Chapter
33
MISDEMEANORS
AND
HIGH CRIMES
The American Nation, 12e
Mark C.Carnes
John A. Garraty
THE ELECTION OF 1988
• Republicans nominated
Vice President George
H.W. Bush
• Democrats nominated
Massachusetts governor
Michael Dukakis
– Tarnished by furlough
program and Willie Horton
• Bush won 54% of the vote
– 426 to 112 electoral votes
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
• Responding to widespread calls for a crackdown on
crime, elected officials hired more police, passed
tougher laws and built additional prisons
• Shift toward capital punishment
– During 1960s only a handful of criminals were executed
– 1972: Supreme Court ruled in Furman decision that juryimposed capital punishment was racially biased and thus
unconstitutional
– Many states favored capital punishment statutes which
then took decision out of hands of juries
– Supreme Court upheld these laws and capital
punishment, on hold since 1967, resumed in 1976
– Since then nearly 1000 convicts have been executed
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
• State legislatures imposed tougher sentences and
made it more difficult for prisoners to obtain parole
– 1973: New York passed laws that mandated harsh
sentences for repeat drug offenders
– 1977: California replaced its parole system with
mandatory sentencing, which denied convicts the
prospect of early release
– Ten other states adopted similar systems
– Nationwide, the proportion of convicts serving long,
mandatory sentences increased sharply
– From 1984 to 1995, more inmates died of suicide than in
fights with other inmates
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
• Nation’s prison population increased
– 1973: federal and state prisons held
about 10,000 convicts
– 1990: number of prisoners exceeded
750,000
– 2004: 2 million
• Required construction of a 1000-bed
prison every week
– 1995: states spent more on prisons than
on higher education
– Human Rights Watch reported the United
States incarcerated more people than
any country in the world except, perhaps,
Communist China, which does not
disclose that information
“CRACK” AND URBAN GANGS
• Several factors intensified the problem of
violent crime, especially in the inner cities
– Shift in drug use from marijuana in the 1960s
to cocaine
– Cocaine was more powerful and addictive but
more expensive so few people could afford it
• During the 1980s growers of coca leaves in Peru
and Bolivia greatly expanded production
• Drug traffickers in Colombia devised sophisticated
systems to transport cocaine to U.S.
• Price of cocaine dropped from $120 an ounce in
1981 to $50 in 1988
“CRACK” AND URBAN GANGS
• Even more important was proliferation of a cocaine-based
compound called “crack” because it crackled when
smoked
– Sold in $10 vials
– Gave an intense spasm of pleasure
• Lucrative crack trade led to bitter turf wars in the inner
cities
– “drive-by shooting” entered the language
– Survey of Los Angeles County in the 1990s found that more than
150,000 young people belonged to 1000 gangs
– In 1985, before crack, there were 147 murders in Washington,
D.C. but in 1991 there were 482
– Black on black murder became an important cause of death for
young men in their 20s
– By 2005, 20% of African American men in their 20s were in prison,
or on probation, or on parole
GEORGE H.W. BUSH AS PRESIDENT
• In 1989, Bush named a “drug
czar” to coordinate various
bureaucracies, increased
federal funding of local police,
and spent $2.5 billion to stop
the flow of illegal drugs into
the nation
– Had little overall effect
• Opposed gun control and
abortion and called for a
constitutional amendment to
ban flag burning
THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM
IN EASTERN EUROPE
• Reforms instituted by Gorbachev in Soviet Union
led to demands from Eastern European satellites
for similar liberalization
– Gorbachev announced Soviet Union would not use
force to keep communist governments in power in
these nations
– Swiftly the people of Poland, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, East Germany
and the Baltics did away with the repressive regimes
• Changes were peaceful except in Romania where the former
dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was executed
• Soviet-style communism had been discredited,
Warsaw Pact no longer existed and Cold War
was over
THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM
IN EASTERN EUROPE
• Bush expressed moral support for new
governments and provided modest financial
support in some instances
– June 1990: Bush and Gorbachev signed agreements
reducing American and Russian stockpiles of longrange nuclear missiles by 30% and eliminating
chemical weapons
• 1989: Bush sent troops to Panama to overthrow
General Manuel Noriega who refused to yield
power when his figurehead presidential
candidate lost the election
– Noriega was under indictment in U.S. for drug
trafficking
– After temporarily taking refuge in the Vatican
embassy, he surrendered and was taken to the U.S.
