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
2001
April 2001
Spring
Blizzard of terror warnings are ignored by administration
- Spring:
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
The Hart/Rudman commission on national security issues its second report on the threat of terrorism and the state of national security. The Bush administration ignores the report. (Buzzflash, Gary Hart News) - Spring: The Sydney Morning Herald later reports, "The months preceding September 11 [see] a shifting of the US military's focus.
9/11 attacks
...Over several months beginning in April [2001], a series of military and governmental policy documents [are] released that [seek] to legitimize the use of US military force in the pursuit of oil and gas." Michael Klare, an international security expert, says the military has increasingly come to "define resource security as their primary mission." An article in the Army War College's journal by Jeffrey Record, a former staff member of the Senate armed services committee, argues for the legitimacy of "shooting in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices." He also "advocate[s] the acceptability of presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict" and "explicitly urge[s] painting over the US's actual reasons for warfare with a nobly high-minded veneer, seeing such as a necessity for mobilizing public support for a conflict." In April, Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf/South Asia area, testifies to Congress in April that his command's key mission is "access to [the region's] energy resources." The next month US Central Command begins planning for war with Afghanistan, plans that are later used in the real war. (CCR)
April
- April: Enron lobbyist and future Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie creates strategies to use the Bush energy policy,
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
crafted in secret by a task force chaired by Vice President Cheney, as a political weapon against Democrats. A memo drafted by Gillespie, who used his close ties to the administration to land the lucrative position with Enron, warns that the administration faces "a classic liberal-conservative...dynamic," which cast Republicans as the party of big business and enemies of the environment. "Instead of picking the fight that has been picked for us, we should pick a new fight," says the confidential memo, which is presented to energy companies and industry groups. The memo suggested the industry "change the dynamic by 'Carterizing' the Democrats" -- an allusion to former president Jimmy Carter. "We need to make them the 'eat your peas' party." An example of Gillespie's slant is in his earlier recommendation that Democrats who advocate lowering the country's energy usage should be characterized as rich elitists shoving their austerity programs down the throats of ordinary citizens: "The Democratic Party and its leadership is dominated by elitists who believe that the rest of us should carpool, while they drive their Chevy Suburbans to the lake house for the weekend." Gillespie's pseudo-populist rhetoric loses some of its impact when one discovers that he employed that particular piece of rhetoric on behalf of Enron and DaimlerChrysler. - Gillespie's simultaneous lobbying and campaign strategizing underscore Enron's influence in Washington before its collapse last year, as well as the way politics and policy often blur under the loophole-filled laws governing their combination. Gillespie is certainly not the only Enron employee with undue influence in the Bush administration; Lawrence Lindsey, Bush's chief economic advisor in 2000, was also a paid Enron consultant. For $50,000 a year, Lindsey attended meetings in 1999 and 2000 of the energy company's economic "advisory board." In those sessions, Enron chairman Kenneth Lay convinced Lindsey of the wisdom behind one of Enron's businesses, a consulting operation that advised companies on energy efficiency. "It stuck with me," Lindsey later said. In fact, Lindsey incorporated Lay's ideas into the Bush campaign's energy policy. During the campaign, Lindsey described Lay's contribution as key.
- The cozy relationship -- in which a Bush campaign adviser, being paid by Enron, placed an Enron idea on the candidate's agenda -- served as one more reminder of the political influence and reach of the energy company. Its ties extend deep into President Bush's staff, appointments, Cabinet members, friends, family, and his own past. At least 35 administration officials have held Enron stock. Some, such as top Bush political adviser Karl Rove, had six-figure holdings. Several others, including Lindsey, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Commerce Department general counsel Theodore Kassinger, Maritime Administrator William Schubert, and others, served as paid Enron consultants. Bush's secretary of the Army, Thomas White, was vice chairman of the Enron business that Lay had described to Lindsey during the campaign. White had held between $25 million and $50 million in Enron stock in addition to options and other forms of remuneration. Newly appointed Republican National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot was an Enron lobbyist. Bush campaign adviser Ed Gillespie, who will later replace Racicot as head of the RNC, was an Enron lobbyist. Others, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, received hefty campaign contributions from Enron, while many more, including Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Patrick Wood, and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, have indirect ties to Enron or auditor Arthur Andersen. And Enron consulted on policy with top administration officials such as Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Vice President Cheney.
