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
September 2004
Week Three
- September 15: Republican representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who will resign his position in November 2005 after being found guilty of bribery, fraud, and tax evasion, is used as a sterling example of the corruption visited upon Americans by politicians willing to break the law on behalf of the defense industries.
Randy Cunningham corruption investigation
Cunningham represents California's 50th district (CA-50), which eminent author and district resident Chalmers Johnson describes as "an oddly gerrymandered amalgam of rich (and Republican) Rancho Santa Fe and La Jolla, more liberal coastal towns like the northern sections of San Diego itself, Del Mar, Encinitas, and Carlsbad, and -- inland -- Hispanic and working class Escondido and Mira Mesa." Cunningham, a representative since 1990, is facing a challenge from moderately liberal Francine Busby (who will lose a hotly disputed special election in April 2006 marred by allegations of vote fixing on behalf of her Republican opponent, Brian Bilbray). Cunningham's campaign is largely financed by defense contractors, some of which have offices and plants in his district, some do not. He is estimated to be able to outspend Busby 8 to 1, and both he and political observers consider Cunningham a virtual shoo-in. Cunningham's biggest contributors include Titan Corporation (under investigation for supplying translators to Iraq who may have engaged in torture), Lockheed Martin, MZM, SAIC, and other huge defense contractors, many of which have interests in Iraq. (In contrast, Busby's largest contribution so far is $2000 from Web design firm BlueHornet.) - Johnson writes, "Cunningham knows with precision who gives him money and what its providers expect of him. As the Japanese like to say, you don't have to tell a geisha what to do. He has 100% ratings from the National Right to Life Committee (he is adamantly opposed to giving women the right to choose), the League of Private Property Voters, the Christian Coalition, the Business-Industry PAC, and an 80% rating from the Gun Owners of America. Over the last decade he has received $44,600 from the National Rifle Association, more than any member of Congress except Representative Don Young, a Republican from Alaska." His voting record is 98% aligned with the Bush administration, but, though he talks at length about supporting the president and putting the country before partisan politics, he had only a 20% support record under Clinton.
- Cunningham has repeatedly claimed that he deserved to win the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War, though he was never recommended for the citation, and operates a company called "Top Gun Enterprises" that markets books and lithographs about Cunningham the war hero. (Cunningham claims, without apparent basis, that the movie Top Gun was based on his exploits.) He defended the infamous "Tailhook" incidents of overt sexual harassment and discrimination; he has a long record of "gay-baiting" and "gay-bashing," in 1998 saying, after surgery for prostate cancer, that "[t]he only person who would enjoy a prostate biopsy is Barney Frank." Frank, an openly gay fellow congressman, retorted, "Cunningham seems to be more obsessed with homosexuality than most homosexuals." Johnson concludes, "Cunningham has only one string to his mandolin -- the military-industrial complex and its interests. He has virtually no record at all on such issues as illegal immigration, water resources, ocean pollution, agriculture, mass transit, renewable energy, and unemployment. Whenever he takes up subjects such as environmental conservation and education, it is to reduce or halt federal funds that might make a difference." (TomDispatch/Truthout)
- September 16: A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq (see the July 2004 entries).
Iraq war and occupation
Government officials are just now revealing the existence and some of the content of the July NIE. The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms. "There's a significant amount of pessimism," says one government official, but he declines to discuss the key judgments -- concise, carefully written statements of intelligence analysts' conclusions -- included in the document. The intelligence estimate, the first on Iraq since October 2002, was prepared by the National Intelligence Council and was approved by the National Foreign Intelligence Board under John McLaughlin, the acting director of the CIA. Such estimates can be requested by the White House or Congress, but this one was initiated by the intelligence council under George Tenet, who stepped down as director of central intelligence on July 9. - The pessimistic tone of the new estimate stands in stark contrast to recent statements by Bush administration officials, including comments on Wednesday by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, who asserted that progress was being made. "You know, every step of the way in Iraq there have been pessimists and hand-wringers who said it can't be done," McClellan recently told reporters. "And every step of the way, the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people have proven them wrong because they are determined to have a free and peaceful future." John Kerry is among the many critics of the administration who have challenged its public optimism on Iraq. Recently he questioned whether the country could hold free and fair elections as scheduled for January 2005. "I think it is very difficult to see today how you're going to distribute ballots in places like Falluja, and Ramadi and Najaf and other parts of the country, without having established the security," Kerry recently told talk show host Don Imus. "I know that the people who are supposed to run that election believe that they need a longer period of time and greater security before they can even begin to do it, and they just can't do it at this point in time. So I'm not sure the president is being honest with the American people about that situation either at this point."The situation in Iraq has prompted harsh comments from both Republicans and Democrats at a hearing into the shift of spending from reconstruction to security. Republican senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called it "exasperating for anybody [to] look at this from any vantage point;" fellow GOP senator Chuck Hagel said of the overall lack of spending: "It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing. It is now in the zone of dangerous."