where he was tried, convicted and imprisoned
THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM
IN EASTERN EUROPE
• Latin Americans were concerned about U.S. action in
Panama and by fact that more Panamanian civilians were
killed and wounded than armed supporters of Noriega
• Summer 1991: civil war broke out in Yugoslavia as Croatia
and Slovenia sought independence from the Serbiandominated central government
– Soon became religious war pitting Serb and Croatian Christians
against Bosnian Muslims
• In Soviet Union, Gorbachev responded to demands for more
local control of affairs by backing a draft treaty that would
increase local autonomy and further privatize the Soviet
economy
– In August, before treaty ratification, hard line communists attempted a
coup
– Boris Yeltsin, the anticommunist president of the Russian Republic,
defied the rebels and roused the people of Moscow
– The coup collapsed, the Communist party was disbanded and the
Soviet Union was replaced by a federation of states, led by Yeltsin
THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF
• Despite earlier aid to him, few in
administration were fond of Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein
– For years had been crushing the Kurds, an
ethnic minority in northern Iraq that sought
independence
– 1989: after Kurds assisted an Iranian
advance, Saddam used chemical weapons on
them, killing over 5000 civilians
• U.S. lodged a protest
– 1988: after Iran-Iraq War ended in stalemate,
Saddam intensified war on Kurds
THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF
• August 1990: Iraq invaded Kuwait hoping to
add its oil reserves to those of Iraq thereby
controlling about 25% of world total
– Soldiers overran Kuwait swiftly and carried off
everything not nailed down
– Saddam annexed Kuwait and troops massed on
the border with Saudi Arabia
– Saudis and Kuwaitis turned to U.S. and the UN
for help
• UN applied trade sanctions
• The U.S.—along with Great Britain, France, Italy,
Egypt and Syria, at the invitation of Saudi Arabia,
moved troops to Saudi bases
THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF
• By November, Bush had increased the American
troops in the area from 180,000 to 500,000
• Late November, UN authorized the use of force if
Saddam did not withdraw from Kuwait by 15
January 1991
– Congress voted to use force
• 17 January, Americans unleashed massive air
attack which lasted for a month and reduced much
of Iraq to rubble
– Iraqis fired a few missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia and
set the Kuwaiti oil wells on fire
THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF
• 23 February: Bush issued an ultimatum to pull
out of Kuwait or face invasion
– When Saddam ignored the deadline, more than
200,000 UN troops attacked in Desert Storm
– Between 24 and 27 February they retook Kuwait,
killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and capturing
even more
– Bush then stopped the attack and Saddam agreed
to UN terms
• Reparations to Kuwait
• UN inspectors to determine whether Iraq was developing
atomic and biological weapons
• “No-fly” zones over Kurdish territory and other strategic
areas
THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF
• Polls showed 90% of Americans
approved Bush’s handling of war and
overall performance as chief executive
• Bush and others expected Saddam to be
driven from power
– When Kurds in north and pro-Iranian
Muslims in south tried, Saddam used the
remnants of the army to crush them
– Refused repeatedly to carry out terms of UN
agreement, particularly by hindering arms
inspection
THE DEFICIT WORSENS
• War only worsened deficit
• Congress refused to close local
military bases or cut funding for
favored defense contractors
• Also nearly impossible to
reduce nonmilitary
expenditures, especially
Medicare and Social Security
• Deficit for 1992 hit $290 billion
– Bush, who had promised “no new
taxes,” was forced to raise the top
tax rate from 28% to 31% and
levy higher taxes on gasoline,
liquor, expensive automobiles and
other luxuries
LOOTING THE
SAVINGS AND LOANS
• Another drain on the federal treasury resulted
from demise of hundreds of federally insured
savings and loan (S&L) institutions.