- Gillespie will later deny sharing his memo with the White House. However, Gillespie's recommendations will surface in just a few weeks, in a new advertising campaign promoting the energy plan. One newspaper ad read, "Remember the 70s? Gas lines were long, rationing was in, Jimmy Carter was president and he told us to wear a sweater." The ad will be sponsored by a collection of conservative groups, operating as the 21st Century Energy Project. Gillespie will head the group. The group's source of funds remains secret. Republican Party officials, from the Bush administration down, have denied involvement in any of the many well-funded attacks against Democratic and pro-environmental policies, but two of the groups, the 21st Century Energy Project and the American Taxpayers Alliance, are shown to have ties to prominent GOP strategists. Alex Castellanos, who produced ads for the American Taxpayer Alliance, created TV spots the Republican Party ran in 2000 against then-Vice President Al Gore. Gillespie, of the 21st Century group, has more direct ties to the White House. He served as a top communications aide to Bush's presidential campaign, assisted in his inauguration and helped Commerce Secretary Don Evans set up his agency during the transition from the Clinton administration. In January 2001, Gillespie's lobbying firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates, was hired by Enron to press the company's case on tax and energy issues. The firm was paid $700,000 for a year's work. "At the time my firm signed Enron as a client, they were on the cover of national magazines as one of the best-run companies in America," Gillespie later says in an interview. "We had no idea about their financial arrangements or their business model."
- Congressman Henry Waxman, a leading foe of the administration's energy plan, criticizes Gillespie's behind-the-scenes activities. "Our nation's energy security is too important to be used as a political weapon," Waxman says. "It's unfortunate that one of the Bush administration's closest advisors urged that it be used exactly that way." Waxman and other Democrats have pushed for details of Cheney's meetings last year with representatives of Enron and other companies as the vice president developed his energy policy. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is preparing to file suit to obtain the documents. The Bush administration maintains that releasing the papers would impede its ability to get candid advice. In the memo, Gillespie anticipated the "roll-out" of Bush's energy plan and offered his ideas for ways to frame the debate in hopes of taking "the fight to Davis and the Washington Democrats." The memo continues, "We can not underestimate the extent to which Democrats and liberal groups will respond to the administration's energy policy initiative. The proposal could promise to meet future energy demands by harnessing wind and gerbils on treadmills and it would make no difference -- the gloves are coming off." The memo suggests creating "a narrative about the liberals" to counter the notion that "Republicans are in the pocket of big business." To that end, Gillespie writes, "We must make sure...voters understand their use of their SUVs, microwave ovens and televisions are threatened." Gillespie notes in a later interview that the energy companies and trade associations balked at his aggressive strategy. So instead, he turned to conservative groups, which adopted his suggestions and agreed to push the message under the banner of the 21st Century Energy Project. The group sought to recast the energy debate as a choice between abundance and austerity, just as Gillespie urged. "If some on the left have their way," one newspaper advertisement read, "'soccer moms' will be forced to sell their minivans. They'll be a luxury only the elite can afford." (Los Angeles Times/CorpWatch, Washington Post/CommonDreams, Paul Waldman)
- SEC chairman Harvey Pitt is worth examiniation as well.
