactMonster, US/Iraq Relations Timeline, Iran Chamber Society)
March 1988
Iran-Contra indictments
- March 16: Oliver North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord, and Albert Hakim are indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government by secretly providing funds and supplies to the Contra rebels fighting the government of Nicaragua. Judge Gesell orders separate trials for each one due to problems caused by congressional grants of immunity. (PBS, Federation of American Scientists)
Halabjah massacre
- March 17: The Halabjah massacre takes place just inside the Iraqi border; over 5,000 Kurds die from chemical weapons. Evidence of who committed this atrocity is contradictory; the Kurds were killed primarily by cyanide-like chemical agents, a weapon used mostly by the Iranians. The Iraqis primarily favor mustard gas, though they have been known to use other agents. Still, most observers on both sides of the issue believe that the Iraqis killed the Kurds, though some CIA analysts believe that Iraq may have intended the targets of the gassing to be Iranian troops. US-provided helicopters are among those dropping the chemical bombs on their targets. Later, the Reagan administration refuses to back Congressional sanctions against Iraq over the gassings, including the "Prevention of Genocide Act." Why? They cite the "possible endangerment of huge postwar construction contracts entered into by members of, and supporters of, the administration." The bill passes, but the Reagan administration refuses to enforce it. Britain and Washington attempt to cover up the Halabjah gassing; the US attempts to pin the blame on Iran. Shortly after the gassing, the British gives Iraq £340 million in export credits. Instead of condemning the gas attacks, the US and Britain encourage Bechtel to build a new petrochemical plant in Iraq, eventually giving Iraq the capability of producing its own chemical weaponry. By February 1989, FEB director William Webster is testifying to Congress about Iraq's production of thousands of tons of chemical agents. Interestingly enough, the Halabjah massacre is barely mentioned as a justification for war in 1991, and is mentioned a scant 20 times in media articles in 1989. However, the massacre is used as a prime justification for invasion in 2003, garnering over 145 mentions in the American media in March 2003 alone. (FactMonster, US/Iraq Relations Timeline, BBC, Daily Mirror, New American, Amy and David Goodman)
April 1988
Soviets begin withdrawing from Afghanistan
- April 14: Soviets agree to begin pulling troops out of Afghanistan, beginning May 15, 1988, and finishing by Feb 15, 1989. (PBS)
May 1988
- May 5: Donald Regan, ex-chief of staff, reveals that Nancy Reagan used an astrologer to plan her husband's daily schedule. (PBS)
- May 15: The war in Afghanistan begins to wind down; eventually the Russians will withdraw and the Taliban, an extremist religious group, will take over the government. The CIA expects much more allegiance from the Taliban than it receives.
- May 29: Salem bin Laden dies in a plane crash in Texas. His business interests are inherited by Khalid bin Mahfouz, a powerful Saudi financial figure and BCCI partner. Bush family friend James Bath runs a business for Mahfouz in Houston, and joins a business partnership with Mahfouz and BCCI frontman Gaith Pharoun in Houston's Main Bank. (In These Times, Bushwatch)
July 1988
US directly attacks Iranian forces and civilians
- July: US takes military action against Iran, by blowing up an oil rig, destroying or crippling two Iranian frigates, and "accidentally" destroying an Iranian passenger jet with over 300 civilians aboard. (FactMonster, MidEast Web)
August 1988
Al-Qaeda founded
- August 11: Osama bin Laden founds Al-Qaeda. His first efforts to recruit members and raise money take place in Saudi Arabia, where he describes his efforts as "very successful." (CCR)
Echelon launched
- August 12: The first media reports of Echelon, a global surveillance system between the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Although its existence is denied at the highest levels, its existence is confirmed by whistleblowers, who claim it is being used to illegally spy on politicians domestically among other abuses. (CCR)
- August 17: General Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan since July 1977, dies in a mysterious plane crash near Bahawalpur, Pakistan, after an explosion forces the aircraft down a few minutes after take-off. Speculations are rife that Zia and his companions (including US ambassador Arnold Raphael) were murdered, either by a bomb or by nerve gas being pumped into the cockpit and passenger cabin, probably by Zia's political opponents. (General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Larry Kolb)
