AP Outline Notes – Page 984



AP Outline Notes – Page 984 –

A. Round Two for Reagan

1) Reagan was nominated for a second term by the Republicans in 1984. His running mate would again by vice president George H.W. Bush.

2) The Democrats nominated Sen. Walter Mondale, whose running mate was Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of NY.

a) Ferraro was the first woman to ever be a nominee on a national ticket.

3) Reagan was elected in a landslide.

4) The main objectives of Reagan in his first term were to reduce the size of government and to cut taxes. Foreign policy issues would be the focus of his second four years.

5) 1985 – Mikhail Gorbachev was installed as leader of the Soviet Union. He initiated two major reform programs:

a) Glasnost – or ‘openness’, called for introducing free speech and a measure of political liberty.

b) Perestroika – called for economic restructuring, and many of the free-market practices, such as profit motive.

6) Both glasnost and perestroika required that the Soviet Union shrink the size of its huge military machine and direct its focus on the troubled civilian economy.

a) This necessitated an end to the Cold War.

b) 1985 - Gorbachev made warm overtures to the West, including announcing a cessation of deployment of Soviet intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) targeted on Western Europe, pending an agreement on the complete elimination of same.

c) Gorbachev pushed this at the first of four Summit meetings with Reagan in Geneva in Nov, 1985.

d) The second of the summits was at Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, which broke down in a stalemate.

e) A third summit, in Washington, D.C., in Dec, 1987, resulted in the two signing the INF treaty, banning all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe.

f) This result was sought by for a long time, by each side.

g) The two met in May, 1988 at a final summit in Moscow. Reagan, who had come into the presidency condemning the ‘evil empire’ of Soviet communism, now warmly praised Gorbachev. This was sort of an end to the Cold War in many ways.

7) Reagan made other decisive foreign policy moves.

a) He provided strong backing in Feb of 1986 for Corazon Aquino’s ouster of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.

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8) 1986 - Reagan ordered a lightening raid on Libya in retaliation for Libyan sponsorship of terror attacks.

a) In the summer of 1987, U.S. naval ships began escorting tankers through the Persian Gulf - a hot spot because of the Iran Iraq War.

B. The Iran Contra Imbroglio

1) Two of the major foreign policy problems that Reagan had to address were

a) American hostages, seized by Muslim extremists in Lebanon, and

b) The continuing hold on power by the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

2) Reagan tried hard to get Congress to provide military aid to the contra rebels fighting the Sandinista regime, but was not successful.

3) 1985 – American diplomats secretly arranged arms sales to Iran, in return for Iran obtaining release of American hostages held by Middle Eastern terrorists. The money from the arms sales was diverted to the contras.

a) These actions violated a congressional ban on military aid to the contras. Reagan had also said previously that he would never negotiate with terrorists.

b) News of these secret dealings became public in Nov, 1986, and brought about much controversy.

c) Reagan claimed that he was innocent of wrongdoing and unaware of what his subordinates were doing.

d) A congressional committee condemned the ‘secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law’ that was displayed by administration officials and concluded that ‘if the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have.’

e) Criminal indictments were handed down against Oliver North and his superior at the National Security Council, Admiral John Poindexter. North and Poindexter were both found guilty of criminal conduct, but their convictions were overturned on appeal.

f) Sec of Defense Casper Weinberger received a presidential pardon before he was formally tried.

g) Out of the Iran Contra affair emerged an image of a lazy and maybe even senile president who napped through meetings and paid little or no attention to details regarding policy.

h) Even with these damaging revelations, Reagan would remain one of the most popular and beloved presidents in modern American history.

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C. Reagan’s Economic Legacy

1) Reagan had taken office vowing to lessen government regulations, lower taxes, and balance the budget.

2) He eased many regulatory rules, and pushed major tax reform bills through Congress in 1981 and 1986.