Bush's economic policies
Named early in the Bush administration to head the SEC, Pitt is a lawyer for the accounting industry that made his reputation fighting against the corporate reforms advocated by his predecessor, Arthur Levitt. Pitt spearheaded the efforts to continue allowing accounting firms to offer both auditing and consulting services to their clients, a practice that would be later exposed when the accounting firm Arthur Andersen is revealed to have helped its client Enron cook its books. Even after the Andersen/Enron debacle, Pitt will refuse to take action, instead advocating the corporate position that boards of directors should be responsible for deciding whether or not their auditing firms should audit the results of their own consulting, a position that would do nothing to halt the practices exposed by the Enron/Andersen scandal. Pitt, who promised the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants that his tenure would ensure the corporate world would be a "kinder, gentler place for accountants," is widely seen as a tool of corporate accounting firms and the corporations they contract with. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer notes that Pitt seems to have "internalized the values of his clients" as the head of the SEC, and often "held cozy meetings with the folks he should be regulating aggressively." Spitzer, an aggressive, non-partisan prosecutor who will become a thorn in the administration's side, leads an investigation of the relationship between Pitt's SEC and the corporations it is failing to regulate; only after Spitzer releases a batch of explosive e-mails featuring SEC analysts privately deriding what they were publicly promoting does Pitt begin to cooperate with Spitzer. Still, Pitt will continue to do his corporate masters' bidding. His first choice for the head of the new accounting oversight board is John Biggs, a pension fund CEO with a reputation as a real reformer; when the accounting lobby protests, Pitt withdraws Biggs's name and instead nominates William Webster, a former FBI and CIA director. Webster not only has virtually no experience with accounting, but he is the head of US Technologies, a firm currently under investigation for securities and wire fraud. A public outcry follows the revelation of this information in November 2002; Pitt will resign from his position with the SEC, and Webster will withdraw his name from consideration. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
"The Enron failure is the biggest political scandal in American history. Teapot Dome -- a scandal about payoffs to Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall by a couple of greedy oilmen -- was memorable but involved very few people. The Watergate scandal was bigger and more pernicious but it, too, involved relatively few people.... Enron was different. By the time of its bankruptcy, Enron owned -- or perhaps was just renting -- politicians in the White House, Congress, state courts, state legislatures, and bureaucrats at every level."
-- Robert Bryce, Pipe Dreams
- April: According to initial Czech intelligence reports,
9/11 attacks
a meeting takes place between 9/11 plotter Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague sometime during the month. The Bush administration seizes on the report and uses it to "prove" that the Iraqi government is connected to al-Qaeda. An investigation by Czech intelligence proves the report is completely false, and Atta was nowhere near Eastern Europe on the day in question. Months later, Czech president Vaclav Havel personally informs US officials that the report is false. An exhaustive report by the FBI also concludes that the meeting never took place. Yet Bush and administration officials continue to use the Czech report as evidence of a connection. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld goes so far as to call the evidence "bulletproof." In later months, as stories of the report's discreditation become more widespread, most administration officials stop citing the report (with the notable exception of Dick Cheney), but it never withdraws its earlier statements. (Strategic News Service/Smalla) - April: Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan,
Islamist terrorism
has been trying to get aid from the US, but his people are only allowed to meet with low level US officials. In an attempt to get his message across, he addresses the European Parliament: "If President Bush doesn't help us, these terrorists will damage the US and Europe very soon." (CCR) - April: A report commissioned by former US Secretary of State James Baker and the Council on Foreign Relations entitled "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century" is submitted to Vice President Cheney.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
"The report is produced by a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs," including key participant Kenneth Lay of Enron. The report says the "central dilemma" for the US administration is that "the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience." It warns that the US is running out of oil, with a painful end to cheap fuel already in sight, argues that "the United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma," and that one of the "consequences" of this is a "need for military intervention" to secure its oil supply. Calling its energy situation critical, the report says "the United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq, including military, energy, economic, and political/diplomatic assessments." It warns that "Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to...the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets," and adds, "Over the past year, Iraq has effectively become a swing producer, turning its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest to do so." It recommends consideration of pre-emptive military strikes against Iran, Iraq, and/or Libya. Specifically on the question of Iraq, the Baker report recommends the usage of weapons inspections to be followed by "military intervention" to secure the Iraqi oil fields. In what may be a reference to a pipeline through Afghanistan, the report suggests the US should "[i]nvestigate whether any changes to US policy would quickly facilitate higher exports of oil from the Caspian Basin region... [T]he exports from some oil discoveries in the Caspian Basin could be hastened if a secure, economical export route could be identified swiftly." This report is produced in close association with the secretive Cheney Energy Task Force (see above), which says that it is in the "national interest" for Bush and the State Department to "support the [Caspian Sea] oil pipeline" that will help "oil companies operating in Kazakhstan" to get their oil to market. Two of the biggest of these companies are Condoleezza Rice's Chevron and Cheney's Halliburton. (Washington Post/American Assembler, Sunday Herald/Laura Flanders) - April: The Bush administration oversees the passing of legislation phasing out the federal estate tax, ingenuously called a "death tax" by the bill's proponents.
