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:
October
- October 3: The first debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore takes place at the University of Massachusetts. Aided by the clever manipulation of perception by Karl Rove, the media portrays the debate as a David vs. Goliath matchup, labeling Gore the best debater in modern politics and Bush as a folksy, charming stumblebum out of his depth. (In reality, Gore is an accomplished but often pedantic debater, and Bush, while lacking the intellectual depth and agility of his opponent, is well-polished and well-trained in staying on his message.) The effect is to heighten expectations for Gore to almost impossible levels while lowering them for Bush to the point where he is praised merely for not mumbling and drooling on himself. During the debate, which is largely a lackluster affair, Gore makes a minor error which is trumpeted by Bush and a complicit media into a "huge" example of Gore's supposed problems with the truth: Gore claims that he had "accompanied" James Lee Witt, the head of FEMA, to Texas after major fires ravaged the state. Gore had indeed accompanied Witt to 17 other disaster sites, and had made numerous trips to Texas after the fires, but did not travel to Texas with Witt himself during that particular disaster, but one of Witt's deputies. "He made up the story," exclaims Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes after the debate. "The President of the United States cannot do that...the president cannot go to a meeting with a foreign leader and simply make up things that are not true."
- The media gleefully lays into Gore for "lying" during the debate, while ignoring much larger and more egregrious lies by Bush during the same debate. Bush vastly misrepresents his tax cut plan (he tells his audience that his tax cut will largely help low-income workers, when in reality the bottom 60% of wage earners will get less than 15% of the tax cuts), lies about the effect his Social Security plan would have on younger workers (a lie accurately pointed out by the Wall Street Journal, but largely ignored by other media outlets), and inaccurately lambasts Gore's proposed revamping of the federal government as creating "20,000 new bureaucrats." This last statement is credited by Bush as coming from the Senate Budget Committee; what Bush doesn't mention is that the accusation comes from some Republicans on the committee, not from the entire committee; Bush fails to mention that under Clinton/Gore, the number of federal workers has decreased by 15%. He also claims that Gore has "outspent me" during the campaign, an outrageous lie: Bush has so far spent $121 million on his campaign as opposed to $60 million spent by Gore. Bush also claims that his plan for prescription drug coverage will cover "all seniors," when his own website says that only seniors with incomes below $11,300 will receive full coverage, and seniors making over $14,500 would only receive about 25% coverage. When challenged by Gore on his inaccuracies on his prescription drug coverage plan, Bush retorts, "Look, [Gore] is a man who's got great numbers. He talks about numbers. I'm beginning to think that not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator." While the audience laughs, Bush continues, "It's fuzzy math. It's a scaring -- trying to scare people in the voting booth." The sarcasm not only reinforces the perception of Gore as a calculated liar, it manages to duck the fact that it is Bush's math that is "fuzzy." The media, predictably, focuses on Gore's supposed lying and his tendency to sigh, while praising Bush for not being reduced to babbling incoherence.
- Bush will build on his performance in the next two debates, including resurrecting the hoary campaign-trail claim that he had led the fight for patients' rights in Texas (he fought the bill in question, and refused to sign it when the Texas legislature passed it over his veto), and, in the last debate, makes the unsupportable claim that if Gore's plans are enacted, the federal budget surplus will shrink to nothing. Most media outlets ignore the fact that it is Bush's economic plans that will eat up the federal budget surplus, a prediction that comes true less than two years into Bush's first term. Later in the campaign, Bush will fire off a barrage of lies about Gore's plans: he will accuse Gore's prescription drug plan of driving seniors into a government-run HMO (a charge he will resurrect in 2004 against John Kerry), while in reality it is Bush's prescription-drug plan that will force more seniors into HMOs; it is worth noting that the country's largest HMOs are heavy Bush campaign contributors. Bush makes one of his most telling gaffes in Michigan, while touting his Social Security privatization plan: he says, "This frightens some in Washington because they want the federal government controlling the Social Security like it's some federal program." Apparently Bush is not aware that Social Security is a federal program. Predictably, the media laughs off Bush's critical misunderstanding of one of the government's most important programs. He continues to lie about the effects of his proposed tax cuts, even after eight Nobel laureates and 300 other economists release a letter pointing out that his tax plan will gut the federal surplus and provide wealthy Americans with the largest tax cuts.