3) Supply-side economics was supposed to generate increase government revenue, because it would stimulate the economy (lowering the taxes).

a) But, the tax reduction and the huge increases in military spending created a huge deficit - $200 billion annually.

b) In his 8 years in office, Reagan added nearly $2 trillion to the national debt.- more than all his predecessors combined.

c) These huge deficits of the Reagan years were an economic failure.

d) These deficits meant that the future generations of Americans would have to either work harder, lower their standard of living, or both, to pay foreign creditors when the debt payments are due.

e) 1986 – Congress passed legislation requiring a balanced budget by 1991.

1) This was not nearly enough to close the budget gap, and the national debt continued to grow.

2) These deficits also represented sort of a political triumph, in that a major goal of Reagan was to slaw the growth of government, and to stop or even repeal the social programs launched by the Great Society.

3) By appearing to make new social spending politically and practically impossible for the foreseeable future, the deficits served their purpose. Thus, Reagan’s last political objective – the containment of the welfare state – was achieved.

4) Thus, the legacy of Reaganomics would be large and enduring.

4) But, another legacy of the 1980s was a sharp reversal of a long-term trend toward a more equitable distribution of income. Another was the economic strain put on the middle class.

D. The Religious Right

1) 1979 – Rev. Jerry Falwell, an evangelical minister from Lynchburg, Virginia, founded a political organization called the Moral Majority.

2) Falwell preached against

a) sexual permissiveness

b) abortion

c) feminism, and

d) spread of gay rights.

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3) The Moral Majority registered between 2 and 3 million voters in its first two years.

4) Through radio, cable TV, and direct mailing, the ‘televangelists’ reached huge audiences in the 1980s and collected millions of dollars. They became huge political advocates of conservative causes.

5) Members of the religious right were sometimes called ‘movement conservatives.’

6) ‘the personal was political’ – what in the past had been personal matters – homosexuality, gender roles, and prayer – became the basis of a political movement.

7) The religious right practiced a form of ‘identity politics.’

a) But rather than defining themselves as gay voters or Hispanic voters, they declared themselves to be Christian or pro-life voters.

b) The ‘New Right’ mimicked some of tactics of the ‘New Left.’

c) Several leaders of the religious right fell from grace toward the end of the 1980s with revelations of matters such as repeated trysts with prostitutes, financial misconduct, and sexual misconduct.

d) Despite these scandals, the power of conservative Christians was not diminished.

E. Conservatism in the Courts

1) The courts became the principal tool of Reagan in the ‘culture wars’ that were demanded by the religious right.

2) Reagan appointed a near-majority of all sitting federal judges.

a) He nominated three new conservative-minded justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1) Sandra Day O’Connor, joining the Supreme Court in 1981, was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. (Thurgood Marshall had been the first African American to join the Court (1967)

3) Reaganism repudiated two of the stalwarts of liberal political culture – affirmative action and abortion.

4) 1984 – The Supreme Court gave preference in some circumstances to union rules over affirmative action, in the context job seniority and promotion (Memphis fire fighters case.)

5) In Ward’s Cove Packing v. Antonia (1989) and Martin v. Wilks (1989), the Supreme Court made it harder to prove racial discrimination by employers in the hiring process, and made it easier for white males to argue that they were victims of reverse discrimination by employers who followed affirmative action practices. NOTE – Congress passed laws in 1991 that partially reversed the effect of these decisions.

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6) In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court limited the scope of abortion rights established in Roe v. Wade.

a) In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court ruled that states could restrict access to abortion as long as they did not place an ‘undue burden’ on the woman.

b) Using this standard, the Court ruled that a state could not compel a wife to notify her husband about an abortion but could require a minor child to notify parents, and could impose certain other restrictions as well.

c) These decisions drove the pro-choice organizations to become more militant. State legislatures thus had to grapple with the issue of abortion regulations in the context of Supreme Court rulings. The issue would be a thorny and divisive one for our culture, and one more legacy of the Reagan era.

F. Referendum on Reaganism in 1998

1) Republicans lost control of the Senate in the midterm elections 1986.

2) The Democratically controlled Senate rejected Reagan’s nomination of conservative jurist Robert Bork for the Supreme Court.