- August 18: During his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, George H.W. Bush makes one of his most infamous promises: "Read my lips: No new taxes." The pledge, made frequently during Bush's campaign, helped him win the 1988 election. The speech was written by GOP speechwriter Peggy Noonan and supported most strongly by election advisor Roger Ailes and anti-tax candidate Jack Kemp; the campaign's economic advisor, Richard Darman, calls the pledge "stupid and dangerous." Noonan insists that the phrase be included in the speech, in order to keep critical conservative support for a campaign that tries very hard to be centrist and moderate; it is also believed it adds an element of toughness to a candidate who was suffering from an perception of being weak and vacillating. The phrase, delivered with seemingly great conviction and passion by Bush, becomes one of the most prominent sound bites played in the media after the speech, as was intended by Noonan. After the convention the phrase was not often repeated and Bush placed far less emphasis on his no taxes pledge. For the last months of the race, when Bush was comfortably in the lead, his campaign team felt that such an uncompromising pledge was an unnecessary risk. By 1990, rising deficits and a declining economy prompts Bush to give in to pressure from Democrats and his own economic advisors to raise taxes as part of a deficit-reduction program. Democrats waste little time in hammering Bush with his own words, even though most Democrats favor the tax increases and had lobbied Bush to pass the tax legislation. The worst of the criticism against Bush, however, comes from far-right Republicans led by Newt Gingrich, who feel that Bush destroyed the best election plank the GOP possesses. In the 1992 presidential campaign, far-right candidate Pat Buchanan uses the broken pledge to great effect during his surprisingly successful primary challenge to Bush's re-election campaign, as does Democrat Bill Clinton during his own campaign. A television commercial designed by campaign manager James Carville has Bush repeating the phrase to illustrate Bush's perfidious nature. It was regarded as the most effective of all of Clinton's campaign ads. Republican pollster Richard Wirthlin will later call Bush's pledge "the six most destructive words in the history of presidential politics." (Wikipedia/Answers.com, David Corn)
- An interesting sidebar: Bush's son George W. Bush, one of the campaign officials, is asked by a reporter what he and his father discuss when they're not talking about politics. George W. replies, "P*ssy." After this gaffe, which receives astonishingly little media coverage, consultant Karen Hughes begins coaching Bush's son to keep his crude talk out of the limelight. Ironically, in light of the younger Bush's utterance, Hughes will do an excellent job of repackaging him to appeal to women voters. Bush will be coached to stay relentlessly on message by Hughes during his own campaigns; Hughes becomes famous for standing on the side of the campaign podium and mouthing Bush's words as he says them. Phyllis Dunham of the Texas Abortion Rights Action League says of Hughes's tactics with Bush: "When you surround yourself with people of color, you don't look so racist; with women, you don't look so sexist." (Laura Flanders)
Iran-Iraq war ends
- August 20: The Iran-Iraq war peters out to an inconclusive end; Iran is forced to accept a UN ceasefire. Iraq's economy is in shambles after the war, and Hussein is furious that after being encouraged to blunt Iran's revolutionary fervor by the various Arab sheikdoms, they now refuse to support him. Most infuriating is Kuwait, who refuses to forgive previous debts as promised as well as reneging on a previously promised $10 billion loan. Within days, Saddam Hussein sends planes and helicopters to northern Iraq to begin massive chemical attacks against the Kurds. (FactMonster, FactMonster, MidEast Web, Consortium News, Iran Chamber Society)
Iranian troops under Iraqi chemical weapons attacks.
Fall 1988
- Fall: Silverado S&L goes bankrupt and folds. Over 140 "cease and desist" orders are on file with the Topeka branch of the Office of Thrift Supervision, documenting hundreds of instances of criminal fraud, insider trading, conflicts of interest, and other violations. The foot-dragging of the investigation into the collapse of Silverado is widely believed to have been because Vice-President Bush didn't want the embarrassment of an investigation into a failed S&L involving his son during an election year. However, some believe that Silverado may have had a CIA connection, and was a CIA proprietory financial institution. (Bushwatch, Kevin Phillips)
- Fall: Susan McDougal moves to California. To get a job, she rewrites her resume to focus less on her marketing skills and more on her secretarial skills. She changes the name of her boss to "Jim McDonnell" so that questions regarding her having the same last name as her boss, her former husband, would not come up. She also changes the name of the real estate company she worked for. Years later, prosecutors in two trials will use the falsified resume to "prove" that McDougal was a congenital liar and con artist. (Susan McDougal)
September 1988
- September: Despite the massive chemical assault against Iraq's civilian Kurdish population, the US Department of Commerce approves the shipment of weapons grade anthrax and botulinum to Iraq. During the month, Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State, says, "The US-Iraqi relationship is...important to our long-term political and economic objectives." In December, Dow Chemical will sell $1.5 million in pesticides to Iraq despite knowing that these would be used in chemical weapons. (Iran Chamber Society)
- September: A group of Nicaraguan Contras show up unannounced at the office of Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright. Wright later recalls that he finds it odd that the Contra leaders appear without any warning, but he agrees to meet with them. He tells them that, because of US legal restrictions, they can no longer expect CIA agitators to work on their behalf. "That got back to [Dick] Cheney and Elliot Abrams, and they were furious," Wright says. (Cheney, an influential House member, and Abrams, the assistant secretary of state, are two of the biggest Contra supporters in Washington.)