- In his comments on foreign policy, Bush accuses Gore of participating in "nation building" during the Clinton presidency, and says he will indulge in no such actions; ironic, considering his rush to invade Iraq during his first term. "The Vice President believes in nation building," Bush says. "I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders." Bush also calls the US military "overextended" -- doubly ironic considering his own future history -- and should just be used for "prevent war from happening in the first place." Adding to the irony-in-hindsight, two days later, Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney, who will become one of the loudest and most insistent voices for war against Iraq in the Bush administration, says during his own debate with Joseph Lieberman that the US was correct in not overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 1991 because the United States should avoid becoming "an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments." (Mother Jones, Debates.org [transcript of debate], David Corn, Al Franken)
- Journalist Paul Waldman writes, "Although George W. Bush's 2000 victory can be attributed to any number of things, a look at the progression of the race shows that what saved him were the debates -- or rather, not the debates themselves, but the press's reaction to them. Al Gore had turned around a significant deficit with his highly successful convention, and was leading Bush by as much as ten points in the two weeks leading up to the first debate. But the trap was set before the first debate took place.
- "The press accepted two premises in setting expectations for the first debate, neither of which was true: 1) Bush was both inexperienced and unskillful at debating, and 2) Gore was an extraordinarily skilled debater. Bush aide Karen Hughes called Gore 'the best debater in politics today,' a laughable assertion but one bested only by aide Karl Rove, who called Gore 'the world's most preeminent debater, a man who is more proficient in hand-to-hand debate combat than anybody the world has ever seen.' Similarly, Time magazine described Gore as 'one of the most effective debaters on the political scene,' while the New York Times said, 'Mr. Gore is a far more accomplished debater than Mr. Bush.' 'Gore, a seasoned debater, is widely expected to have the upper hand when he faces off against Bush, who has gained a reputation for vocabulary flubs and speech stumbles while on the campaign trail,' said the UPI. In fact, Bush had participated in debates in both his gubernatorial races and the presidential primary campaign, and in not a single case did he utter a terrible gaffe or acquit himself so poorly as to indicate a lack of debating skill. Gore's performance in debates in which he had participated, on the other hand, was competent but never spectacular. Though he had bested Ross Perot in a debate on Larry King's television show, his performance in the vice-presidential debates of 1992 and 1996 was barely satisfactory, and he was nowhere near as skilled as Bill Clinton.
- Like almost all coverage of presidential debates, after the first Bush-Gore debate discussion focused around a single question: how did each candidate's performance relate to the conclusions reporters had already made about them? Because Bush was the dumb one, the question was: Did he seem dumb? And because Gore was the liar, the question was: Did he tell any lies?" To find Gore's "lies," reporters trumpet the FEMA misstatement (detailed above) and the infamous statement about school overcrowding in Sarasota, Florida, an observation Gore made that was confirmed by the student whose story he related to the audience about having to stand in class due to a lack of desks. Bush's plethora of lies large and small remain unreported; instead, reporters rush to file stories and film commentaries saying how much better Bush did than expected, a game of low expectations Bush and Rove are past masters at playing. (Paul Waldman)
- October 5: In the vice-presidential debate between Dick Cheney and Joseph Lieberman, Cheney describes himself as a self-made multi-millionaire from his years as CEO of Halliburton, and asserts that "the government had absolutely nothing to do with" his business fortunes. Lieberman does not contradict him. "As lies go, this one was truly spectacular," says Paul Waldman. Halliburton -- which is never mentioned in the debate -- was a leading defense contractor for the US government, with $1.8 billion in contracts from 1996-99, and a major beneficiary of federal loan guarantees (another $1.8 billion in loans and loan guarantees from the US-funded Export-Import Bank during Cheney's years, which Cheney personally lobbied for and won using his extensive contacts in the government). After Cheney's installation as CEO, Halliburton almost doubled its business from the government, and received fifteen times the government-backed loans in Cheney's five-year tenure than it received in the five years before. "In short," writes Waldman, "the government had everything to do with the money Cheney made." Cheney's position is that he was the highly ethical, patriotic CEO, or, as authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein write, "an insider-turned-outsider who competently and ethically grew his company while increasing shareholder value. While politically useful, it happens to be a lie." Dubose and Bernstein call Lieberman "clueless" in the debate. Lieberman, a conservative Democrat who has consistently challenged business reform and is an ally of Lynne Cheney in the "culture wars," not only fails to dispute Cheney's business bona fides, but actually helps Cheney burnish his mythology, giving Cheney the opening to claim that government had nothing to do with Halliburton's success and failing to challenge Cheney's outrageous claim.