3) Democrats made political use out of the Iran-contra scandal and the allegedly unethical behavior that tainted an unusually large number of Reagan’s administration -

a) Top EPA administrators resigned in disgrace over misappropriation of funds.

b) Sec of Labor resigned to go on trial for fraud and larceny (he was eventually acquitted.)

c) Reagan’s personal White House aid was convicted of perjury in 1988.

d) Atty Gen Edwin Meese was investigated by a fed special prosecutor on influence-peddling charges.

e) Reagan’s secretary of housing and urban development was investigated on charges of fraud and favoritism in awarding of lucrative federal housing grants.

4) The ‘twin towers’ of deficits – the federal budget deficit and the international trade deficit – continued to mount.

5) Falling oil prices hurt the economy of the Southwest, slashing real estate prices and undermining hundreds of savings-and-loans (S&L) institutions.

a) The S&Ls were damaged so much, that a federal bailout took place – at an estimated cost of well over $500 billion.

b) At the same time, many American banks held near-worthless loans that they had made to Third World nations, especially in Latin America.

c) More banks and savings institutions were folding than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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d) A wave of mergers, acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts took place on Wall Street, resulting in huge windfalls for many brokers and traders, and many companies were left with huge debt.

e) Black Monday – October 19, 1987 – the leading stock market index fell 508 points – the greatest one-day decline in history.

f) Several democrats sought the presidential nomination with these circumstances. The front-runner, former Sen.Gary Hart of Colorado, was forced to drop-out amidst charges of sexual misconduct.

1) Jessie Jackson, a black candidate seeking the Democratic nomination, sought to create a ‘rainbow coalition’ of minorities and the disadvantaged.

2) The Democratic nomination went to Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.

3) The Republicans nominated vice president George H. W. Bush, who ran mostly on Reagan’s tax cuts, strong defense policies, toughness on crime, opposition to abortion, and mediocre economic expansion.

4) Dukakis did little to successfully exploit the ethical and economic weaknesses of the Republicans. He came across to TV viewers as almost devoid of emotion.

5) Bush won the 1988 presidential election comfortably.

G. George H.W. Bush and the End of the Cold War

1) George H.W. Bush was born into privilege. His father was a U.S. Senator from Connecticut. He served heroically as a Navy pilot during WWII in the Pacific. Upon completion of his military duties he finished his education at Yale.

2) He amassed a modest fortune in the oil business in Texas.

3) Deeply committed to public service, he left the business world and became a congressman, and then held several different posts in different Republican administrations -

a) emissary to China

b) ambassador to the United Nations

c) director of the CIA

d) vice president

4) As president, he promised to work for a ‘kinder, gentler America.’

5) In the early months of the Bush administration, democracy was spreading like wildfire in the communist world.

a) Spring, 1989 – Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China was the sight of hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators rallying behind a thirty-foot high ‘Goddess of Democracy.’

b) June, 1989 – autocrats in China brutally crushed the pro-democracy movement.

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c) Tanks rolled through the crowds, and hundreds of protesters were killed with machine guns.

d) In the weeks that followed, scores of the arrested demonstrators were publicly executed after show ‘trials.’

e) World opinion spoke up loudly in condemnation of the violent suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrators.

f) Though President Bush criticized the Chinese, he insisted on maintaining normal relations with China.

6) Drastic changes also took place in Eastern Europe.

a) The Solidarity movement in Poland sparked change in the puppet regimes of Eastern Europe, when it toppled the communist government in Poland in August.

b) Very quickly thereafter, communist governments in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Romania all toppled.

c) December, 1989 – The Berlin Wall, the symbol of a divided Europe during the Cold War started to crumble, and finally began to come down, signaling the imminent end of the 45 year-long Cold War.

1) With the approval of the victorious WWII Allied powers, East and West Germany reunited in October, 1990.

d) Most shocking of all were the changes that took place in the Soviet Union -

1) Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost policies had set forces in motion that would surge out of control.

2) August, 1991 - Old hard-liners, in a last ditch effort to save the faltering communist system, attempted a military coup.

3) With the support of Boris Yelstin, president of the Russian Republic, Gorbachev put-down the coup.