– Traditionally played an important role in nearly
every community by providing home mortgages
• 1980s: Congress permitted S&Ls to enter the
more lucrative but riskier business of
commercial loans and stock investments
– Attracted swarm of aggressive investors who
acquired S&Ls and invested company assets in
high yield junk bonds and real estate deals
– Often failed to generate steady income and, worse,
were often worthless
• October 1987: the stock market crashed and
hundreds of S&Ls were plunged into
bankruptcy
LOOTING THE
SAVINGS AND LOANS
• In 1988 Michael Milken was indicted on 98
charges of fraud, stock manipulation, and
insider trading
– Pled guilty, agreed to pay $1.3 billion in
compensation, and went to jail
– His investment firm filed for bankruptcy
– Junk bond market collapsed
• Still more S&Ls went under and the
government—the taxpayers—were forced to
cover their losses because they were federally
insured
– $5 billion reserve fund was quickly exhausted
– 1991: Congress allocated $70 billion to close the
failing S&Ls, liquidate their assets and pay off
depositors (may have cost taxpayers as much as
$500 billion)
– Justice Department charged nearly 1000 people
WHITEWATER AND THE CLINTONS
• William (Bill) Clinton was caught in the S&L
difficulties
– 1977: Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham, joined
with James McDougal, a banker, to secure a loan to
build vacation homes in the Ozarks
– The development, named Whitewater, became
insolvent
• McDougal covered the debts with a loan from a S&L he had
acquired
• 1989: the S&L failed, costing the federal government $60
million to reimburse depositors
– 1992: Federal investigators claimed the Clintons had
been “potential” beneficiaries of McDougal’s illegal
activities
WHITEWATER AND THE CLINTONS
• The scandal emerged when Clinton, then
governor of Arkansas, was campaigning for the
Democratic presidential nomination
• Soon overshadowed by news that Clinton had
engaged in an extramarital affair of several
years with Gennifer Flowers
– Clinton’s standing in the polls plummeted and he and
his wife made an appearance on 60 Minutes to
appeal to the American people for understanding
• He finished second in New Hampshire, won the
Democratic nomination and named Albert Gore,
senator from Tennessee, as his running mate
THE ELECTION OF 1992
• Bush expected to be easily renominated but
encountered stiff opposition within Republican
party
– Patrick Buchanan, outspoken conservative
• Ross Perot, billionaire Texan, then announced
he would run as an independent
– Declared both major parties were out of touch with
“the people”
– Promised to spend $100 million of his own money on
his campaign
– Platform had both liberal and conservative planks
THE ELECTION OF 1992
• Polls showed Perot was popular in states Bush
had been counting on and it seemed possible
there might not be anyone with enough electoral
votes to win
• Bush was renominated by the Republican
convention
• Clinton accused Bush of failing to deal with the
lingering economic recession and promised to
undertake public works projects, to encourage
private investment and to improve the nation’s
education and health insurance systems
• 44 million people voted for Clinton, 38 million for
Bush and 20 million for Perot
– Clinton won with 370 electoral votes to Bush’s 168
A NEW START: CLINTON
• Reasons for Clinton’s success
– Intention to change health insurance and
welfare systems and bring budget deficit
under control
– Solid knowledge of public issues and
appearance of mastery and control
– Willingness to reconcile differences
• Had promised to end ban on gays
and lesbians in the military but settled
for policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” after
the Joint Chiefs and a number of
influential members of Congress
objected
A NEW START: CLINTON
• July 1993: Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the
Supreme Court
– Ginsberg was known to believe abortion to be constitutional
– Clinton also indicated he would veto any bill limiting abortion rights
• Reversed important Bush policies by signing a revived family
leave bill into law and authorizing the use of fetal tissue for
research purposes
• Wanted to reduce the deficit by $500 billion over 5 years, half
by spending cuts and half by new taxes
– Since a number of Democrats refused to cooperate and the
Republicans were firmly against it, Clinton was forced to accept
changes
• Effort to reform health care never came up with a viable plan
to take to Congress
• Whitewater scandal created public pressure which forced
Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special prosecutor,
Kenneth Starr, a Republican lawyer
EMERGENCE OF THE
REPUBLICAN MAJORITY
• Paula Corbin Jones, a State of Arkansas employee, charged
that Clinton, while governor had asked her to engage in oral
sex
– Clinton’s attorney denied the accusation and sought to have the case
dismissed on the grounds that a president could not be sued while in
office but the case continued
• Republicans in 1994, led by congressman Newt Gingrich of
Georgia, offered voters an ambitious program to stimulate the
economy by reducing both the federal debt and the federal
income tax
– Would turn many of the function of the federal government over to the
states or to private enterprise
– Federally administered welfare programs were to be replaced by block
grants to the states
– Many environmental protection measures were to be repealed
• Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress and
tried to pass their “contract with America” in the 1995 budget
which Clinton vetoed, leading to an impasse
– The government shut down all but essential services, for a time
THE ELECTION OF 1996
• Public blamed Congress, and especially
Gingrich, for the shutdown and the president’s
approval rating rose
– Upturn during and after 1991 benefited Clinton
– By 1996, unemployment was below 6% and inflation
below 3%
– Dow Jones industrial stock average soared above
6000 (triple the average in 1987)
• Bob Dole from Kansas got the Republican
nomination
• Clinton won with 379 to 159 electoral votes but
the Republicans retained control of both houses
of Congress
A RACIAL DIVIDE
• 1990s saw the arrest of former football star
O.J. Simpson for the murder of his estranged
wife and a man, both of whom were white
– After a tempestuous nine month trial, Simpson
was acquitted
– To many whites, Simpson was another violent
black male
– To many blacks, he was another wrongly
accused black male
• 85% of blacks but only 34% of whites agreed with the
not guilty verdict
A RACIAL DIVIDE
• 1992 Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshall observed that educated Americans
of each race appeared to have “given up on
integration”
– After the Simpson trial, Louis Farrakhan, leader
of the separatist Nation of Islam, called on
African Americans to express their solidarity by
participating in a “Million Man March” on
Washington, D.C.