- Cheney attacks Gore for "embellish[ing] his resume" and, when later challenged on NPR, lies about Halliburton's contracts with the US government, claiming falsely that all governmental contracts Halliburton had were signed before he joined the firm in 1995. (The response from the media? Almost all the media coverage focuses on Cheney's "quick-witted comeback," to quote an AP report, and concludes, as NPR does, that "Cheney had the last laugh." The New York Daily News's Lars-Erik Nelson is one of the few to point out the facts.)
- Cheney makes the sidebar claim that his tenure at Halliburton was one of "building a business, hiring people, [and] creating jobs." He fails to point out, as does Lieberman and the media, that after Cheney oversaw the disastrous merger of Halliburton with Dresser Industries, he laid off more than 9,000 workers and drastically cut retirees' medical benefits. Fortune magazine called Cheney's tenure at Halliburton an example of "poor leadership." Waldman writes, after an analysis of the layoffs shows that the layoffs impacted over 40,000 workers and family members, "Cheney's $36 million golden parachute adds up to $4,000 for every one of those families he sent to the unemployment line."
- Historian Kevin Phillips writes that Cheney's selection as Bush's vice-president goes far beyond Cheney's reputation as a "mentor" for the untried and inexperienced Bush. Cheney, along with Ford-era officials like Donald Rumsfeld and so many others, was seen by many Republicans as an effort to bring aboard "the experience of old wars and...an anxiousness to wipe away their lingering embarrassment."
- The Gore campaign did attempt, clumsily and with little effect, to challenge Cheney's tenure at Halliburton. They point out that Cheney received a $20 million compensation package after retiring from Halliburton, and had received over $10 million in benefits from the company during his tenure. In reality, the Gore campaign, using figures reported by the New York Times, is wrong. Cheney actually received over $45 million in compensatory benefits (including Waldman's $36 million quoted above). Cheney loves to proclaim that he and his family lived on a "mere" $144,000 annual salary while he was George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense, and to claim that trying to live on a congressman's salary before that nearly drove his family into pauperdom. In 2006, Cheney will declare his net worth as over $94.6 million, much of this based on his Halliburton gleanings. He continues to receive compensation and stock earnings from Halliburton during the 2000 campaign, and even during his tenure as vice president, earning over a million dollars in deferred salary from Halliburton even while serving in the White House and owning over $4 million in Halliburton stock. The conflicts of interest garnered by a vice president with such intimate financial ties to a company like Halliburton can only be imagined, but Lieberman never mentions any of this in the debate. (Commission on Presidential Debates, Consortium News, Kevin Phillips, Paul Waldman, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
- October 10: Journalist Margaret Carlson explains why the press tends to fawn over George W. Bush's gross misstatements and outright lies, and attacks minor misstatements by Al Gore. Carlson, appearing on Don Imus's radio show to discuss press coverage of Bush and Gore's first debate, notes that Gore is being slammed as a liar because of a few exceptionally trivial misstatements. Meanwhile, much larger howlers were being ignored, such as misstatements by Bush about major policy matters. Carlson explains the double standard: "You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get in the weeds and get out your calculator or you look at his record in Texas. But it's really easy, and it's fun, to disprove Gore." After this astonishing statement, she digs herself in deeper by saying, "I actually happen to know people who need government, and so they would care more about the programs, and [less] about the things we kind of make fun of.... But as sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us. And we can disprove it in a way we can't disprove these other things." In other words, it's easier and more fun to attack Gore for statements he never made (i.e. his "invention of the Internet," et al) than actually do a journalist's job and dig a bit to find the truth behind Bush's statements. (MSNBC/Daily Howler)
USS Cole bombing; Clinton's retaliatory plans are stymied