4) December, 1991 – Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president, and the Soviet Union dissolved into its component parts – 15 republics joined in a loose confederation known as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

a) Russia was the most powerful state of the CIS, and Yelstin was the most dominant leader within Russia.

b) To varying degrees, the new governments in the CIS repudiated communism and embraced free market economies and democratic reforms.

c) With the end of the Soviet Union came the end of the Cold War era.

d) Bush now spoke optimistically of a ‘new world order,’ where democracy would flourish and diplomacy, not weaponry, would be the means to resolve disputes between nations.

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e) Troubling questions still existed: who would honor the arms control agreements with the U.S., and which of the successor states of the old USSR would take command of the huge Soviet nuclear arsenal? (NOTE: this was partially answered when Bush and Yeltsin signed the START II agreement shortly before Bush left office. This agreement committed both powers to reduce their long-range nuclear arsenals by 2/3s over the next ten years.)

5) Nationalistic fervor and long simmering ethnic and racial hatreds came to the surface in the nations that had made up the old Soviet empire.

6) A particularly bitter conflict took place in the Russian Caucasus in 1991, when the Chechnyan minority tried to declare their independence from Russia.

a) This prompted Yelstin to send in Russian troops.

b) Ethnic warfare took over other crumbling communist nations as well, notably in Yugoslavia, embroiled in vicious ‘ethnic cleansing’ campaigns against various minorities.

c) It became apparent, that the ‘evil’ communist regimes of Eastern Europe had at least contained the ancient ethnic hatreds that were indigenous to the region.

d) Refugees from the war-torn regions flooded into Western Europe.

e) The strong West German economy shook under the huge burden of absorbing a physically decrepit and technologically backward former communist East Germany.

7) The end of the Cold War was also a mixed blessing for the U.S., in that for almost 50 years, containment had been the primary goal of American foreign policy, and the U.S. had consistently pursued an internationalist foreign policy.

a) The question became – with the end of the Cold War, would the U.S. revert back to isolationism?

b) The Cold War had the effect of deeply stimulating the U.S. economy.

c) Huge economic sectors such as aerospace were fed by military contracts.

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d) 1991 – The cost to our economy of not having the Cold War became very evident, as the Pentagon announced the closing of 34 military bases and cancelled a $52 billion order for a Navy attack plane.

1) More closing and cancellations ensued.

2) Communities that formally were the beneficiaries of this military spending now almost dried up. Particularly hard hit was Southern California.

8) In other areas of the world, democracy continued its expansion.

a) 1990 - South Africa – the white regime freed African leader Nelson Mandela, who had served 27 years in prison for conspiracy to overthrow the government.

b) Four years later, Mandela was elected president of South Africa.

c) 1990 – Free elections in Nicaragua ousted the leftist Sandinista regime.

d) 1992 – Peace finally reigns in war-torn El Salvador.

H. The Persian Gulf Crisis

1) December, 1989 – Bush sent airborne troops into Panama to capture drug lord dictator Manuel Noriega.

2) Summer, 1990 – Saddam Hussein, the ruthless Iraqi dictator, sent military troops into oil-rich Kuwait.

3) Iraq needed the oil to pay huge debts that Iraq had run-up during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War (which ended in a stalemate in 1988.) Saddam’s larger goal was to take control of the entire Persian Gulf region.

4) Ironically Saddam had been supplied with weapons by the U.S. during Iraq’s war with Iran.

5) August 2, 1990 – Saddam’s military invaded Kuwait.

a) The United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned Saddam’s actions, and on August 3, demanded the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Iraqi troops.

b) An economic embargo on Iraq failed to make Iraq comply.

c) The U.N. Security Council gave Saddam an ultimatum – withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991, or U.S. forces would use ‘all necessary means’ to expel the Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

d) January 12, 1991 – With Saddam failing to withdraw, the U.S. Congress voted to approve the use of force.

e) The U.S. put well over a half-million troops into the Persian Gulf region, which was most the largest contingent of the coalition forces.