- Cheney and Abrams see an opportunity to suborn Wright over the meeting. Abrams has the Contra representatives pay a visit to the right-wing Washington Times, where the Contras tell the editorial staff what Wright told them -- that the CIA was provoking civil unrest in Managua, Nicaragua's capital. A week later, Wright is blindsided by a Times report which reveals that, according to "several sources," Wright leaked classified information about CIA activity in Nicaragua.
- The charge is sensational, but the facts are quite different. Wright had told the Contra representatives nothing they did not already know -- in fact, some of the Contra representatives had personally worked with CIA operatives to foment unrest in Managua. In reality, the State Department's Abrams had orchestrated the leak, through the Times, to set up Wright. But the stratagem works. Cheney, who with Abrams sent the Contras to the Times, immediately demands an investigation.
- Cheney focuses on Wright's "leak." As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, he cites major "institutional questions that go to the integrity of the House, and to the integrity of the House, to the integrity of the oversight process in the area of intelligence, and to the operation of the Intelligence Committee." Cheney's allegations are particularly vicious considering that he and the State Department, and not Wright, are the ones who leaked classified information to the press. (Newsday's Roy Gutmann later learns that a political appointee at State had, at Abrams's behest, sent the Contra delegation to the Times with specific instructions to leak the CIA content of their conversation with Wright.) But Cheney has the attention of the press. He and House Minority Leader Bob Michel demand a full investigation by the Intelligence Committee, and claim that Wright has compromised US intelligence operations.
- Wright is completely sandbagged. He can't believe that Michel, his occasional golfing buddy, would backstab him so savagely. "I got no warning from them," he later recalls. "I expected him -- if not Cheney, then certainly Bob Michel -- to say, 'Jim, can you tell us about this? What does it involve?' I heard nothing from them, except they were requesting an ethics investigation. It was the sort of thing I couldn't imagine Bob Michel doing. We had a good working relationship, and I held him in high regard." (Michel will later apologize to Wright, long after the damage is done, and tells Wright that Cheney put so much pressure on him that he acquiesced and filed the complaint.)
- It is a double-edged power play for Cheney. Not only is he working to eliminate a powerful adversary in Wright, but he is aiming to take over the position of minority leader after Michel retires from the House.
- The Machiavellian ploy works. Wright, his credibility shattered, finds himself suddenly under attack from GOP firebrand Newt Gingrich. He will battle accusations of defrauding Texas savings and loan owners as the industry collapses, and finally succumbs to allegations that he accepted illegal campaign contributions under the guise of bulk orders placed for the book by friends and supporters. (The charges are accurate enough, but Gingrich, who takes over the battle to sink Wright's career from Cheney, will himself perfect the art of using fraudulent book sales to raise far more illegal money than Wright ever did.) Wright will resign his Congressional seat on May 31, 1989. (Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
- September: Marketing consultant Larry Nichols, an employee of the Arkansas Financial Development Authority, is outed by an Associated Press reporter as being involved with the Nicaraguan Contra support group Coalition for Peace Through Strength, an organization headed by retired general John Singlaub and one of several illegal money conduits organized by Colonel Oliver North. Nichols, characterized by governor Bill Clinton's chief of staff Betsey Wright as a "dangerous con artist," has already won some notoriety by telling his fellow AFDA employees, falsely, that he is a CIA agent working with Singlaub and North. Nichols is also involved with Arkansas Republican politician Tommy Robinson, who, while a congressional Democrat, routinely sided with Reagan against his own party in supporting the issue of US aid to the Contras; Nichols accompanied Robinson on a "fact-finding" mission to Nicaragua (Robinson will later warn his aides to keep their distance from Nichols, whom he calls a "nutcase"). Nichols and rogue GOP operative Darrell Glascock are involved in selling a videotape to raise funds for the Contras, which nets little money for the Nicaraguans but proves quite lucrative for Nichols. The AP discovers that Nichols has been involved in his pro-Contra activities while drawing a state salary; his story that he placed over a thousand long-distance phone calls to Contra leaders and Americans who supported