• 16 October 1995: the demonstration attracted 500,000
marchers
A RACIAL DIVIDE
• Persistence of inequality was one reason for the
new separatism
– 1972: Incomes of black families were one-third less than
those of white families
– 1992: The statistic was virtually unchanged
• The leading sectors of the economy—technology
and information services—placed a premium on
education
– Math and reading scores of 17-year-old African American
students rose relative to those of white students in the
1980s
– But black test scores after 1988 fell sharply
A RACIAL DIVIDE
• Significant casualty of the changing tone of race
relations was “affirmative action” which gave minorities
preference in hiring and college admission
– Initially justified on the grounds that the legacy of slavery
and the persistence of racism put blacks at an unfair
disadvantage in finding jobs or gaining admission to college
– Affirmative action programs spread in the 1970s and 1980s
– July 1995: Regents of the University of California ordered an
end to affirmative action
• Led to protests throughout system
• Following year California voters approved Proposition 209, abolished
racial and gender preferences in all government hiring and education
• U.S Supreme Court let the law stand and other state passed similar
laws
A RACIAL DIVIDE
• Opinion polls indicated that attitudes about race were
becoming more complicated and ambivalent
• By an overwhelming majority, whites endorsed the
gains of the civil rights movement
– In 1964, only 1 in 5 whites lived near a black neighborhood
– By 1994, 3 in 5 whites did
– In a 1968 Gallup poll, only 17% of whites and 48% of
blacks approved of interracial marriages
– By 1994, the figure was 45% of whites and 68% of blacks
• Many observed that even when blacks and whites
attended the same schools, learned the same songs,
rooted for the same teams, they often attended
different classrooms, sat at separate tables in the
cafeteria and cheered from voluntarily segregated
sections of the bleachers
VIOLENCE AND
POPULAR CULTURE
• Many people were concerned about the violence
in popular culture
• The most violent film of the 1930s, Public
Enemy, and the 1974 vigilante fantasy Death
Wish had body counts that topped out at 8
– Three movies of the late 1980s—Robocop, Die Hard,
Rambo III—each had a death tally of 60 or more,
nearly one every two minutes
– Trend culminated in the unimaginably violent Natural
Born Killers (1994)
• TV networks crammed violent shows into prime
time
– 1991: survey found that by the age of 18, the average
viewer had witnessed some 40,000 murders on TV
VIOLENCE AND POPULAR
CULTURE
• 1981 Music Television (MTV) was launched
featuring pop song videos
– Within three years, 24 million watched every day
– Michael Jackson’s Thriller transformed the genre as
pop music acquired a harder beat and more explicit
lyrics
• 1988 American Academy of Pediatrics
expressed concern that the average teen-ager
spent more than two hours a day watching rock
videos, over half of which featured violence and
three-fourths of which contained sexually
suggestive material
VIOLENCE AND
POPULAR CULTURE
• “Rap” emerged from the ghetto and spread
by means of radio, cassettes and CDs
– Consisted of unpredictably metered lyrics set
against an exaggeratedly heavy downbeat
– Rap performers conveyed, in words and
gestures, an attitude of defiant, raw rage
against whatever challenged their sense of
manhood
– Appeal of rap spread beyond black audiences
and led to white rappers like Eminem, whose
lyrics reveled in being offensive and whose
contempt knew no bounds
VIOLENCE AND
POPULAR CULTURE
• Violation of social norms had long been part of
adolescence
– Most consumers of pop violence in the 1990s and early
years of the 2000s, had little difficulty distinguishing
between cultural fantasies and everyday life
– But for those who had grown up in the ghettos, the
culture of violence seemed to legitimate the meanness
of everyday life
– Moreover, violence and criminality were becoming so
much a part of popular culture that some adolescents
retreated to wholly imaginative worlds conjured by
movies, video and computer games, TV and pop music
VIOLENCE AND
POPULAR CULTURE
A few went so far as to act out destructive fantasies
• 1 October 1997: A 16-year-old boy stabbed his mother, shot
and killed two students and wounded seven others at his high
school in Pearl, Mississippi
• Over the next 18 months a spate of similar shootings in West
Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Springfield,
Oregon, left 5 dead and 23 wounded
• 20 April 1999: Two teenagers went on a rampage with
automatic weapons at Columbine High School in Littleton,
Colorado, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding 30
others before killing themselves
– Turned out to be a replay of a 1995 movie Basketball Diaries
• A month after the Columbine shooting, a 15-year-old shot six
students at a high school in Conyers, Georgia
CLINTON IMPEACHED
• January 1998: a judge ordered Clinton to testify in
the lawsuit Paula Corbin Jones had filed against him
– To strengthen her case, Jones sought to show Clinton had
a history of womanizing and so she subpoenaed a former
White House intern, Monica Lewinsky
