Politics at the End of the Twentieth Century A. The Clinton Presidency 1. William Jefferson Clinton was a six-­‐term governor of Arkansas before winning the presidency in 1992; inspired by John F. Kennedy, Clinton promised to confront the legacies of the Cold War and the problems of the new era. 2. Among Clinton’s first initiatives was his effort to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, but he was forced to devise a compromise called “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which changed nothing. Gays and lesbians served in the military in silence both before and after the policy’s enactment. 3. Clinton also failed to pass important health care measures. Clinton hoped to make health care accessible to all by implementing a system of “managed competition,” which would create affordable private insurance paid for by employers; critics lambasted the plan as “socialized medicine,” however, and it failed. 4. In 1993 Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gave parents the opportunity to take twelve weeks of unpaid leave to care for newborns without risking job loss. 5. Clinton embraced anticrime legislation and gun control, putting 100,000 new police officers on patrol in cities and signing the Brady Law, which banned the sale of semiautomatic weapons and put into effect a five-­‐day waiting period to allow for background checks on gun purchasers. 6. Clinton appointed a number of African Americans to his cabinet, creating a “rainbow administration” that was known for its diversity. 8. Entering office in the face of a recession, Clinton’s economic policies fostered growth by cutting defense spending by $500 billion, raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and eliminating the federal deficit. Stocks soared, unemployment plummeted, and the gross domestic product rose. 9. Clinton faced fervent criticism from right-­‐wing talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, who also lambasted the president’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Conservatives blamed the Clintons and their politics for feminism, abortion, affirmative action, and secularism. 10. In addition to his policies being criticized, Clinton was beset by rumors of marital infidelity and drew critiques for a real estate deal that he and his wife were involved in before he became president. In 1994 a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the latter accusations. 11. In 1994 Republicans won a majority in both houses of Congress and, led by Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, offered a policy program called “Contract with America,” which called for a balanced budget, reductions in welfare and taxes, and term limits. Republicans in 1994 also had the increasing support of white evangelical Christians. 12. In response, Clinton pushed for welfare reform, and in 1996 he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, ending the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program and requiring adults on welfare to find work within two years or lose their benefits. 13. Also in 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal benefits, including Social Security survivor’s benefits, to same-­‐sex couples. 14. Clinton’s rightward turn aided his reelection in 1996, when he defeated Bob Dole and Ross Perot. B. Global Challenges and Economic Renewal 1. The post–Cold War era brought new threats, including internal conflicts in other nations, factionalism, genocide, and Islamic extremism. 2. Clinton exercised caution and sought to avoid involvement in many of the conflicts that emerged. In 1994, Hutu extremists in Rwanda slaughtered more than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu opponents; the rest of the world condemned the actions but did nothing to stop the genocide. 3. In contrast, when conflict came about in the Balkans, the Clinton administration moved quickly to provide aid and halt violence. Following the Cold War, Yugoslavia had split along religious and ethnic lines as the new nations of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia-­‐Herzegovina were formed. 4. Beginning in 1992, Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević supported Serbs in Bosnia-­‐Herzegovina as they engaged in “ethnic cleansing,” murdering tens of thousands of Muslims; in 1995 the Clinton administration launched bombing raids against the Serbs and sent twenty thousand American peacekeeping troops to the Balkans. 5. That same year, Clinton facilitated the Dayton Peace Accords among Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia; in 1999 Milošević launched an attack on the province of Kosovo in an attempt to purge Albanian Muslims from the region, drawing similar retribution from Clinton and NATO. 6. Islamic extremists also posed a significant threat to the United States as they waged a jihad, engaging in terrorism against their perceived enemies, and sought to establish a caliphate, or transnational Muslim government. 7. The United States was the target of numerous terrorist actions during the 1990s. In 1993 Islamic militants bombed the underground garage at the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than one thousand; in 1998 terrorists attacked the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds and injuring thousands; and in 2000 al-­‐
Qaeda terrorists bombed the USS Cole, a warship anchored in Yemen, killing seventeen sailors. 8. In addition to international dramas, Clinton’s own actions contributed to his crumbling reputation at the end of his second term. In 1995, the president began a sexual affair with twenty-­‐two-­‐year-­‐old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. 9. Though he denied the affair at first, Clinton eventually admitted to the relationship; in 1998 the House of Representatives voted to impeach the president on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, but the Senate acquitted him. 10. The nation prospered in spite of the scandals, and by 1998 the unemployment rate had fallen to 4.3 percent. Home ownership was high, the stock market soared, and the United States boasted a surplus of $230 billion by 2000. On the other hand, the wealth gap, which exposed racial differences in economic well-­‐being, widened.