ch 41 outline

Ch 41

Bill Clinton: the First Baby-Boomer President

--->In 1992, the Democrats chose Bill Clinton as their candidate and Albert Gore, Jr. as his running mate

--->The Democrats tried a new approach, promoting growth, strong defense, and anticrime policies while campaigning to stimulate the economy

--->The Republicans dwelt on “family values” and selected Bush for another round and J. Danforth Quayle as his running mate

--->Third party candidate Ross Perot added color to the election by getting 19,742,267 votes in the election but Clinton won, 370 to 168 in the Electoral College

--->Congress and the presidential cabinet were filled with minorities and more women, including the first female attorney general ever, Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court

A False Start for Reform

--->Upon entering office, Clinton called for accepting homosexuals in the armed forces, but finally had to settle for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that unofficially accepted gays and lesbians

--->Clinton also appointed his wife, Hillary, to revamp the nation’s health and medical care system, and when it was revealed in October 1993, critics blasted it as cumbersome, confusing, and unpractical, thus suddenly making Hillary Rodham Clinton a liability whereas before, she had been a full, equal political partner of her husband

--->By 1996, Clinton had shrunk the federal deficit to its lowest level in a decade, and in 1993, he passed a gun-control law called the Brady Bill, named after presidential aide James Brady who had been wounded in President Reagan’s attempted assassination

--->In July 1994, Clinton persuaded Congress to pass a $30 billion anticrime bill.

--->During the decade, a radical Muslim group bombed the World Trade Center in New York, killing six

---> An American terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, bombed the federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, taking 169 lives

The Politics of Distrust

--->In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans on a sweeping attack of Clinton’s liberal failures with a conservative “Contract with America,” and that year, Republicans won all incumbent seats as well as eight more seats in the Senate and 53 more seats in the House

--->In 1996, Clinton ran against Republican Bob Dole and won, 379 to 159, and Ross Perot again finished third

Clinton Again

--->Clinton became the first Democrat to be re-elected since FDR

--->He put conservatives on the defensive by claiming the middle ground

--->He embraced the Welfare Reform Bill.

--->He balanced affirmative action

--->Mostly, Clinton enjoyed the popularity of a president during an economic good-time

--->He supported the controversial NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) which cut tariffs and trade barriers between Mexico—U.S.—Canada

--->Similarly, he supported the start of the WTO (World Trade Agreement) to lower trade barriers internationally

--->The issue of campaign finance reform rose to water level. Republicans and Clinton alike, gave the issue lip service, but did nothing

Problems Abroad

--->Clinton sent troops to Somalia (where some were killed), withdrew them, and also meddled in Northern Ireland to no good effect

--->Clinton committed American troops to NATO to keep the peace in the former Yugoslavia, and he sent 20,000 troops to return Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti

--->He resolutely supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that made a free-trade zone surrounding Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., then helped form the World Trade Organization (WTO), the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and also provided $20 billion to Mexico in 1995 to help its faltering economy

--->Clinton also presided over an historic reconciliation meeting in 1993 between Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Yasir Arafat at the White House

Scandal and Impeachment

--->The end of the Cold War left the U.S. groping for a diplomatic formula to replace anti-Communism and revealed misconduct by the CIA and the FBI

--->Political reporter Joe Klein wrote Primary Colors, mirroring some of Clinton’s personal life/womanizing

--->In 1993, Vincent Foster, Jr. apparently committed suicide, perhaps overstressed at having to manage Clinton’s legal and financial affairs

--->Clinton began his second term, the first by a Democratic president since FDR, he had Republican majorities in both houses of Congress going against him

--->his place likely was made with the infamous Monica Lewinski sex scandal

---> Clinton had oral sex in the White House Oval Office with the intern Lewinski then he denied that he had done so, figuring that oral sex was not actually sex

--->For his “little white lie,” Clinton was impeached by the House

--->However, Republicans were unable to get the necessary 2/3 super-majority vote in the Senate to kick Clinton from the White House

Clinton’s Legacy

--->In his last several months as president, Clinton tried to secure a non-Monica legacy

---->He named tracts of land as preservations

---->He initiated a “patients’ bill of rights”

--->He hired more teachers and police officers

The Bush-Gore Presidential Battle

--->The 2000 election began to shape up as a colorful one

--->Democrats chose Vice President Albert Gore

--->The Green Party (consisting mostly of liberals and environmentalists) chose consumer advocate Ralph Nader