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I. Fighting ‘Operation Desert Storm’

1) On January 16, 1991, the U.S. and its U.N. allies unleashed a fierce air war against Iraq.

2) Coalition warplanes targeted occupied areas of Kuwait and Iraq itself.

3) The air strikes were an awesome display of technology and precision in modern warfare.

4) Iraq responded by launching ‘Scud’ short-range ballistic missiles against civilian and military targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

5) Saddam had stockpiled tons of chemical and biological weapons, and could inflict horrible damage with them.

6) Saddam released a giant oil slick into the Persian Gulf to forestall an amphibious assault and ignited hundreds of oil wells.

a) The smoke from the oil wells obstructed aerial view.

7) American General Norman ‘Stormin’ Norman’ Schwarzkopf developed the following strategy to deal with these circumstances –

a) apply relentless bombing to the enemy

b) after that, send in a huge wave of ground troops and armor.

c) Feb 23, 1991 – the land war began – “Operation Desert Storm” – it lasted only four days. It would be known as the ‘hundred-hour war.’

d) Like lightning, the U.N. forces penetrated deep within Iraq, outflanking the occupying forces in Kuwait, and cutting off the enemy’s ability to either retreat or reinforce.

e) Allied causalities were very light, while much of Iraq’s fighting force was quickly destroyed or captured.

f) Feb 27, 1991 – Saddam accepted a cease-fire, and Kuwait was liberated.

g) Many Americans cheered the quick and easy victory, and those that opposed the war never really had much of an opportunity to organize their dissent, because the war was over so quickly.

h) The troops from Operation Desert Storm returned home to a hero’s welcome.

i) But, the War had not deposed Saddam, and more trouble remained on the horizon for the U.S. in the Middle Eastern region.

J. Bush on the Home Front

1) When inaugurated, Bush promised to work for a ‘kinder, gentler America.’

a) 1990 – Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibited discrimination against 43 million U.S. citizens with physical or mental disabilities.

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b) 1992 – Bush signed a major water projects bill in 1992, which fundamentally reformed the distribution federally subsidized water in the West.

a) This law put the interests of the environment ahead of agricultural interests, and made much more water available to the cities of the West.

b) 1990 – The Department of Education challenged the legality of scholarships targeted for racial minorities.

2) 1991 – Bush nominated conservative African American federal circuit court of appeals justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

a) Thomas was a strong critic of affirmative action policies.

b) Thomas was nominated to fill the seat of Thurgood Marshall, the first black to sit on the Court, and a champion of civil liberties.

c) Thomas was opposed by the NAACP, NOW (National Organization for Women), and organized labor.

d) The Senate Judiciary Committee vote on confirmation was split 7-7. The nomination was forwarded to the entire Senate for vote, without a recommendation.

e) Just days before the Senate were scheduled to vote on the nomination, it was revealed that Anita Hill, a law professor, had accused Thomas of sexual harassment.

f) A strong public outcry over this forced the Senate Judiciary committee to re-open its hearings.

g) These televised hearings involved Hill graphically describing the nature of the allegations, and Thomas angrily responding in denials.

h) In the end, by a vote of 52-48, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate.

i) Hill was lauded by many for bringing a new national focus on the issue of sexual harassment. In 1995, Sen. Robert Packwood had to resign after charges that he had sexually harassed several women.

3) A ‘gender gap’ started to emerge in American politics, as many pro-choice women grew more frustrated with the strong anti-abortion stand of the Republicans.

4) The economy was very damaging to Bush’s administration.

a) By 1992 the unemployment rate was over 7 percent.

b) The federal budget deficit continued to mushroom, exceeding $250 billion in each of the Bush years.

c) As a desperate attempt to stop the growth of the deficit, Bush agreed to a budget agreement with Congress that called for $133 billion in new taxes.

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d) The terrible budget crisis and the stagnant economy left political incumbents extremely vulnerable with the disgusted public.

1) The distaste for incumbents grew worse in 1991 when it was revealed that many Congressmen had bounced checks in their personal accounts in a private House ‘bank.’ No taxpayer money was involved, but the American people saw this as a sign of gross incompetence by their legislators.

