The New Millennium
A.George W. Bush and Compassionate Conservatism
1. In 2000 Clinton’s vice president Al Gore ran against Texas governor George W.
Bush, son of the forty-first president. Gore ran on Clinton’s record, while Bush
ran on a platform of “compassionate conservatism,” which embraced faithbased initiatives, antigay activism, and opposition to abortion and affirmative
action.
2. Bush and Gore also faced competition from Green Party candidate Ralph Nader,
who embraced grassroots action and social justice initiatives, promising a
change of pace from the other candidates, who, he argued, were basically the
same.
3. Though Gore won a slim plurality of the popular vote, Bush narrowly won the
electoral vote; the decisive state in the contest was Florida, where Bush had won
by a margin of fewer than 500 votes.
4. In Florida counties with a heavy concentration of poor and working-class
African Americans—areas that were also heavily Democratic—voters had
experienced a range of roadblocks to voting. The Supreme Court halted a
recount of the votes in Florida and declared Bush the winner.
5. Though Bush won by only a slim margin, he governed as though he had won a
large majority, showing little interest in compromise and embracing his
conservative base.
6. Bush’s base came out of the evangelical Christian community, and Bush
brought faith-based initiatives to the forefront of his agenda; Bush also opposed
gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research.
7. Bush also embraced economic conservatism, cutting taxes and putting money
back into the pockets of the very wealthy without cutting spending. The Bush
administration also deregulated business practices.
8. Policy changes included the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, which
emphasized standardized testing as a key measure for educational systems and
based federal funding for school systems on test outcomes.
9. The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
provided funding to lower the cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens and
was another significant policy measure that reflected Bush’s compassionate
conservative agenda.
B. The United States at War
1. Bush had little foreign policy experience and vowed to use the military solely to
fight and prevent war, rather than for nation building, but he relied on his vice
president Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and
Condoleezza Rice to guide his foreign policy.
2. On September 11, 2001, the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
transformed Bush into a foreign policy president. Bush deployed military forces
in Afghanistan and Iraq and created a new executive department, the
Department of Homeland Security.
3. In invading Afghanistan, the United States hoped to capture Osama bin Laden
and overthrow the Taliban regime in favor of a pro-American government.
4. At home, Bush pushed for the passage of the Patriot Act, which expanded
investigatory agencies in order to detect and prevent terrorist activities. Tactics
included wiretapping, reading e-mail messages, and searching medical,
financial, and library borrowing records. Computer technology not only
facilitated terrorist networking, it also aided investigatory measures to track
down threats.
5. With anti-Muslim prejudice on the rise in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attack,
most Americans embraced the Patriot Act. Muslims and other Arab Americans,
including Sikhs, encountered prejudice and violence.
6. In spite of criticism of the Patriot Act, including charges that it resembled the
post–World War I Red scare measures, Congress renewed the legislation in
2006.
7. Though the Taliban government in Afghanistan was toppled, that fight was just
one piece of a much larger battle with Cheney and Rumsfeld at the helm.
8. That battle expanded into the Middle East, as Bush laid the foundations for the
Bush Doctrine, which argued on behalf of preventive war as a way to depose
extremist governments that might threaten national security, even if the danger
was not immediate.
9. In January 2002, Bush declared Iran, Iraq, and North Korea to be part of an
“axis of evil” that was a threat to U.S. security, and he determined that his
administration’s goals would include removing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
from power, which would allow the United States to attempt to dismantle Iran’s
radical Islamic government.
10. In his effort to convince the American public that Iraq warranted American
military attention, he linked Hussein to the September 11 attacks and stated that
Iraq was building an arsenal of “weapons of mass destruction.” Both of these
claims were false.
11. Though an antiwar movement had some momentum, most Americans supported
Bush’s mission, and in March 2003 the United States began bombing Baghdad
as part of a strategy known as “shock and awe.” Within a few weeks Hussein
was in hiding, and Bush prematurely stated that “major combat operations” in
Iraq were complete.
12. The war continued even without Hussein leading Iraq, and more than 4,000 U.S.
soldiers died in the conflict. The U.S. invasion triggered a civil war among
Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds, all of whom hoped to win power; in addition,
though al-Qaeda was not in Iraq prior to the invasion, the instability created a
ripe environment for al-Qaeda forces to gain influence.
13. U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq were exhausted, undertrained, and at times
tactless in dealing with their duties. For instance, at the prison Abu Ghraib,
American soldiers took photos of themselves abusing Iraqi prisoners. Tours of
duty were long and repeated.
14. To supplement the military’s support capabilities, the United States awarded
contracts to companies such as Halliburton, which was closely linked to the vice
president.
15. Bush won reelection in 2004 by promising to complete the Iraq War; his
opponent, Massachusetts senator John Kerry, criticized Bush’s efforts in Iraq.
C. Bush’s Second Term
1. In spite of Bush’s promise to end the Iraq War, violence continued, and by 2008
polls showed that 54 percent of Americans believed that the invasion had been a
mistake and that the U.S. troops should return home.
2. In spite of mass public criticism, the Bush administration continued to carry out
domestic and intelligence policies that violated civil liberties. A particular target
for criticism was the U.S. military base in Guantánamo, Cuba, where more than
six hundred prisoners were subject to harsh interrogation techniques without the
benefit of counsel. Though conditions at the prison improved after 2006, it
remained a subject of criticism.
3. In addition to enacting unpopular foreign policy, Bush was criticized for his
administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina, which hit Louisiana and
Mississippi on August 29, 2005, flooding the city of New Orleans and stranding
some 50,000 people in the city.
4. The flooding killed at least 1,800 Gulf Coast residents, and evacuees stayed in
the Superdome football stadium without adequate accommodations; Bush’s
slow response contributed significantly to the chaos in the aftermath of the
storm.
5. In the 2006 midterm elections, Democrats won majorities in the House and
Senate, but little changed: Osama bin Laden was still alive, and al-Qaeda
retained strongholds in Pakistan and Yemen; U.S. enlistments were low and
comprised mainly of poor minorities; and the Bush administration failed to
resolve the mounting tensions in Israel and Palestine.
6. Though Iraq did not have the weapons of mass destruction that Bush had
pointed to as justification for war, nuclear proliferation continued as Iran and
North Korea sought nuclear weapons. In 2006 North Korea conducted
underground nuclear tests.