them, at state expense, were all for the purpose of selling Arkansas bonds falls flat under subsequent investigation. State officials force Nichols to resign after Arkansas governor Bill Clinton is informed; Nichols leaves his office publicly crying foul against the "knee-jerk liberal reaction from Governor Clinton." Days later, he is charged with multiple counts of "theft by deception" by taking payment from electronics dealers for satellite TV equipment he never delivered. He avoids prosecution by promising to make restitution, but instead declares bankruptcy. Two years later, in October 1990, Nichols will file a high-profile, $3 million libel lawsuit against Clinton, and bring the name of Clinton paramour Gennifer Flowers into the public eye. (Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
November 1988
George H.W. Bush becomes President
- November 8: Vice President George H.W. Bush defeats Democrat Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, to become the 41st President of the United States. Bush's campaign succeeds for a number of reasons: Dukakis is probably the least successful of modern Democratic candidates at successfully making any kind of emotional connection with voters, and his campaign is lackluster at best. It doesn't help that Bush can boast of an illustrious military career during World War II, while Dukakis, who served two years in the peacetime Army, victimized himself by appearing in a campaign ad in a tank; his helmeted head poking out of the tank's turret made him look ridiculous and was roundly exploited by his opponents. It is in large part because of the effects of this election that the term "liberal" becomes a smear in many political circles. (Interestingly, Democratic frontrunner Joseph Biden was considered by many to be a powerful candidate with an excellent chance of beating Bush, but Biden torpedoed his campaign when it was found he had exaggerated his achievements in law school as well as plagiarizing material for his campaign speeches from British Labour politician Neil Kinnock.
- In contrast with the lackluster Dukakis campaign, Bush's campaign is enthusiastic, motivated, and exceptionally dirty. Run by Republican political consultant Lee Atwater, whose brand of below-the-belt attack politics will shape presidential elections for decades to come, Atwater brought Dukakis's early poll leads down largely because of attack ads such as the late-campaign TV spot featuring Massachusetts felon Willie Horton, who was released on furlough from prison while serving a life sentence and committed a rape while on release. Atwater successfully managed to pin the blame for Horton's release on Dukakis, though the governor had nothing to do with the program's establishment and did not authorize Horton's release. (Interestingly enough, Horton has always been called "William;" someone in Atwater's camp decides that "Willie" has a more preferable connotation.) The attack ad itself, overseen and approved by Atwater though he later says he is embarrassed by it, is officially released by an "independent" group called Americans for Bush, and is created by GOP consultant Floyd Brown, who has a close relationship with Arkansas political guru and virulent white supremacist Jim Johnson. Publicly, the Bush campaign distances itself from the ad and even asks for the group to stop broadcasting it; even though the ad appears only briefly, and in a small number of markets, the mainstream media provides saturation coverage. The one-two punch of the virulently racist ad and the "probity" of the Bush campaign's public condemnation proves devastating.
- The Bush campaign, of course, waits until the ad has had its effect on voters and the media before requesting it to be pulled. Another interesting sidelight is the fact that the group behind Americans for Bush, the far-right National Security Political Action Committee, an outfit close to Republican senator Jesse Helms, raises over $9 million in connection with the ad; the Bush campaign twice complains to the FEC that the group is misusing its candidate's name to raise money. Brown later says that both the complaints and the Bush campaign's repudiation of the ad is merely for show: "If they were really interested in stopping this, do you think they would have waited that long to send us a letter?" Two years later, the New Republic unearths evidence showing that the Bush campaign was indeed in collusion with NSPAC, and that media consultant Roger Ailes had worked on the ad with Brown. The Democrats file charges of unlawful cooperation between the campaign and NSPAC, though the FEC's Republican members succeed in quashing the investigation in time for the 1992 election. By that point, Brown has left NSPAC and set up his own outfit, the Presidential Victory Committee, an offshoot of Citizens United, the group he created in November 1988. Brown's group will figure heavily in the persecution of Bill Clinton.
