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
1993
June
- June: Clinton's nominee to chair the National Council on the Humanities, Sheldon Hackney, falls afoul of the conservative attack on "political correctness."
"Culture Wars"
Hackney, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, is embroiled in a relatively ridiculous case of supposed racial harassment by a white student against black sorority members; the situation becomes known as the "Water Buffalo case" after the epithet used by the white student. Hackney, caught in a tidal wave of campus politics and posturing by both liberals and conservatives, finds himself lambasted by conservatives, most prominently Rush Limbaugh and the neocons of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, as an icon of liberal PC-dom; after a set of Senate hearings that develop into a public circus, Hackney, who finally decides that Penn's speech codes do more harm than good, is confirmed in his post. The issue is used by conservatives as a lightning rod for their insistence that "political correctness" will lead to, in Joe Conason's words, "liberal 'thought police'" soon investigating their every word and deed. (The Penn case is finally settled in a blaze of media coverage, with the student, Eden Jacobowitz, represented by the ACLU among others, merely being asked to apologize for his statement.) (Joe Conason, The Shadow University) - June: Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a Texas Republican, wins a special election to replace Lloyd Bentsen in the US Senate after Bentsen leaves to take a place in Clinton's cabinet.
Republican corruption
She handily defeats Bob Krueger, who had been named to replace Bentsen, and campaigned with commercials portraying him in a "Terminator" costume. But as soon as Hutchinson takes office, she finds herself under investigation by Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle, who charges her with using resources and personnel from her position as state treasurer to help her win the election, and for destroying evidence when the investigation began. The investigation shows that Hutchinson, in violation of Texas law, used her office as treasurer as a de facto campaign office, spending millions of taxpayer dollars for her campaign, and using office resources and staff; office workers are prepared to testify that she bullied and intimidated them into working for her, and one, the daughter of former governor John Connelly, swore that Hutchinson even physically assaulted her. Earle has Hutchingson arrested and charged; she counters by accusing Earle, a Democrat, of selective prosecution, saying that most politicians in Texas and around the country do the same things (which is certainly true, but not to the extent, and not with the brazen disregard for the law, as Hutchinson), and repeatedly invokes the Fifth Amendment in her own defense. For reasons yet unclear, Earle will suddenly drop the charges against Hutchinson, allowing her to serve out her term and indeed win re-election 1995. - Hutchinson's political coordinator, Karl Rove, lies to Earle's grand jury about his involvement in Hutchinson's cover-up. Rove tells the grand jury that reporters had been tipped in advance about a raid by prosecutors on Hutchinson's office. Rove's claim, which he says he got from a Dallas Morning News reporter, is a lie: the News got word about the raid the same way everyone else did, from workers in Hutchinson's office. But Rove's lie goes unchallenged. His implication that Earle, or someone in his office, leaked word of the raid to the press may be one of the reasons why Earle eventually drops the charges. (Stanley Hilton and Anne-Marie Testa, James Moore and Wayne Slater)
- June: Congressman Jay Kim, a California Republican serving his first term after eking out a bare 889-vote victory, finds himself charged with illegally funnelling $400,000 of his company's money into his election campaign.
Republican corruption
Kim is owner of JayKim, a construction conglomerate. Kim tries unconvincingly to claim that $300,000 of the money was his personal salary, but could not explain the use of JayKim office space and other company assets. He will win re-election from his solidly conservative district in 1994, but soon after is again charged with corruption. This time Kim was shown to have accepted huge campaign contributions from five different South Korean companies, including Hyundai and Samsung. Although the companies admit their guilt and paid $1.6 million in fines, Kim will continue to insist on his own innocence. Other charges against Kim are soon brought by the FBI after further investigation of his campaign financing. Kim switches his defensive tactics, now proclaiming that he is a Republican targeted by the "liberal media," and claims the fact that he is of Asian ancestry is a factor in the charges. - In 1996, Kim survives a primary challenge by Bob Kerns, a Pat Buchanan disciple who attacks Kim for his ancestry but is drastically outspent by the money-flush Kim. In 1997, Kim's campaign manager, a Korean named Seokuk Ma, is convicted of taking illegal campaign contributions. In 1998, Kim will plead guilty to taking over $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions, including hefty donations from Taiwanese interests. Kim is given a slap on the wrist by the friendly judge, but is forced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet while he serves out his term, and is restricted in his movements. Treated as a pariah by his House colleagues, he brazenly asks the judge to stay his sentence so he can run for reelection in 1998. The US Attorney's office in Los Angeles says that Kim has committed the "largest amount of campaign violations in history by a member of Congress. Kim will admit in 1998 that a third of the money he raised in 1992 was illegal. "Jay Kim probably stole a congressional election in 1992 by this fraudulent campaign financing scheme," says an official of the Congressional Accountability project. "In my view, Jay Kim's presence cheapens the moral authority of every other member there." His wife June, also convicted of illegal campaign financing, says that Kim is "the most crime-committing person I know." Kim will lose by a nose in the June 1998 Republican primaries. It is interesting to note that neither the California Republicans nor the US House Republicans ever lifted a finger to punish Kim, much less remove him from office. (Hilton and Testa)
- June: Condoleezza Rice leaves Chevron to assume the position of Provost at Stanford University.