- October 12: The USS Cole is bombed in the Aden, Yemen harbor by al-Qaeda terrorists; terrorists ram a rubber boat packed with explosives into the side of the vessel. 17 US soldiers are killed. The Prime Minister of Yemen later claims that 9/11 hijacker "Khalid Almihdhar was one of the Cole perpetrators, involved in preparations. He was in Yemen at the time and stayed after the Cole bombing for a while, then he left." John O'Neill and his team of 200 FBI investigators enter Yemen two days later, but are unable to accomplish much due to restrictions placed on them, and tensions with US Ambassador Barbara Bodine. All but about 50 investigators are forced to leave by the end of October. Even though O'Neill's supervisor visits and finds that Bodine is O'Neill's "only detractor," O'Neill and much of his team is forced to leave in November, and the investigation stalls without his personal relationships to top Yemeni officials. Increased security threats forces the reduced FBI team still in Yemen to withdraw altogether in June 2001. The Sunday Times later notes, "The failure in Yemen may have blocked off lines of investigation that could have led directly to the terrorists preparing for September 11." After the bombing, US officials later claim that a retaliatory attempt to assassinate bin Laden is made, but it is not successful. Candidate Bush promises dire retributions against the attackers. In January 26, 2001, Bush is presented with evidence proving that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were behind the attacks. No further action is taken by the Bush adminstration. In October 2001, Pakistan secretly hands over one suspect in the bombing, a Yemeni microbiology student and al-Qaeda operative named Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed. (CCR, Washington Post/Houston Chronicle)
Damage to USS Cole
- October 12: During the second presidential debate, which is largely focused on foreign policy, George W. Bush echoes his father by saying that he plans to pursue a "humble" foreign policy: "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us." The line is part of the Bush campaign's carefully crafted strategy to paint Bush as a moderate conservative; nothing could be farther from the truth. (James Risen)
- October 13: The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to South Korean president Kim Dae Jung for his "sunshine policy" of renewed cooperation with the intransigent regime of North Korea. Shortly after George W. Bush takes office in 2001, he uses a visit by Kim to the White House as an opportunity to belittle the South Korean policies, call North Korea's Kim Jong Il "a pygmy," tell the South Korean leader how much he loathes the North Korean leader, and declares, "I want to topple him." Bush's statements serve to cripple South Korea's policy initiatives and stiffen North Korean resistance to any sort of cooperation with the rest of the world, especially in the matter of nuclear armaments. (Nobel Peace Prize Citation Text, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose)
- Mid-October: After the bombing of the USS Cole, Clinton demands better military options against bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The Department of Defense prepares a plan for a US military operation so big that it was dismissed as politically untenable; meanwhile, General Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concludes that, without better intelligence, a smaller-scale attack is too risky. The Navy tries stationing two submarines in the Indian Ocean, in the hope of being able to shoot missiles at bin Laden, but the time lag between the sighting of the target and the arrival of the missiles makes it virtually impossible to pinpoint him accurately. Later, an armed version of the Predator surveillance drone would be tested as a method of assassinating bin Laden. Clinton's National Security Advisor Richard Clarke recalls, "Every time we were ready to use it, the CIA would change its mind. The real motivation within the CIA, I think, is that some senior people below Tenet were saying, 'It's fine to kill bin Laden, but we want to do it in a way that leaves no fingerprints. Otherwise, CIA agents all over the world will be subject to assassination themselves.' They also worried that something would go wrong -- they'd blow up a convent and get blamed." As late as September 4, 2001, dissension between the CIA and the Air Force blocks usage of the Predator. (New Yorker)
- October 15: The New York Times reports on "a skillful and sustained 18-month campaign by Republicans to portray the vice president as flawed and untrustworthy." Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson mocks Gore's stories of working on his family's farm as a boy; friends later confirm that "Gore's father had kept him on a backbreaking work schedule during summers on the family farm." Gore's story of a Florida high school girl who went without a desk during part of her school year is roundly lambasted, though the story turns out to be true: according to a report by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, "Kailey [Ellis, the 15-year-old girl] said she moved from a biology classroom where students had to sit on the floor to another that was short on desks on Aug. 31 –- the ninth day of school. She stood for one 50-minute period, and the following day a classmate gave up his desk for her" and the classmate then went without a desk for the next week. "I'm not still standing," Ellis told the newspaper, "but there's still kids that have to sit on the side of desks and there's still not enough room in the classes." The usual suspects -- the Love Canal story, the FEMA story, the Internet misrepresentation, and others -- are trotted out. Most unbelievably, Bush himself claims that Gore's campaign "outspent me," when actual figures show that the GOP spent more than twice the amount spent by Democrats in the campaign. (Consortium News)