– Clinton and Lewinsky both denied an affair, which Clinton
restated to TV cameras after the information was leaked
– Hillary Clinton denounced the charges as part of a right
wing conspiracy
• Lewinsky had been confiding in Linda Tripp, a former
White House employee, and Tripp had secretly taped
some 20 hours of their conversations
– She turned these tapes over to special prosecutor Kenneth
Starr
CLINTON IMPEACHED
• In the Tripp tapes, Lewinsky provided intimate
details of sexual encounters with Clinton, making
it appear Clinton and Lewinsky had lied under
oath
– Starr threatened to indict Lewinsky for perjury
– In return for immunity, she repudiated her earlier
testimony and admitted engaging in sexual relations
with the president and being encouraged by him and
his aides to provide false testimony
• When called to testify before the Starr grand jury
in August, Clinton admitted to “inappropriate
intimate contact” but stated he had not had sex
according to his definition
– More legalisms followed
CLINTON IMPEACHED
• Clinton’s testimony infuriated Starr who made
public Lewinsky’s humiliatingly detailed testimony
and announced that Clinton’s deceptive
testimony warranted consideration by the House
of Representatives for impeachment
– Throughout this, opinion polls suggested two in three
Americans approved of Clinton’s performance as
president
– Most Americans blamed the scandal on the intrusive
Starr as much as on Clinton
• In the November election, Republicans nearly
lost their majority in the House
CLINTON IMPEACHED
• Republican leaders in the House impeached Clinton
on the grounds that he had committed perjury and had
obstructed justice by inducing Lewinsky and others to
give false testimony in the Jones case
– The vote closely followed party lines
• The impeachment trial began in January 1999 with
Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding
– Republicans numbered 55, enough to control the
proceedings but 12 short of the two-thirds needed to convict
– Democrats, while publicly critical of Clinton’s behavior,
maintained that his indiscretions did not constitute “high
crimes and misdemeanors” as defined by the Constitution
– Article accusing Clinton of perjury was defeated 55 to 45; the
obstruction of justice charge was defeated with a vote of 50
to 50
CLINTON’S LEGACY
• One reason Clinton survived was the health
of the economy
• Until the final months, the Clinton years
coincided with the longest economic boom
in the nation’s history
• Clinton deserves much of the credit—by
reducing the federal deficit, interest rates
came down, spurring investment and
economic growth
– By August 1998, unemployment had fallen to
4.8%, the lowest level since the 1960s
– Inflation was a minor 1%, the lowest since the
1950s
– In 1998, the federal government had its first
surplus since 1969
– In the 2000 fiscal year, the surplus hit $237 billion
CLINTON’S LEGACY
• Clinton also promoted the globalization of the
economy
– Successfully promoted the North American Free Trade
Agreement to reduce tariff barriers
• Congress approved in 1993
• During the last half of the 1990s, the U.S. led all
industrial nations in the rate of growth of its real gross
national product
• New global economy harmed many
– Union leaders complained that their members could not
compete against convict or sweatshop labor in foreign
countries
– Others complained the emphasis on worldwide economic
growth was generating an environmental calamity
• International protests against the World Trade Organization
culminated in the disruption of the 2000 meeting in Seattle, when
thousands of protestors went on a rampage
CLINTON’S LEGACY
Clinton’s record in foreign affairs was mixed
• 1993: failed to assemble an international force to prevent
“ethnic cleansing” by Serbian troops against Muslims in
Bosnia
• Same year a U.S. initiative in Somalia, an African nation
wracked by civil war and famine, ended in failure when a
Somali warlord ambushed and killed 15 American
commandos
• 1999: Clinton proposed a NATO effort to prevent
Yugoslavian General Slobodan Milosevic from crushing the
predominantly Muslim province of Kosovo, which was
attempting to secede
– After several months of intense NATO bombing of Serbia, Milosevic
withdrew from Kosovo
– Within a year, he was forced from office and into prison, awaiting trial
for war crimes before a UN tribunal
THE ECONOMIC BOOM
AND THE INTERNET
• Significant part of the prosperity of the
1990s came from new technologies
such as cellular phones and genetic
engineering, but especially from the
development of the Internet
– Developed in the 1970s by U.S. military
and academic institutions to coordinate
research, the Internet lacked a common
language
– Early 1990s, Tim Berners-Lee, a British
physicist working at a research institute
in Switzerland, devised software that
became the “grammar” of the Internet
– With this language, the Internet became
the World Wide Web (WWW)
– The number of websites increased
exponentially
THE ECONOMIC BOOM
AND THE INTERNET
• In 1995, Bill Gates’s Microsoft
entered the picture with its
Windows operating system,
which made the computer easy
to use
– It competed with Netscape by