- The new estimate revisits issues raised by the intelligence council in less formal assessments in January 2003, the officials said. Those documents remain classified, but one of them warned that the building of democracy in Iraq would be a long, difficult and turbulent prospect that could include internal conflict. The July NIE's pessimistic conclusions were reached even before the recent worsening of the security situation in Iraq, which has included a sharp increase in attacks on American troops and in deaths of Iraqi civilians as well as resistance fighters. Like the new National Intelligence Estimate, the assessments completed in January 2003 were prepared by the National Intelligence Council, which is led by Robert Hutchings and reports to the director of central intelligence. The council is charged with reflecting the consensus of the intelligence agencies. The January 2003 assessments were not formal National Intelligence Estimates, however, which means they were probably not formally approved by the intelligence chiefs. The new estimate is the first on Iraq since the one completed in October 2002 on Iraq's illicit weapons program. A review by the Senate Intelligence Committee that was completed in July has found that document to have been deeply flawed, so much so that the criticism over that document has left the CIA and other agencies wary of being wrong again in judgments about Iraq.
- Separate from the new estimate, Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued other warnings about the American campaign in Iraq, saying the administration's request to divert more than $3 billion to security from the $18.4 billion aid package of last November was a sign of trouble. "Although we recognize these funds must not be spent unwisely," says Lugar, "the slow pace of reconstruction spending means that we are failing to fully take advantage of one of our most potent tools to influence the direction of Iraq." Less than $1 billion has been spent so far. The committee's ranking Democrat, Joseph Biden, one of the harshest critics of Bush's Iraq policies, was far more outspoken. "The president has frequently described Iraq as, quote, 'the central front of the war on terror,'" Biden said. "Well, by that definition, success in Iraq is a key standard by which to measure the war on terror. And by that measure, I think the war on terror is in trouble." (New York Times/Information Clearinghouse)
- September 16: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says that the US invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN Charter.
Randy Cunningham corruption investigation
Annan adds that the decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein should have been made by the Security Council, not the United States and Great Britain. A former advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Randy Scheunemann, says that Annan's statements are politically motivated. "I think it is outrageous for the Secretary-General, who ultimately works for the member states, to try and supplant his judgment for the judgement of the member states," Scheunemann says. "To do this 51 days before an American election reeks of political interference." Spokesmen for the British and Australian governments both say that the invasion was entirely legal. Annan also warns that unless the situation in Iraq dramatically improves between now and January, any elections held in that country will lack credibility. (BBC) - September 16: Dr. Yoshi Tsurumi, a professor at the Harvard Business School who taught George W. Bush during Bush's first year as an MBA candidate, says the younger Bush made a strong impression on him as a student:
George W. Bush
"I don't remember all the students in detail unless I'm prompted by something," Tsurumi says. "But I always remember two types of students. One is the very excellent student, the type as a professor you feel honored to be working with. Someone with strong social values, compassion and intellect -- the very rare person you never forget. And then you remember students like George Bush, those who are totally the opposite." Tsurumi, a visiting associate professor at Harvard during the 1973-74 term, is now a full professor at Baruch College. In observing students' in-class performances, Tsurumi says that "you develop pretty good ideas about what are their weaknesses and strengths in terms of thinking, analysis, their prejudices, their backgrounds and other things that students reveal." One of Tsurumi's standout students was Chris Cox, who is now the seventh-ranking member of the House Republican leadership. "I typed him as a conservative Republican with a conscience," Tsurumi says. "He never confused his own ideology with economics, and he didn't try to hide his ignorance of a subject in mumbo jumbo. He was what I call a principled conservative." Bush, by contrast, "was totally the opposite of Chris Cox. He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him." When asked to explain a particular comment, says Tsurumi, Bush would respond, "Oh, I never said that." - In 1973, as the oil and energy crisis wore on, Tsurumi led a discussion on whether government should assist retirees and other people on fixed incomes with heating costs. Bush, he recalls, "made this ridiculous statement and when I asked him to explain, he said, 'The government doesn't have to help poor people -- because they are lazy.' I said, 'Well, could you explain that assumption?' Not only could he not explain it, he started backtracking on it, saying, 'No, I didn't say that.'" If Cox had been in the same class, Tsurumi says, "I could have asked him to challenge that and he would have demolished it. Not personally or emotionally, but intellectually." That same year, Bush mocked Tsurumi for showing the film The Grapes of Wrath, based on John Steinbeck's novel of the Depression. "We were in a discussion of the New Deal, and he called Franklin Roosevelt's policies 'socialism.' He denounced labor unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Medicare, Social Security, you name it. He denounced the civil rights movement as socialism. To him, socialism and communism were the same thing. And when challenged to explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either ideologically, polemically or academically."