- October 17: During the third presidential debate, in St. Louis, Bush informs the audience that he fully supports a national patients' bill of rights. "...I want all people covered," Bush says. "I don't want the law to supersede a good law like we've got in Texas." But once Bush is in office, he supports a House bill that will supersede all states' health care laws, and in particular will protect HMOs from adverse decision reviews by patients. Frank Fitzgerald, Michigan's Republican insurance commissioner, will say, "The House bill appears to pre-empt all state internal and external review laws. If that becomes law, I would have a real concern about the ability of people to get an appropriate and adequate review of adverse decisions by HMOs." Bush also fails to note that the 1997 Texas health care law he boasts about was enacted over his veto. In the debate, Bush brags that he "brought Republicans and Democrats together" to enact a patients' bill of rights: "We're one of the first states that said you can sue your HMO for denying you proper coverage." That is true, but the original bill, which would have prevented HMOs from firing doctors without reason, failing to pay for emergency room visits, denying expensive medical procedures, and stopping patients from being able to choose their own doctors, was vetoed by Bush. Bush told reporters, "It was the easy thing politically to sign the bill and your headline ought to read, 'Governor shows political courage.'" The bill actually passed two years after Bush's veto, but only after relentless attempts by Bush to gut the bill, and without Bush's signature (Bush apparently feared the repercussions on his future presidential hopes if he vetoed the bill a second time). During the 2000 campaign, the patients' bill of rights, which Bush steadfastly opposed, becomes a key element of his health care platform. His campaign even claimed, falsely, that Bush not only signed the bill into law, but was passed "at Governor Bush's direction." (Eric Alterman and Mark Green, James Moore and Wayne Slater)
- October 17: During the third debate, Bush makes his now-famous pronouncement, "If affirmative action means quotas, I'm against it." His statement reveals his total lack of understanding of affirmative action -- quotas have been banned since the 1978 Bakke decision by the US Supreme Court. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- October 17: During the same debate, Bush stands foursquare in support of the death penalty, an unsurprising stance since, under his leadership, Texas has emerged as the leader of all 50 states in executing convicted criminals (he broke records by signing 152 death warrants during his tenure). He states unequivocally that the only reason to support the death penalty is "because it saves other people's lives," or, as his ghostwriter Karen Hughes wrote more eloquently in his "auto"biography A Charge to Keep, "capital punishment is a deterrent against future violence and will save other innocent lives." Unfortunately for Bush's beliefs, the facts prove him wrong. Ten of the twelve states who chose not to enact the death penalty after the 1976 Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the death penalty have lower homicide rates than the national average, and the other two are on average. States comparable in economic and ethnic mixes -- South Dakota and North Dakota, Massachusetts and Connecticut -- show higher homicide rates in states with the death penalty. In 1992 California executed its first criminal in 25 years, and homicide rates in the state rose. Something similar happened in Oklahoma, where researchers conducted a study that measured the homicide rates all the way down to the county level, selecting carefully for similarities in demographics; in every case, counties with the death penalty had higher homicide rates and higher incidences of violent crime than those without. Even Texas conducted a study that showed from 1982 - 1997 the number of executions was unrelated to murder rates. The studies that purport to prove the death penalty does, indeed, deter violent crime have uniformly been discredited due to serious flaws. Bush, a proclaimer of the right to life for unborn children, even successfully fought against a bill that would have prohibited the use of the death penalty for convicts who are proven to be profoundly mentally retarded. In May 1997, Bush signed a warrant for execution against Terry Washington, a 33-year old mentally retarded man with the communication skills of a 7-year old. In 2002, the US Supreme Court will rule that executing retarded persons constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment," and is a violation of the 8th Amendment of the Bill of Rights. It is doubtful that Bush was pleased by the ruling. (Peter Singer)