- Other Bush campaign attack ads featured allegations about Dukakis's mental stability, based on Dukakis's brother's struggles with mental illness, and scurrilous allegations about Dukakis's wife's sexuality and her Jewish faith. (Dukakis's approval ratings dropped 8 points after the Bush campaign falsely alleged that Dukakis had sought psychiatric help after his brother's death; the allegations prompt Bush's campaign to state, "Real men don't get on the couch." The accusations originated in the camp of the fringe organization of Lyndon LaRouche, and promulgated by an enthusiastic Atwater through the auspices of, among others, conservative journalists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.) Another effective Atwater tactic is Bush's relentless portrayal of Dukakis as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU," a phraseology deliberately designed to evoke echoes of Joe McCarthy's attacks on "card-carrying Communists" in the early 1950s. Dukakis is also attacked as a member of what Bush calls "the Harvard boutique," an interesting choice of words considering Bush's own hyperprivileged background; Bush also tells a reporter during a month-long vacation at his luxurious Kennebunkport retreat, "Most Americans don't sit in Martha's Vineyard swilling white wine." Bush's main stance seems to be his support for the American flag and his willingness to chant the Pledge of Allegiance at every opportunity. (Republican Steven Symms of Utah makes some political hay for Bush by falsely accusing Dukakis's wife Kitty of burning an American flag during a Vietnam-era antiwar demonstration.) Bush and Atwater also have some success as painting Dukakis as a liberal, which Bush calls the "L-word," and by implication a traitor to American values; the success of this strategy will echo through Republican campaigns into the next millennium. Atwater's "minder" during the campaign is Bush's son George W., who learns a great deal about attack politics from Atwater. The younger Bush's own attack strategist, Karl Rove, is an admitted disciple of Atwater. (Atwater will die of a brain tumor in late 1990, and before his death, will convert to Catholicism, repudiate his political efforts of the campaign, and apologize to Dukakis for the ugly campaign he managed.)
- Bush is not nearly as successful as his son will be in representing himself as a real Texan. Most of his political support comes from old-line Republicans and business magnates in the Northeast; after he lost the Republican caucuses in Iowa earlier in the year, he said that he lost because too many of his supporters were busy on the golf courses or at air shows or debutante parties. The Gridiron Club lambasted Bush with a song whose lyrics nailed down the typical Bush supporter: "If your daughter's in cotillion and your son's at Choate / and your wife is worth a million, I'm sure to get your vote." Bush, not a favorite of the religious right, nevertheless wins their overwhelming support, partially because of the efforts of his much more evangelical son George Walker Bush, and partially because of the uninspiring opposition of Dukakis, described by Garry Wills as the "first truly secular candidate" for president in US history. Unfortunately for Bush, he will fail to maintain his support among conservative Christians, waxing overconfident after the Gulf War. When he finally realizes how his standing had slipped during the 1992 campaign, he will overtly pander to far-right televangelists, a tactic that loses him more support than it garnered. His son George W. will cultivate many of his father's political and business connections; only when the younger Bush runs for governor of Texas in 1992 will he begin portraying himself as a "real Texan" and publicly (but not privately) distancing himself from his family's aristocratic ties.
- What George W. Bush is successful at is forging stronger ties between Christian conservatives and his father's campaign. The younger Bush is a recent convert to evangelical Christianity after spending decades on booze, drugs, and women, and is not shy about discussing his conversion with evangelical leaders who loved Reagan but have doubts about the elder Bush, who critically needs those leaders and the votes they can deliver to win the election. The campaign also brings aboard Doug Wead, a former minister and motivational speaker, whose job is to introduce the younger Bush to religious conservative leaders. "He was just on the cusp of his own religious awakening, without understanding the culture or the demographics or the numbers of the evangelical world," Wead later recalls. But George W. Bush learns quickly -- questions of his intellectual capacity will always dog him, and with reason, but his political acumen and cunning is undisputedly strong. Wead marvels at how well Bush learns to evaluate campaign information for his own political future in Texas. "He would look at those memos and just salivate about Texas," Wead recalls. "He's say, 'God, I can do this in Texas.' It was like the missing piece for him." Wead says that the younger Bush is not only comfortable in the company of fellow evangelicals, but knows how he will use them in his future race for governor. "People miss how calculated, how sophisticated and nuanced, his approach to evangelicals really is," Wead says. "You think it's all spontaneous, that he's operating totally by instinct on matters of faith in public, but that's not true. He is a calculated animal from top to bottom." (Kevin Phillips, PBS, Bushwatch, Wikipedia, Awareness 99, Joe Conason, Paul Waldman, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Hilton and Testa, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, James Moore and Wayne Slater)