Bush's energy policies
Far from protecting the small family farms as claimed by the administration, the estate tax almost exclusively affects the top 10% of wealthy Americans. It affects the wealthiest 2% of estates, and half of the revenue it produces comes from taxes on 0.16% of estates, worth an average of $17 million. Analysts are unable to find a single family farm that owes a dime in estate taxes, though the entire bill is promoted as "saving America's family farms." Even conservative pundit David Brooks admits that the estate tax is "explicitly for the mega-upper class." Forecasters projected record levels of estates to pass to rich heirs during the 2000s, a forecast which prompted Bush's wealthy backers to clamor for tax relief. "Given that fully half of the federal estate tax was paid in 1999 by the 6.6% of estates over $5 million," writes historian Kevin Phillips, "and a quarter by the 467 estates worth more than $20 million, its full elimination [slated for 2010] promised to be the ultimate enabler of wealth dynastization." The US treasury will lose $740 billion in tax revenues due to the estate tax repeal after 2012, a loss equivalent to 40% of the projected shortfall of the Social Security Trust Fund. Phillips notes that "Even some of the nation's richest men found these priorities appalling. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett worried that 'without the estate tax, you will have in effect an aristocracy of wealth, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit.'" The abolition of the estate tax means that $300 billion in tax revenues will be retained by the most wealthy of Americans. Interestingly, Senate Democrats try repeatedly to rework the legislation in order to protect the farmers who would supposedly be hurt by the bill, asking Republicans to exempt the first $4 million per couple, then, when that was rejected, to exempt the first $8 million. When that was rejected, Democrat Russ Feingold asks for the tax to be continued, but for an astounding $100 million to be exempted. Republicans reject that proposal as well. (Sidebar: Polls show that 19% of Americans believe that they are in the top 1% of wage earners.) (Kevin Phillips, David Corn, Al Franken) - April: Medical-privacy advocates are surprised and pleased by the Bush administration's decision to allow a set of pro-privacy regulations proposed by the Clinton administration to go into effect.
Bush administration's contempt for democracy
The rules say that patients must consent before medical records can change hands. But in April 2002, the administration recants, proposing new laws that would take the provision protecting the privacy of medical records away, instead just mandating that the patient be notified after his or her medical records have already been revealed to third parties. As a result, health care providers, drug manufacturers, and marketing companies can get a patient's health care records and then inundate them with targeted sales pitches for selected new drugs or other products. The new laws are a boon to telemarketers and product manufacturers, and a tremendous invasion of the privacy of medical patients. Despite fierce opposition from Congressional Democrats, the new regulations will go into effect in April 2003. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - April: Secretary of State Colin Powell discusses the Dahbol energy plant situation with India's foreign minister.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
The plant, owned and operated by Enron though largely financed by the US Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, has been providing extraordinarily expensive electricity for India since 1999, but costs, environmental concerns, and rampant human rights violations by plant security prods the Maharashtra state government to stop paying for the power and seek to cancel the purchase agreement. Enron, after shutting down the plant, is currently in arbitration with India, claiming the state owes it tens of millions of dollars, and is trying to sell the plant for $2.3 billion. A recent State Department draft proposal has been amended by White House officials to include a provision encouraging oil and gas production in India that will directly profit Enron. (David Corn) - April: Former Reagan-era Interior Secretary James Watt,
Bush's energy policies
who once bragged that under his regime "We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber," tells the Denver Post, "Everything Cheney's saying, everything the president's saying, they're saying exactly what we were saying 20 years ago, precisely. Twenty years later, it sounds like they've just dusted off the old work." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) - April: Bush visits a Wilmington, Delaware Boys and Girls Club for a photo op.