2) With many incumbents sensing the disdain of the public, many announced that they would not seek reelection.

K. Bill Clinton: The First Baby-Boomer President

1) With the stagnant economy, the widening gender gap, and the rising of anti-incumbent spirit, Democrats were presented with real political opportunity.

2) Democrat William ‘Bill’ Jefferson Clinton won the Democratic nomination after withstanding a primary season in which he endured harsh accusations of womanizing and draft evasion.

3) Clinton selected Tennessee Senator Albert Gore as his running-mate.

4) Clinton called himself a ‘new’ Democrat, tempered by the long period that the Democrats had been out of the White House.

a) Clinton and other centrist Democrats had formed the Democratic Leadership Council to point the party away from its traditional dovish, anti-business, champion-of-the-underdog focus, and toward strong defense, pro-growth, and anticrime policies.

b) Clinton promised that if elected, he would stimulate the economy, reform the welfare system, and overhaul the country’s health-care system which had failed to provide medical coverage for about 37 million people.

5) The Republicans nominated George Bush and vice president Dan Quayle to a second term.

6) Bush put forth a rather fatigued and lackluster performance during the campaign.

a) Fear for the future of the economy was paramount on the minds of the voters. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ became a slogan of the Clinton campaign.

b) Nearly 20 percent of voters voted for third party candidate H. Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire who had run on the fact that he had never held public office before, and that he was the candidate, with his business background, who could address the staggering federal deficit.

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7) In a record turnout on Election Day, Clinton prevailed. Clinton was the first baby boomer to be elected president,

a) Perot’s approximate 20 percent of the vote was the strongest showing from an independent third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party in 1912.

b) Democrats carried clear majorities in both chambers of Congress, which seated near record numbers of new members, including 39 African Americans, 19 Hispanic Americans, 7 Asian Americans, one Native American, and 48 women.

c) Carol Moseley-Braun became the first African American woman elected to the Senate.

d) Women would also figure prominently in President Clinton’s cabinet, including the first female attorney general, Janet Reno, and Donna Shalala, Secretary of Commerce.

e) 1993 – Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, where she joined Sandra Day O’Connor – the first woman on the Supreme Court.

L. A False Start for Reform

1) Clinton misread the election results as a broad mandate for liberal reform.

2) He made a series of costly mistakes early in his administration.

a) He advocated an end to the ban on gays and lesbians in the military.

b) Confronted with serious opposition, the president went along with a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that quietly accepted lesbian and gay soldiers and sailors without officially acknowledging their sexual preference.

c) Health care – Clinton appointed his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as director of a task force given the responsibility of redesigning the medical-service industry.

d) Oct, 1993 – the task force presented its incredibly complicated plan. Critics railed the cumbersome, convoluted proposal which failed to pass Congressional muster.

e) As the principle architect of the failed health plan proposal, Hillary Clinton was the subject of much criticism.

1) When Hillary Clinton entered the White House, she came in as a nationally known lawyer, sharing the spotlight with her husband in a way that no previous First Lady had done.

2) By midway through the first term, she had become a political liability to the president, and thus stepped back from the national spotlight.

3) 1993 – Congress passed the ‘Brady Bill,’ named for presidential press secretary James Brady, who had survived being shot in the head during a assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981.

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4) 1994 – Congress passed a $30 billion anticrime bill, which contained a ban on several types of assault weapons.

5) With these laws, the U.S. government tried to deal with an epidemic of violence that shook American society in the 1990s.

a) 1993 – A radical Muslim group bombed New York’s World Trade Center, killing six.

b) 1995 – A larger blast in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, destroyed the federal building there, killing 168. This was presumed to be in retribution for the 1993 standoff in Waco, Texas, between federal agents and the Branch Davidians (a fundamentalist sect,) which ended in the destruction of the sect’s compound and the deaths of many of Branch Davidians, including women and children.

c) The Oklahoma City bombing and the Waco incident brought to light a growing problem in America – underground paramilitary units operating as ‘militias’, composed of alienated citizens who were ultra-suspicious of all governments.

d) Even law-abiding citizens were becoming disenchanted with government. The confidence that people had in government when they bounced back from the Great Depression and when they won WWII, was lessened by such events as the Vietnam War and Watergate.