creating a web browser—Microsoft
Internet Explorer—and embedded
it in its software in the Windows 95
bundle
– Netscape and other service
providers protested that Microsoft
was threatening to monopolize
Internet access
THE ECONOMIC BOOM AND THE
INTERNET
• In 1995, Jeff Bezos’s Internet company
designed to sell books, Amazon.com,
made its first sale
– Within six years its annual sales
approached $3 billion and its stock soared
– Bezos became one of the richest men in
the nation
• Others thought they could do the same
with products fro pet food to
pornography
– Many start up companies consisted of little
more than the hopes of the founders
– “Venture capitalists” poured billions into
emerging “dot-coms”
THE ECONOMIC BOOM
AND THE INTERNET
• In 1999, some 200 Internet companies “went public,”
selling shares in the major stock exchanges
– Raised $20 billion easily
– NASDAQ, the exchange which specialized in tech
companies, had its index more than double between
October 1999 and March 2000
– Prices of dot-com stocks kept climbing though few
companies generated profits and some lacked revenue all
together
• Spring 2000: A selling wave hit tech stocks and
spilled over to other companies
– Stock prices plummeted with the NASDAQ loosing nearly
half its value in six months
– In all, some $2 trillion in stocks and stock funds disappeared
THE 2000 ELECTION:
George W. Bush Wins by One Vote
• During the 2000 campaign, Vice President Al
Gore, tried to prove his indispensability to
Clinton, whose administration was credited with
the economic growth of the 1990s, but distance
himself from the scandals
– Raised money for the Democratic party but did not
mention Clinton
– Gore ran afoul of election laws by soliciting funds in
inappropriate places while Clinton devoted his
energies to his wife’s successful campaign to
represent New York in the Senate
– Gore became the Democratic nominee and chose
Senator Joseph Lieberman, an orthodox Jew from
Connecticut as his running mate
THE 2000 ELECTION:
George W. Bush Wins by One Vote
• The Republican nominee was George W. Bush, son of
former president Bush, who selected the defense
secretary from his father’s administration, Richard
Cheney, as his running mate
• Consumer activist and environmentalist Ralph Nader
also entered the race on the Green party ticket
• Main issue was what to do with the federal surplus of $1
trillion within five years
– Bush wanted a substantial tax cut
– Gore wanted to increase spending on education and shore up
the social security system
• Gore seemed stiff, though knowledgeable while Bush
ambushed the English language
– Candidates spent a record $1 billion to get their messages to the
voters
THE 2000 ELECTION:
George W. Bush Wins by One Vote
• On election night, it appeared at midnight that Bush
had 246 electoral votes and Gore 267 with 270 votes
to win and Florida, with 25 votes, undecided
– Bush had a lead in Florida of 1784 out of nearly 6 million
votes cast
– After a machine recount, Bush’s lead was reduced to
several hundred votes with Democrats complaining that a
punch-card ballot was confusing and that machines
routinely failed to count them correctly
• Gore’s lawyers demanded several predominantly Democratic
counties be recounted by hand
• Republicans claimed could not change voting procedures after the
election
• Yet when overseas absentee ballots came pouring in, many from
military personnel, Republicans demanded technical rules, such as
requiring the ballots be postmarked on or before election day be
waived
THE 2000 ELECTION:
George W. Bush Wins by One Vote
• Entire election wound up in the courts
– 12 December 2000: the Supreme Court
ruled, 5 to 4, that the selective hand counts
violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal
protection
– Bush was the winner
• Nationwide, Gore received 51 million
votes to Bush’s 50.5 million
– Nader received 3 million
2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000
TERRORISM INTENSIFIES
• In the wake of the Cold War, many military dictators who
had been kept afloat by the U.S. or the Soviets found
themselves having to seek the support of the people in
order to stay in power
• In many Arab nations, rulers cultivated popular support
by denouncing Israel, which refused to return Palestinian
land seized in the 1967 war
– U.S. encouraged Israel to trade land for peace but few Israelis
believed the promises of Arab leaders who routinely called for
the destruction of Israel and had trained and funded terrorism
– American leaders called on Arab leaders to show their good faith
by putting an end to terrorism, then Israel would return some
land
– Yet Arab leaders, whose countries were often mired in poverty,
knew that they could garner popular support by denouncing
Israel
TERRORISM INTENSIFIES
• Since the U.S. heavily supported Israel, Arab
rage focused on the United States and American
soldiers serving abroad as well
• Several dozen separate terrorist organizations
were behind the attacks on American targets
– 1998: Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi oil
billionaire, published a fatwa—a religious edict—to
Islamic peoples throughout the world to “kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military….”