Bush's economic policies
He calls the program a "faith-based program...based on the universal concept of loving a neighbor just like you would like to be loved yourself." While posing for pictures with carefully selected minority children, Bush announces that he will donate part of the royalties from his book A Charge to Keep to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. While basking in the media's praise of his generosity, he fails to tell the boys and girls that his budget cuts $60 million from federal funding of the Boys and Girls Clubs. Naturally, the donated royalties fall far short of the federal cuts. (Joe Conason, Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - April: First Lady Laura Bush,
Bush's economic policies
a former librarian, kicks off the "Campaign for America's Libraries." A week later, her husband proposes gutting funding for the Library Services and Technology Act, and strips all funding from the Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program. (Laura Flanders) - April 17: Enron CEO Kenneth Lay meets privately with Vice President Dick Cheney to discuss Enron's recommendations for the new administration's energy policies.
Bush's energy policies
Lay demands that Cheney do nothing to hold down energy prices, specifically warning against adopting any sort of price caps or market regulations. Lay gets his wish, and Enron continues to make stunning profits from artificially inflating energy prices in California and other markets. - The meeting is held in secret, in an ornate office in the Executive Office Building designated for the use of the vice president. While Cheney may or may not know that Enron is on the verge of collapse, Lay certainly knows. Lay wants to try to save the company -- or at least make one last surge of profits before the final meltdown -- by persuading Cheney to let Enron continue to prey on the unregulated energy markets in the Western states, especially California. Largely because of Enron's predations, California is locked in an out-of-control energy crisis; Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, has been pleading with the federal government for the implementation of price caps that would help save the state's devastated utility companies and provide relief for consumers battling with rolling brownouts and skyrocketing energy bills. Davis is joined by California state lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle, begging for price caps or at least some relief for utility rates.
- The three-page memo that Lay gives Cheney, outlining Enron's recommendations for the new Bush energy policy, will be included almost verbatim in Cheney's own energy policy recommendations, themselves adopted almost word for word by the administration. Lay is particular firm about resisting price caps. Meanwhile, California, a state traditionally Democratic and therefore the enemy in the view of the White House, is reeling from price rates that have jumped from $30 for one megawatt-hour of electricity to $300 -- and up to $1,500 at peak demand times. But profits by Enron and other energy providers were up 400% to 600%.
- The next day, Cheney's office calls reporter George Skelton of the Los Angeles Times and offers an interview with Cheney. A surprised Skelton agrees. Cheney wants to talk about energy, a subject Skelton and the rest of California is intensely interested in. Cheney comes in loaded with Lay's talking points, though he says nothing about his meeting with Lay. "Price caps provide short-term relief for politicians," he tells Skelton. "But they do nothing to deal with the basic, fundamental problem." Cheney says he and the rest of the administration are adamant against any price caps. Indeed, he says, price caps are why California is in the energy crunch it is in today -- a flat lie. "The vice president was such a free-market zealot that he saw no government role in a utilities market that was savaging consumers," write authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein. The speed and efficiency of the policy responsiveness between Lay's request and Cheney's action seems, in Dubose and Bernstein's word, "reflexive." Two days pass between Cheney's meeting with Lay and the Times article about the administration's refusal to consider price caps.