- October 19: At a dinner for raising funds for New York City hospitals in which both presidential candidates give speeches, George W. Bush tells the crowd of well-heeled political and business figures, "This is an impressive crowd. The haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base." Some believe Bush is joking; others believe that, although somewhat self-deprecatory, the remark has a serious undertone. Four years later, Michael Moore will use a clip of this remark to devastating effect in his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. (Jackson Free Press)
- October 20: Democrats file a suit against the Bush campaign, Governor Jeb Bush, and Secretary of State Katherine Harris for vote fraud. Weeks before, the governor's office sent a letter to hundreds of thousands of Florida Republican voters urging them to use absentee ballots to cast their votes, and included absentee ballot forms. The letter, headed "From the Desk of Governor Jeb Bush," was printed over a picture of Florida's state seal. According to Florida law, absentee voters must have a legitimate reason for voting by mail; Bush's letter was in fact urging voters to skirt the law in, as the letter read, "vot[ing] from the comfort of [their] home[s]." Florida law also prohibits its state seal to be used for anything other than official Florida business. The law also prohibits state employees such as the governor for using their office for partisan political affairs. On November 3, Judge Terry Lewis dismisses the lawsuit, but suggests that the governor's office may have broken the law by illegally using the state seal on partisan election literature. Bush's spokespersons claim that no one knew the state seal would be on the letters. A second, similar case is also dismissed; that judge also suggests that criminal charges are a more proper response to the GOP's actions. No such charges are ever filed. The absentee ballot campaign was a striking success, garnering a 125,000-vote edge in absentee votes for Bush. Florida's absentee ballot laws were tightened because of the 1997 Miami absentee ballot scandal that resulted in the voiding of all absentees and the overturn of the election. The man who engineered that massive fraud, GOP mayoral candidate Xavier Suarez, is a central player in this year's GOP absentee effort. (Orlando Sentinel [cached Google copy], Floridagate)
- October 21: Salon reports on a recent appearance by candidate Bush on the David Letterman late-night talk show. Bush is surprised that Letterman asks him real questions, particularly about the possibility of a terrorist attack. "If I find out who it was, they'd pay a serious price," Bush says. "Now what does that mean?" asks Letterman, and Bush replies, "That means they're not going to like what happened to them," which draws cheers from the crowd. Letterman continues probing: "Now are you talking about retaliation or due process of law?" to which Bush retorts, "Heh-heh, I'm talking about gettin' the facts and lettin' them know we don't appreciate it and there's a serious consequence...and I'll decide what that consequence is." Paul Waldman observes, "Looking back, this interview is quite revealing. It demonstrates Bush's preference for tough talk over considered action, his lack of concern with legal procedures, and his inability to answer questions that don't lead directly to crowd-pleasing sound bites. But fortunately for Bush, the press corps was not as concerned with matters of substance as David Letterman was." (Salon/Paul Waldman)
- October 24-26: Pentagon officials carry out a detailed drill based on the scenario of a hijacked airliner crashing into the Pentagon. Before 9/11, standard jokes in the building are based on the fact that the Pentagon is such an obvious target, and the snack bar in the central courtyard is named "Ground Zero." After 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman will claim: "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way, and I doubt prior to Tuesday's event, anyone would have expected anything like that here." (CCR, From the Wilderness)
- October 27: The Republican National Committee is running pro-Nader ads, proving that the Republicans are using Nader as a "spoiler" to block Al Gore's bid for the presidency. While the ads boost Nader, they are a clear attempt to help Bush, according to the Washington Post. "Gore's supporters fear that Nader, who is more liberal than either Bush or Gore, will throw the election to the Texas governor if voters who might otherwise vote for Gore vote for Nader instead." the Post writes. "In a tight national race, one or two states could make the difference in who is elected president. The ads feature clips of Nader from a National Press Club speech on Tuesday, where he laid into both Bush and Gore, though the ad only includes his criticism of Gore. 'Al Gore is suffering from election year delusion if he thinks his record on the environment is anything to be proud of,' Nader says. An announcer interjects: 'What's Al Gore's real record?' Nader says: 'Eight years of principles betrayed and promises broken.' Nader has been equally critical, if not more so, of Bush, calling him 'a big corporation running for president disguised as a person.' But the RLC ads are a clear attempt to help Bush, not Nader." (AP/Washington Post)