Neoconservatives
(She is already a tenured professor of political science there.) Under her leadership, as the person who makes final decisions on hiring, tenure, and staff pay, Stanford will cut $6 million from its budget. She will fire the first Latina in Stanford's administration, Cecilia Burciaga, the assistant dean of students and one of the most popular and well-liked administration officials among the student body. Under Rice, the number of African-American students at Stanford will plummet. The percentage of women in the faculty, 11%, is, under Rice, far below the national average. Many female professors term the morale at Stanford in "crisis," and lay much of the blame on Rice. Instead of working to alleviate the problems among the faculty, Rice will spend much of her time as provost in solidifying her position with the conservative establishment in California and Washington. (Laura Flanders) - June 22: UC-San Francisco geneticist Charles Epstein is severely wounded
Domestic terrorism
by a bomb mailed to his home by the notorious "Unabomber." (Unabomber Timeline) - June 24: After a six-year layoff, the "Unabomber" strikes twice in three days (see above).
Domestic terrorism
A mail bomb severely injures two Yale professors. The same day, the managing editor of the New York Times receives a letter claiming responsibility for the bombings and purports to be from a hitherto unknown anarchist group calling itself "FC." (Unabomber Timeline) - June 27: US forces launch a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad in retaliation for the attempted assassination of ex-president George Bush in Kuwait in April.
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
The attack is meant to strike at the building where Iraqi officials had plotted against Bush, organized other unspecified terrorist actions and directed repressive internal security measures, say senior US officials. "It was an elaborate plan devised by the Iraqi government and directed against a former president of the United States because of actions he took as president," Clinton says. "As such, the Iraqi attack against President Bush was an attack against our country and against all Americans." Two months of investigation led Clinton to host two "exhaustive and exhausting" meetings last week that Iraq was indeed behind a foiled car-bomb plot to kill Bush during his visit to Kuwait April 14 through 16. Clinton ordered the attack Friday, but the raid was delayed a day so it would not fall on the Muslim Sabbath. "About a dozen" US allies and "friends in the region" were told in advance that the attack was coming; the reaction was mostly favorable. British Prime Minister John Major issued a statement supporting Clinton's action. The missiles strike late at night because Clinton wishes to minimize possible deaths of innocent civilians, but Iraq insists that the area of Baghdad struck by the Tomahawk missiles cost "many civilian casualties. Iraqi civil defense officials claim three dead and four wounded; it is later determined that eight civilians, including world-famous artist Layla al-Attar, were killed by stray missiles. Saddam Hussein's officials decry the attack as "cowardly aggression" and claims the reason for launching the strike was "fabricated by the vile Kuwaiti rulers in coordination with agencies in the U.S. administration." According to a senior intelligence official, the CIA is "highly confident that the Iraqi government, at the highest levels, directed its intelligence service to assassinate former president Bush." Of Hussein, Clinton says, "This attempt at revenge by a tyrant against the leader of the world coalition that defeated him in war is particularly loathsome and cowardly." Administration sources say Bush's friend and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft was kept apprised of the investigation, and Clinton called Bush minutes after the attack was launched to give him the news. - Subsequent examination of the evidence calls the CIA and FBI's definite conclusion that Iraq was, indeed, behind the car bomb plot into serious question; one former official recalls later that the administration is driven to act quickly because once the news of the CIA report became public, Clinton critic William Safire would be able to obtain it from his sources in the Justice Department and use the report, flawed as it turned out to be, to excoriate the "do-nothing" administration. In fact, concludes journalist Seymour Hersh, it is likely that leaks to journalists and the subsequent articles published drove administration officials to act more quickly than they might have liked. Previously (and subsequently) anti-Clinton outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post are quick to laud Clinton for his decisive and aggressive action. "Mr. Clinton is learning on the job," the Journal writes; Hersh writes in hindsight, "[t]he newspaper was not reflecting the reality of White House decision-making, however, but merely praising a decision that it and other newspapers had been manipulated to help bring about." Along with journalistic pressure, senior Clinton officials are under pressure from individual officials such as CIA director James Woolsey, deputy national security advisor Sandy Berger, and Martin Indyk, senior director of the National Security Council Division of Near East and South Asian Affair, to take more aggressive action against Iraq in order to deflect criticism over Clinton's reluctance to use force in the Balkans. Woolsey, for one, will later join the ranks of US neoconservatives urging pre-emptive force against Iraq. (BBC, Washington Post, New Yorker)