- The administration ultimately is not able to hold the line on price caps, largely because Bush and Cheney have not yet packed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with its own appointees. Price caps will eventually be emplaced, energy prices will go down, and in six months, Enron will collapse. Skelton, who had never heard from Cheney before April 18, never hears from him again. But Cheney, who despises reporters and avoids them whenever possible, had quickly and efficiently succeeded in getting the administration's -- and Lay's -- viewpoint out to the largest readership in the state of California within 48 hours. (Joe Conason, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
- April 18: The FAA sends a warning to US airlines
9/11 attacks
that Middle Eastern terrorists could try to hijack or blow up a US plane and that carriers should "demonstrate a high degree of alertness." The warning stems from the April 6, 2001, conviction of Ahmed Ressam over a failed plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium celebrations. This warning expires on July 31, 2001. This is one of 15 general warnings issued to airlines between January and August. Bush administration officials have said the threats were so vague that they did not require tighter security. (CCR) - April 21: Time magazine obtains a copy of a manifesto issued by the neoconservative Free Congress Foundation, an organization headed by longtime conservative operator Paul Weyrich.
GOP campaign strategies
The FCF is one of the organizations regularly patronized by senior officials, including Karl Rove, who is professionally very close to Weyrich and his organization. The document, authored by Eric Heubeck and titled "The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement," is a chillingly matter-of-fact overview of exactly what tactics Rove, Weyrich, and the conservative movement will use to keep moderates and liberals out of office and off the media radar. Heubeck begins by writing, "We must, as Mr. Weyrich has suggested, develop a network of parallel cultural institutions existing side-by-side with the dominant leftist cultural institutions. The building and promotion of these institutions will require the development of a movement that will not merely reform the existing post-war conservative movement, but will in fact be forced to supersede it -- if it is to succeed at all -- because it will pursue a very different strategy and be premised on a very different view of its role in society.... - "There will be three main stages in the unfolding of this movement. The first stage will be devoted to the development of a highly motivated elite able to coordinate future activities. The second stage will be devoted to the development of institutions designed to make an impact on the wider elite and a relatively small minority of the masses. The third stage will involve changing the overall character of American popular culture....
- " Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them. We will endeavor to knock our opponents off-balance and unsettle them at every opportunity. All of our constructive energies will be dedicated to the creation of our own institutions.... We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against the Left. We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment's rest. We will endeavor to prove that the Left does not deserve to hold sway over the heart and mind of a single American. We will offer constant reminders that there is an alternative, there is a better way. When people have had enough of the sickness and decay of today's American culture, they will be embraced by and welcomed into the New Traditionalist movement. The rejection of the existing society by the people will thus be accomplished by pushing them and pulling them simultaneously. We will use guerrilla tactics to undermine the legitimacy of the dominant regime... We must create a countervailing force that is just as adept as the Left at intimidating people and institutions that are used as tools of left-wing activism but are not ideologically committed, such as Hollywood celebrities, multinational corporations, and university administrators. We must be feared, so that they will think twice before opening their mouths... We will be results-oriented rather than good intentions-oriented. Making a good-faith effort and being ideologically sound will be less important than advancing the goals of the movement....
- "There is no medium more conducive to propagandistic purposes than the moving image, and our movement must learn to make use of this medium. A skillfully produced motion picture or television documentary has tremendous persuasive power.... Rational arguments simply do not have this power, and all arguments made in print tend to appeal to the rational, critical faculties of the mind to a greater or lesser degree... The visual image allows us to illustrate our beliefs and arguments to our members and others in highly compelling terms -- we will be able to show all the examples of cultural decadence, irrationality and disingenuousness in public debate, combined with our commentary, selectively edited and arranged for maximum impact... We need more people with fire in the belly, and we need a message that attracts those kinds of people.... We must reframe this struggle as a moral struggle, as a transcendent struggle, as a struggle between good and evil. And we must be prepared to explain why this is so. We must provide the evidence needed to prove this using images and simple terms.... Some will argue that 'conservatives' do not believe in apocalyptic fervor. The reader should simply ask himself, is he happy with the state of cultural conservatism in this country? If not, does he think it likely that conditions will improve in the future by operating according to the current rules? And if not, is he willing to witness the death of true civilization in this country so that conservatism will not suffer the ungentlemanly taint of 'fervor'?' If the answer to any of these questions is yes, this movement will not appeal to the reader." The document is no longer available on the Free Congress Foundation's Web site. (Time/Buzzflash)
- April 25: Bush says that the US will do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan against Chinese military incursions.