- Tsurumi noticed another, perhaps even more, troubling aspect about Bush's character: students who challenged and embarrassed Bush in class would then become the subject of a whispering campaign by him. "In class, he couldn't challenge them," Tsurumi recalls. "But after class, he sometimes came up to me in the hallway and started bad-mouthing those students who had challenged him. He would complain that someone was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So that's how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk, that he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy."
- While many of the students came from wealthy and well-connected backgrounds, Tsurumi says, most had the decency and humility not to brag about their good fortune. Not Bush. "The other children of the rich and famous were at least well bred to the point of realizing universal values and standards of behavior," Tsurumi recalls, but remembers Bush sometimes strolling in late to class and sitting in the back row of the theater-like classroom, wearing a bomber jacket from the Texas Air National Guard and spitting chewing tobacco into a cup. "At first, I wondered, 'Who is this George Bush?'" Tsurumi says. "It's a very common name and I didn't know his background. And he was such a bad student that I asked him once how he got in. He said, 'My dad has good friends.'" During the term, Bush expressed strong support for the Vietnam War, still going on and the subject of tremendous controversy, but readily admitted to Tsurumi that he'd gotten a coveted spot in the Texas Air National Guard through his father's connections. "I used to chat up a number of students when we were walking back to class," Tsurumi remembers. "Here was Bush, wearing a Texas Guard bomber jacket, and the draft was the No. 1 topic in those days. And I said, 'George, what did you do with the draft?' He said, 'Well, I got into the Texas Air National Guard.' And I said, 'Lucky you. I understand there is a long waiting list for it. How'd you get in?' When he told me, he didn't seem ashamed or embarrassed. He thought he was entitled to all kinds of privileges and special deals. He was not the only one trying to twist all their connections to avoid Vietnam. But then, he was fanatically for the war." Tsurumi told Bush that someone who avoided a draft while supporting a war in which others were dying was a hypocrite: "He realized he was caught, showed his famous smirk and huffed off."
- Tsurumi does not believe Bush is as dumb as some of his detractors allege. "He was just badly brought up, with no discipline, and no compassion," he says. The professor, who spoke out about his experiences teaching Bush in March 2004, is quoted The Family, Kitty Kelley's controversial new biography of the Bush family. He says other professors and students at the business school from that time share his recollections but are afraid to come forward, fearing ostracism or retribution. So why is Tsurumi speaking up now? Because with the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq and Osama bin Laden still on the loose -- not to mention a federal deficit ballooning out of control -- the stakes are too high to remain silent. "Obviously, I don't think he is the best person" to be running the country, he says. "I wanted to explain why." (Salon)
- September 21:
Iraq war and occupation
In response to questions about the recently revealed National Intelligence Estimate from July that portrayed three possible scenarios for the future of Iraq, ranging from a tenuous and unstable peace to all-out civil war, Bush responds, "The CIA laid out a -- several scenarios that said, life could be lousy, life could be okay, life could be better. And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like." (Frank Rich [PDF file])