1) By the mid 1990s, at least 23 states had imposed term-limits on elected officials, though the Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that such laws did not apply to federal offices.

M. The Politics of Distrust

1) 1994 – Widespread anti-government sentiment offered Republicans a political opening, which they took advantage of.

a) The ‘Contract with America’ – led by conservative Georgia representative Newt Gingrich, promised an all-out war on budget deficits and radical reductions in welfare programs.

b) 1994 congressional elections – amidst a conservative wave across the nation, every incumbent Republican governor, senator, and congressional candidate were reelected.

c) Republicans also gained 11 new governorships, 8 seats in the Senate, and 53 seats in the House of Representatives.

1) For the first time in 40 years, the Republicans gained control of both chambers of Congress.

2) Newt Gingrich was elected Speaker of the House.

2) Congressional Republicans overestimated the conservative mandate that they believed they had received - just like Clinton overestimated the liberal mandate that he had received in the presidential election.

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a) The Congressional Republicans accomplished their long-standing goal of restricting ‘unfunded mandates’ – federal laws that imposed new obligations on state and local governments without producing new revenues.

b) 1996 – The Welfare Reform Act – made big cuts in welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment.

1) It also severely restricted welfare benefits for legal and illegal immigrants alike. This reflected an increasing anti-immigrant sentiment as the number of new entries into the U.S. climbed to an all-time high.

c) In a confrontation between the Republican Congress and the Democratic president, the Federal government shut down for several days at the end of 1995, until a budget package was agreed upon.

d) The negative backlash against Congress for shutting down gave Clinton a chance to bounce back from being a political non- entity.

3) The Republicans fought each other in the presidential primaries of 1996.

4) Clinton’s reelection campaign raised huge amounts of money for 1996 – some of it from questionable sources.

5) The Republicans nominated decorated WWII veteran and Kansas Senator Bob Dole. His running-mate was Jack Kemp of New York.

6) Clinton, with his conservative appeal (ex: Welfare Reform Act), won reelection easily. The Republicans though still would control both houses of Congress.

N. Clinton Again

1) As Clinton began his second term, he again appointed a cabinet that reflected diversity.

2) Clinton this time proposed only modest legislative goals, even though huge tax revenues created by economic prosperity produced a balanced federal budget – the first one in 30 years.

3) Clinton claimed the political middle ground by embracing the landmark Welfare Reform Bill of 1996 (which he was initially slow to endorse.)

4) Clinton pledged to ‘mend’ affirmative action, not to end it.

5) 1996 – California voters approved Proposition 209, prohibiting affirmative action preferences in higher education and government, causing a sharp drop in the number of minorities attending higher education in California.

a) The effect of Hopwood vs. Texas, a federal appeals court decision, was to create a similar impact in Texas. Clinton criticized these broad attacks on affirmative action, but he stopped short of trying to reverse them, mindful of the fact that affirmative action was no longer as popular with the American people as it was in 1970s.

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b) Clinton-style Democrats more and more sought ways to help the economically disadvantaged, including minorities, while avoiding the politically dangerous minefield of racial preferences.

6) Clinton’s best political asset continued to be the booming economy, which, by 2000, had sustained the longest period of growth in American history.

a) Both unemployment and inflation were very low.

b) 1997 – An economic crisis thrust Southeast Asia and South Korea into financial problems, creating fears of a global economic crash.

c) But, despite volatility in the stock market, the U.S. economy surged ahead, propelled by Internet businesses and other high-tech and media companies.

7) 1993 – NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) created a free-trade zone encompassing Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.

a) In doing this, Clinton reversed the stand that he took in the 1992 election campaign, and stood up to the opposition of protectionists in his own party.

b) 1994 – Clinton took another step toward a global free-trade system by strongly supporting the creation of the WTO (World Trade Organization) – the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

c) 1999 – Clinton hosted the WTO meeting in Seattle. Streets in Seattle filled with protestors who complained about the effects of economic ‘globalization.’

