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
2000:
January
- During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush repeats, "It's time to restore honor and dignity in the White House." One of his first television ads feature an earnest-sounding Bush promising to "return honor and integrity" to the Oval Office. The pledge is often the emotional crescendo to his stump speech. Contrary to his proclamations of his unassailable honesty and integrity, Bush's campaign is strewn with lies and deliberate misstatements about his record as governor of Texas, about his National Guard record, about his opponents, and about his own personal history of drug and alcohol abuse, among other things. "Perhaps most importantly, during the campaign," observes journalist David Corn in 2003, "Bush and his colleagues could see that lying worked, that it was a valuable tool. It allowed them to present Bush, his past, and his initiatives in the most favorable, though not entirely truthful, terms -- to deny reality when reality was inconvenient. It got them out of jams. It won them not scorn but votes. It made the arduous task of winning the presidency easier. And the campaign, as it turned out, would be merely a test run for the administration to follow." As part of the media's cooperative attitude towards Bush, liberal economist and columnist Paul Krugman is ordered by the New York Times' editorial page editor Howard Raines to not use the word "lie" when writing about Bush's proposals. (David Corn)
- Early in the 2000 campaign, Bush holds daily press conferences with reporters. After one memorable conference where the reporters attempt to pin down the candidate on the kind of judges he will nominate, and what he means by "strict constructionists" (a GOP code phrase signaling to anti-abortion activists that the candidate will appoint only anti-abortion judges, while pretending that he only wants judges who will strictly adhere to the Constitution), Bush sends staffers out to announce that there will be no more daily press conferences. Answering reporters' questions, says one press aide, is no longer "in our best interests." (Paul Waldman)
- During the 2000 presidential campaign, journalist David Corn discovers a 1978 interview with Bush in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal during Bush's failed run for the US Congress. According to the interview, "Bush said he opposes the pro-life amendment favored by [his opponent] and favors leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question." In other words, in 1978, Bush was pro-choice on the abortion question. By 1994, Bush had reversed himself and declared that he was anti-abortion, saying during the gubernatorial campaign, "I will do everything in my power to restrict abortion." As a presidential candidate, he will describe himself as pro-life and in favor of a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. Somehow his flip-flop from pro-choice to anti-abortion escaped public notice. (Bush's campaign will make tremendous hay from his largely baseless characterization of his opponent Al Gore as a "serial flip-flopper," an accusation he will repeat in 2004 against John Kerry. Some of Bush's best hits against Gore come with his comparison of Gore's current support for abortion choice with anti-abortion sentiments Gore expressed in the 1970s and 1980s.) "I think people want to see consistency with their leaders," says Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. When Corn asks the Bush campaign about the 1978 article, spokesman Dan Bartlett says, "We consider this a misinterpretation. He is pro-life. He was always opposed to abortion." Sylvia Teague, who conducted the interview in 1978 and had since gone on to an award-winning career in broadcast journalism, says she is confident that she quoted Bush accurately, and points out that if she had not, the 1978 Bush campaign would certainly have complained at the time. (David Corn)
January 2000
Former president Bush secretly meets with bin Ladens
- January: George H.W. Bush secretly meets with the bin Laden family on behalf of the Carlyle Group. Bush will later deny this meeting ever took place until a thank-you note confirming the meeting turns up. (CCR, Boston Herald, From the Wilderness)
- January: An Israeli spy ring begins infiltrating the US during this time. Later called "the art student spy ring," is later shown to have strange connections to the 9/11 attacks. (CCR)
- January: Dr. Hans Blix is appointed the head of UNMOVIC. (UN/Iraqwatch/Electric Venom)
- Early January: A top-level al-Qaeda meeting takes place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during the first week of January. Plans for the 9/11 attacks, the USS Cole attack, and other operations are discussed. The CIA is aware of the meeting, and asks Malaysian intelligence to follow and photograph the participants. However, the meeting is not wiretapped. Later on, two of the meeting's participants, 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, fly from Bangkok, Thailand, to Los Angeles, California. The CIA tracks Alhamzi but apparently fails to realize that Almihadar is also a potential threat, even though his name has been brought up time and again in al-Qaeda surveillance operations. Alhamzi and Almihadar live openly in San Diego until August 2000, rooming together in an apartment. Neighbors notice unusual behaviors concerning the two: no furniture in the apartment, a constant use of cell phones on the battery, a fondness for playing flight simulator games, and numerous cars and limousines arriving and departing at night. (CCR)
- January 3: An al-Qaeda attack on the USS The Sullivans in Yemen's Aden harbor fails when their explosive-laden boat sinks. This attempt is remarkably similar to the successful strike against the USS Cole in October 2000. (CCR)
- January 30: The New York Times Magazine observes, "Whatever else it achieves, the presidential campaign of 2000 will be remembered as the time in American politics when the wall separating church and state began to collapse." (New York Times Magazine/Buzzflash)
- January 31: Slate's Mickey Kaus, no fan of candidate Al Gore, reports from his coverage of the New Hampshire Democratic primaries (basically a two-man race between Gore and former senator Bill Bradley), "What I underestimated -- what, indeed, has startled me -- is the extent to which reporters aren't simply boosting Bradley for their own sake (or Bradley's). It's also something else: They hate Gore. They really do think he's a liar. And a phony." This recalls the fantastical claim by CNN's Bill Schneider over the October 1999 Democratic primary debate, where he says Gore "even perspired, perhaps that was planned, to make himself look like a fighter." Paul Waldman acidly observes, "Al Gore must be the only human being on the planet who can sweat at will. Try to think of a more absurd criticism of a candidate you've heard from someone purporting to be a journalist." (Slate/Paul Waldman)