--->Republicans chose Texas governor George W. Bush

--->What to do with the extra money

--->Bush said to make big cut taxes for all

--->Gore said to make smaller tax cuts to the middle class only, then use the rest to shore up the debt, Social Security, and Medicare

--->Nader, in reality, was little more than a side-show

The Controversial Election of 2000

--->A close finish was expected, but not to the degree to which it actually happened

--->Controversy surrounded Florida

--->Having the nation’s 4th most electoral votes, Florida was the swing-state

--->Florida effectively had a tie, with Bush ahead by the slightest of margins

--->State law required a recount

--->The recount upheld Bush’s narrow win

--->As the confusion wore on and America needed a president A.S.A.P., Florida eventually validated the Bush vote

--->Gore actually got more popular votes (50,999,897 to Bush’s 50,456,002), but lost the critical electoral vote (266 to Bush’s 271)

Bush Begins

--->Bush took office talking up his Texas upbringing (true) and talking down his family’s Back-East privilege

--->Bush took on hot topics and fired up both sides of the political spectrum

--->He withdrew U.S. support from international programs that okayed abortion

--->He advocated faith-based social welfare programs

--->He opposed stem-cell research, which had great medical possibilities, on the grounds that the embryo in reality was a small person and doing tests on it was nothing other than abortion

--->He angered environmentalists with his policies

--->He even worried conservatives by cutting taxes $1.3 trillion. The budget surpluses of the 90s turned into a $400 billion deficit by 2004

Terrorism Comes to America

--->On September 11, 2001, America’s centuries-old enjoyment of being on “our side of the pond” ended when militant Muslim radicals attacked America

--->Two planes slammed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City

--->A third plane slammed into the Pentagon

--->A fourth plane was aiming for the White House, but heroic passengers took back the plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field

--->President Bush’s leadership after the attacks was solemn and many began to forget the disputed election of 2000.

--->He identified the culprits as Al Qaeda, a religious militant terrorist group, led by Osama Bin Laden

---> Bush called for Bin Laden’s head. Afghanistan refused to hand him over so Bush ordered the military to go on the offensive and hunt him down. The hunt proved to be difficult and Bin Laden proved elusive

--->The Patriot Act gave the government extended surveillance rights. Critics charged this was a Big Brother-like infringement of rights—a reversal of the freedoms that Americans were fighting for.

Bush Takes the Offensive Against Iraq

--->Saddam Hussein had been a long time menace to many people

--_>At heart of problems: intelligence at the time suggested that Hussein had and was actively making weapons of mass destruction (“WMDs”)

--->Bush decided it was time for action, Bush sought the U.N.’s approval for taking military action, but some nations, notably France with its Security Council veto, had cold feet

--->Heavy majorities of Congress in October of 2002 approved armed force against Iraq

Owning Iraq

--->Iraqi insurgents attacked American G.I.’s and casualties mounted to nearly 1,200 by 2004

--->new goals

---> establish security in Iraq, hopefully by Iraqi troops

--->create and turn over control to a new democratically elected Iraqi government

--->A new government was created and limited power handed over on June 28, 2004

A Country in Conflict

--->Other issues divided America:

--->Democrats continually grumbled about the “stolen” 2000 election

--->Civil libertarians fumed over the Patriot Act

--->Pacifists said the WMD reasoning was made up from the get-go to start a war

--->Big business (like Enron and WorldCom that monkeyed with their books) supposedly fattened t

--->rich and gleaned the poor

--->Social warfare continued over abortion and homosexuality

--->Affirmative action still boiled, and the Supreme Court came up with mathematical formulae for minority admittance to undergrads

Reelecting George W. Bush

--->Republicans put Bush up for reelection in 2004

--->Democrats selected Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts

--->Bush said to “stay the course”; Kerry took an anti-war position

--->Kerry’s position and image was somewhat confounding:

--->Kerry was a Vietnam war hero, but then a Vietnam war protestor

--->Kerry voted for military action in Iraq, but then voted against a bill for military spending for the war

--->In the election, and despite polls to the contrary, Bush won with a surprisingly strong showing (a popular vote of 60,639,281 to Kerry’s 57,355,978) of 286 electoral votes to Kerry’s 252