Willie Horton mug shot, from the ad
- Just after the election, legendary CIA operative Mike Timpani is asked what he thinks about the former head of the CIA being elected President. Timpani smiles and says, "George Bush is one covert motherf*cker. He is still running the CIA. He never stopped running the CIA." (Larry Kolb)
- Time's Michael Duffy and Dan Goodgame explain George H.W. Bush's economic beliefs in their book Marching in Place: "Bush believes that in economic policy what is good for wealthy investors and business executives is good for America. He believes that taxes must be kept low on capital gains and on top marginal incomes, so that members of the educated and monied elite -- which he sees as the creative force in the economy -- will have an incentive to risk their capital.... He believes, implicitly, that taxes need not be low on the wages or savings accounts of ordinary Americans, who are not a creative force in the economy, and who anyway have no choice but to work and scrimp." Historian Kevin Phillips adds, "Politically, this blend of supply-side theory and investment-sector fealty has not resonated with the public, which senses its favoritism to the Forbes 400 or the S&P 500 over the workforce of 135 million. Like the liquidity pumped out at intervals by Chairman Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, tax cuts aimed at stimulating upper-bracket investment have a record of bypassing declining industrial centers and urban slums, and even middle-class neighborhoods full of two-earner households mired in credit card and mortgage debt." Phillips notes that the second Bush administration took the first Bush's economic practices even farther; both will preside over a resurgence in the stock market and a sluggishly growing economy without much of a positive impact on the middle- and lower-class workers. Under both Bushes, the wealthy will reap the benefits of the two administrations' economic policies while everyone else bore the burdens. Bush II's huge tax cuts, targeted primarily for the wealthy, will cost the federal budget billions and send the federal deficit skyrocketing. Phillips calls these economic policies a combination of investment-focused legislation and "crony capitalism: government favors for the well-connected, and publicly financed rescues for private financial interests. During both Bush administrations, such practices flourished to a degree that mocked their ostensible commitment to free markets." Duffy and Goodgame write of the elder Bush: "What was remarkable about the Bush White House, however, was the rigor, clear-eyed cynicism and political self-interest that drove their domestic policy.... All of domestic policy was subordinated to the goal of Bush's re-election and almost everything that didn't fit was thrown overboard." The authors describe Bush himself as "remorselessly deceitful when it served his purpose." (Kevin Phillips)
- November 12-15: A session of the Palestinian National Council, held in Algeria, becomes known as the "Intifada meeting." PLO leader Yasser Arafat announces the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, but stuns many with his subsequent announcement of the PLO's recognition of Israel's right to exist, a sea change in PLO policy. The acceptance of Israel's right to exist is designed to pressure the US to enter into negotiations with the PLO as an equal partner in the negotiations between the US and Israel for peace in the region, but the US refuses the bait unless the PLO will renounce terrorism. The PLO accepts the US proposal, which, according to Secretary of State George Schulz, is "set in stone" and must be accepted word for word; the PLO changes the wording of the agreement, preferring to "denounce" rather than "renounce" terrorism. Arafat subsequently addresses a special session of the UN in Geneva and announces the acceptance of the US's terms, but his wording is more ambiguous than the US would like. Talks between the US and the PLO do indeed begin thereafter, but are quickly broken off after a rival Palestinian group led by the noted terrorist Abu Abbas mounts an attack in Tel Aviv. (Dawoud el-Alami)
December 1988
- December: Dow Chemical sells $1.5 million worth of pesticides to Iraq, many of which can be used as chemical warfare agents. (Amy and David Goodman)
Pan Am Flight 103 bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, by Islamic terrorists
- December 21: A Pan Am civilian airliner explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people onboard are killed, as are 11 people on the ground. An investigation reveals that the explosion was the result of a Libyan terrorist attack. In 1991, the US charges two Libyan government employees for their role in the bombing. In 1999, after protracted legal negotiations and political wrangling, Libya hands over the two suspects to a Scottish court in return for the suspension of economic sanctions. In January 2001, one of the two Libyans is found guilty and the other one acquitted. The Bush administration states that it will neither support the permanent lifting of UN sanctions nor consider the resumption of normal relations until the Libyan government accepts full responsibility for the destruction of Pan Am 103 and pays damages to the families of the victims. (History of the Middle East Libya Timeline)
- December 22: Yitzhak Shamir forms a Likud-based Israeli government, and incorporates a number of right-wing extremist groups in the government. The left, all but excluded from the government, form an umbrella opposition group called Meretz. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)