– Bin Laden was protected by an extremist Islamic
group, the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan
– Six months later, bin Laden’s organization—alQaeda—had perpetrated bombings of the U.S.
embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam in Africa
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
• At 8:40 on the morning of
September 11, 2001, Madeline
Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant
on American Airlines flight 11,
placed a call on her cell phone
to inform her supervisor in
Boston that 4 Arab men had
slashed the throats of two
attendants, forced their way into
the cockpit and taken over the
plane
– She provided their seat numbers
– When asked if she knew where
they were headed, she looked out
the window and realized they were
headed for the World Trade Center
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
• The Boeing 767 was traveling at 500 miles
per hour at 8:46 when it slammed into the
96th floor of the north tower, causing a
fireball to engulf 8 or 9 floors
• Fifteen minutes later a second jet plowed
into the 80th floor of the south tower
– 50,000 people worked in the World Trade
Center
– As thousands fled, hundreds of firefighters
charged up the stairs to try to rescue those who
were trapped
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
• At 9:30 the White House received word that
another hijacked airliner was barreling toward
Washington, D.C.
– Secret Service agents rushed Cheney to an emergency
command bunker below the White House
• At 9:35 the airliner plunged into the Pentagon and
burst into flames
– Cheney telephoned Bush, who was in Florida, to tell him
the nation was under attack
– Bush authorized the Air Force to shoot down any other
hijacked airliners
• A few minutes later a fourth hijacked airliner
plowed into a field in Pennsylvania after
passengers had declared their intention—by cell
phone—to retake the plane
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
• At 9:59, the south tower of the World Trade center
collapsed followed by the north tower half an hour
later
– Nearly 3000 lay dead in the rubble, including the Fire
Chief and 350 firemen
– Several hundred more perished at the Pentagon and
the crash of the airliner in Pennsylvania
• Teams of four or five Arabic speaking men had
hijacked each of the planes
– Several of the hijackers were quickly linked to al-Qaeda
and Osama bin Laden, who had previously been
indicted (but not captured) for the 1998 bombing of the
U.S. embassies in East Africa and the 2000 attack on
the USS Cole
– Bin Laden operated with impunity in Afghanistan
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
• That evening, President Bush assured Americans
that the terrorists would be found and made to pay
for their attacks and that any government
harboring them would be held equally responsible
– Bin Laden, in a video recording, denied involvement in
the attacks but praised those who had carried them out
• Several weeks later, Bush declared that bin Laden
would be taken “dead or alive” and offered $25
million for his death or capture
– Within the United States, thousands of Arabs were
rounded up and detained
– Those with visa and immigration violations were
imprisoned
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
• Several letters addressed to government
officials included threatening messages and
anthrax, which could prove fatal if touched or
inhaled
– Thousands of government employees took
antibiotics as a precaution
– Some spores had seeped out and half a dozen
postal workers and mail recipients died
• Bush created the Cabinet position of Office of
Homeland Security and named Pennsylvania
Governor Tom Ridge to direct it
AMERICA FIGHTS BACK:
War in Afghanistan
• Bin Laden was in Afghanistan protected by the Taliban
– Taliban had fought the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, inflicting
heavy losses with weapons and support from the U.S.
• Source of the anthrax letters was problematic
• Bush’s secretary of state, Colin Powell, maintained
that U.S. troops should only be deployed when their
political objective was clear, military advantage
overwhelming and means of disengaging secure—
Powell Doctrine
– Powell urged many European, Asian and Islamic states to
crack down on terrorist cells in their countries and to provide
assistance in the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban
– Persuaded anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan to join forces to
topple the regime
AMERICA FIGHTS BACK:
War in Afghanistan
• 20 September: Bush ordered the Taliban to turn
over bin Laden and top al-Qaeda leaders
– When the Taliban refused, Bush unleashed missiles and
warplanes against Taliban installations and defenses
– Taliban forces hunkered in bunkers to withstand
bombings and fought off attacks by anti-Taliban forces
– Small teams of American soldiers with hand-held
computers and satellite-linked navigational devices,
joined with anti-Taliban contingents, marking Taliban
positions with laser spotters and communicating with high
altitude bombers which dropped electronically guided
bombs from 30,000 feet
– Taliban soldiers fled or switched sides
– Taliban were driven from power with the loss of only one
U.S. soldier to enemy fire (a few U.S. soldiers and
hundreds of civilians were killed by errant bombs)
THE SECOND IRAQ WAR
• January 2002: After the Taliban had been crushed, Bush
declared the U.S. would take “preemptive actions” against
regimes that threatened it
– Identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an axis of evil
– Immediately after September 11, he initiated plans to attack Iraq
• Secretary of State Powell advised Bush not to attack Iraq
– If Saddam were driven from power, U.S. would be left with Iraq and
the following disarray
– Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others insisted
Iraqis would welcome liberation and embrace democracy and a free
Iraq would stimulate democratic reforms throughout the Middle East
• Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed an invasion of half a million
troops
– Rumsfeld insisted on a smaller, faster, cheaper force of 125,000
– Spring 2002: CIA agents were spirited into Iraq and airplanes and
soldiers were deployed to Kuwait
– Bush denied he had any plans to attack Iraq
THE SECOND IRAQ WAR
• In September, Bush sought congressional
support, stating that the Iraqi leader had
weapons of mass destruction
– Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of war
appropriations
– Bush called on the UN to join in the attack
• Following the Iran-Iraq War, UN inspectors
had destroyed thousands of tons of chemical
weapons
– In recent years these inspectors had found little
further evidence of these weapons
THE SECOND IRAQ WAR
• Powell presented “evidence” to the UN that
Saddam had been building and stockpiling
weapons of mass destruction that the UN
inspectors had not found
– UN Security Council order Saddam to cooperate
with UN inspectors and warned of serious
consequences if he did not comply
– After several months, Bush grew impatient with
the slow pace of the inspections
– When the Security Council refused to take
action, Bush formed a coalition—Great Britain,
Italy, Spain and a few other countries—to oust
Saddam
THE SECOND IRAQ WAR
• 20 March 2003: American missiles and
bombs—in the Shock and Awe campaign—
pounded Saddam’s defenses
– Two armored columns roared across the Kuwaiti
border into Iraq
– British forces moved along the coast toward the
oil port of Basra
– TV reporters provided live coverage
– Iraqi resistance was disorganized and ineffective
– American forces advanced half way to Baghdad
the first night
THE SECOND IRAQ WAR
• 4 April: U.S. Army seized the Baghdad International
Airport
• The next morning, 800 American soldiers in tanks
and armored vehicles blasted their way into
downtown Baghdad
–
–
–
–
Some Iraqis poured into the streets to celebrate
Others looted offices, museums, stores, and hospitals
Saddam disappeared and his government evaporated
By mid-April, the Pentagon declared major combat
operations had come to an end
• Iraq was in chaos and there were too few U.S.
soldiers to preserve order
– Islamic radicals joined with Saddam supporters to attack
occupation forces
THE ELECTION OF 2004
• The war became the main issue of the election
campaign
• Democratic candidate Howard Dean of Vermont
leapt ahead in the polls by denouncing the war
– Proved adept at using the Internet to raise funds and
recruit supporters
– Called for national health insurance and legal
recognition of marriage for gays and lesbians
• December 2003: American soldiers captured
Saddam and Bush’s approval rating soared
– Democrats started looking for an alternative to ultraliberal Dean
THE ELECTION OF 2004
• By January, Senator John Kerry of
Massachusetts was gaining in the polls and, by
April, was the Democratic nominee
– Chose Senator John Edwards of North Carolina as
his running mate
• In Iraq the situation deteriorated as 60 Minutes
revealed American captors had tortured Iraqi
captives in the Abu Ghraib prison
– Casualties mounted
– Cost of the occupation was spiraling upward
– No Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been
found
THE ELECTION OF 2004
• At the Democratic Convention in July,
Kerry emphasized his military service in
Vietnam
– Contrast to Bush who had served in the
National Guard in Alabama and Texas during
the war
– Criticized Bush for attacking Iraq before
capturing bin Laden and for starting the war
with insufficient international support and
insufficient troops to maintain order and
rebuild Iraq
THE ELECTION OF 2004
• Bush mobilized conservatives and religious fundamentalists
by proposing a constitutional amendment that would define
marriage as the union between a man and a woman
– Kerry endorsed gay rights but endlessly qualified previous
statements on same-sex marriage
• Bush’s campaign attacked Kerry’s war record
– Some Vietnam veterans seized on the fact that in 1971 Kerry had
told a congressional committee that the Vietnam war was wrong and
immoral
– Republicans also portrayed Kerry as opportunistic and Bush
accused him of flip-flopping
• More than 12 million new voters came to the polls for one of
the most divisive elections in recent history
– Kerry received 57 million votes but Bush got 60 million and won with
286 electoral votes to 252
THE IMPONDERABLE FUTURE
• In Iraq, bombings rocked police stations
and public squares and smoldering
tensions between rival Muslim groups
threatened to break into civil war
• By early 2005, over 1400 American
soldiers had been killed, 10 times more
than had died fighting to topple Saddam’s
regime
• The federal deficit approached half a
trillion dollars
WEBSITES
• Desert Storm
http://www.desert-storm.com
• Investigating the President: The Trial
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/resources/1998/l
ewinsky
• Kosovo
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/10/kosovo
• Oklahoma City Bombing
http://www.cnn.com/US/9703/okc.trial