Bush's foreign policies
Asked if the US had an obligation to defend the Taiwanese in the event of attack by China, Bush says, "Yes, we do...and the Chinese must understand that. Yes, I would." This is a huge and apparently unscripted policy change for the US; later, administration officials will try to qualify and backtrack from Bush's remarks, which anger the Chinese government. Privately, Bush meets with his father's national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, asking in essence, how can he wriggle out of the situation? Bush asks Scowcroft to accompany him to a secret meeting with China's president, Jiang Zemin, and explain US policy. Scowcroft explains to Jiang that Bush's policy is to defend Taiwan from an unprovoked attack, but if the Taiwanese take any action on their own, the US would not defend them. Jiang is mollified, and Scowcroft's meeting is not made public. (CNN, Bob Woodward) - April 30: Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke presents a new version of his Clinton-era plan to send troops to Afghanistan to ferret out Osama bin Laden.
Islamist terrorism
The presentation is made to the administration's deputies in the national security apparatus, including Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby, State's Richard Armitage, Defense's Paul Wolfowitz, and the CIA's John McLaughlin. The deputies fob off Clarke with promises of more meetings within the next few months, including one on al-Qaeda, one on Pakistan, and one on relations between Pakistan and India. A fourth meeting would integrate the findings of the three, and then, perhaps, some action might be decided upon. This fourth meeting would finally be held on July 16, and the deputies scheduled the fifth and supposedly decisive meeting for September 4. (Al Franken)
Chandra Levy disappears; Democrat Gary Condit is falsely accused of her murder
- April 30: Chandra Levy, a former Federal Bureau of Prisons intern, goes missing in Washington, DC.
Conservative media slant
Shortly after her disappearance, rumors of a possible romantic involvement between her and Democratic congressman Gary Condit hit the media, and a feeding frenzy of rumor and speculation begins, with Fox News and other cable TV news outlets leading the way. Although Condit initially denies any involvement with Levy besides friendship, and the police never name Condit as a suspect, the media essentially crucifies Condit, pinning Levy's apparent murder on him; speculation intensifies after Levy's parents tell media representatives that they believe Condit, who is married, is lying about having an affair with their daughter, and they think he may know more about her disappearance than he is telling. The media dog Condit's footsteps day and night, and for months every tidbit about Levy and Condit that can be wrung out of what essentially is a common missing-persons case is flashed across TV screens across the country. Condit, a conservative Democrat who often crosses party lines to vote with the Republicans in the House, initially believes that his close ties to the Republican leadership in Congress may help deflect some of the media attention he receives, but he is wrong. The Levy disapperance becomes a staple of conservative talk radio, with hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity devoting hours of coverage each day to essentially accuse Condit of getting away with murder and using the case to bash Democrats in general. Media speculation about Condit's involvement with Levy increases after another woman, flight attendant Anne Marie Smith, comes forward to reveal that she and Condit have had an affair, and that Condit asked her to sign an affidavit denying their involvement. - In July, Condit finally admits having had an affair with Levy, but continues to deny any knowledge of her disappearance. Condit passes a lie detector test administered by a former FBI agent, but that does little to stem the tide of negative publicity; his August interview with Connie Chung, when he attempts to avoid answering many of Chung's questions, makes him seem even less plausible. The story eventually dies down, and when Levy's remains are found in Rock Creek Park on May 22, 2002, the news barely makes headlines. Levy's death remains unsolved (most now ascribe her death to a serial killer working the DC area), but Condit's political career is destroyed. In 2002, he will lose badly in the Democratic primaries to state assemblyman Dennis Cardoza. The only major news anchor not to allow his program to immerse itself in Condit-Levy speculation is CBS's Dan Rather, who accuses other media outlets of indulging in "sexual speculation" and "titillation" to the detriment of other coverage. (CNN, Wikipedia)