1) Clinton, with the election of 2000 upcoming, wanted to keep Democratic party activists and trade unions in the Democratic column.

2) He expressed sympathy for the protest, which dismayed trade negotiators from the poor nations of the Southern Hemisphere.

3) The Seattle trade talks were essentially unproductive, and Clinton took a large share of the blame for same.

8) 1996 – The issue of campaign finance reform flared up as an issue after the 1996 presidential campaign.

a) Congressional investigators revealed that the Clinton campaign had accepted funds from many improper sources. These included contributors who had paid to stay overnight in the White House, and foreigners who were legally not permitted to make contributions to American political campaigns.

b) But, Republicans and Democrats had grown dependent on huge sums of money to pay for TV ads for their candidates, thus true reform would take a back seat to this need.

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c) Clinton did little more than give lip-service to campaign finance reform.

d) There were some mavericks within both parties who proposed to eliminate the corrupting influence of large donors.

e) McCain made campaign finance reform a central focus of his campaign for the presidency in 2000.

9) Clinton fought hard in his second term on two domestic issues –

a) against the big tobacco companies

1) large tobacco companies and attorneys general for several large states worked toward a huge legal settlement.

2) In return for restricting advertising targeted at young people, and for payment of $358 billion to the states to offset the public-health costs of smoking, the tobacco firms would have immunity from further litigation brought by any state or the federal government.

3) Despite Clinton’s support of this deal, the deal fell through.

4) Months later, 8 states worked out a more limited settlement, and in 1999 the Clinton administration sought the help of the courts, to try to recover the circa $20 million per year that Clinton officials argued that the U.S. had spent since the 1950s on smokers’ health.

b) for gun control

1) April, 1999 – two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killed twelve fellow students and a teacher in the deadliest of a number of school shootings that rocked the nation in the mid to late 1990s.

2) The abundance and availability of guns, especially in suburban and rural communities, became a target of Clinton.

3) Clinton strongly debated the pro-gun National Rifle Association over the need for tougher gun laws.

4) May, 2000 – ‘Million Mom March’ in Washington demonstrated the growing support for new anti-gun measures.

O. Problems Abroad

1) The end of the Cold War deprived the U.S. of basic principles that had guided the conduct of U.S. foreign policy for nearly fifty years.

2) Scandals were revealed concerning spying during the Cold War

a) CIA double agents had sold secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War years, causing the execution of American agents abroad.

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3) At first Clinton seemed rather inept in his conduct of foreign policy.

a) He followed President G.H.W. Bush’s lead in dispatching American troops as part of a peacekeeping mission to Somalia.

b) Clinton reinforced the U.S. contingent after Somali rebels killed more than 12 Americans in late 1993.

c) March, 1994 – Clinton quietly withdrew the American units, without having accomplished any clearly defined goal.

4) 1995 - Still smarting from the experience in Somalia, the U.S. did not become involved when horrible ethnic violence took place in Rwanda, resulting in the deaths of 500,000 people.

5) A similar confusion appeared in American foreign policy toward Haiti, where president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (democratically elected) had been deposed by a military coup in 1991.

a) 1994 – Clinton committed 20,000 American troops to return Aristide to power, after thousands of Haitian refugees had sought asylum in the U.S.

6) 2000 – Clinton champions the passage of the China trade bill, which made China a full-fledged trading partner of the U.S.

7) The Balkans – Though hesitant at first (as he was with China), Clinton eventually assumed a leadership role.

a) 1995 – In the former Yugoslavia, as brutal ethnic conflict raged through Bosnia, the U.S. stayed on the sidelines until late 1995, when it committed American troops to a NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia.

b) NATO was expanded -

1) Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic being were added to NATO in 1997. NATO’s continuing presence in Bosnia failed to bring complete calm to the Balkans.

2) 1999 – Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic began a new round of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ this time against ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo.

3) U.S.-led NATO forces launched an air war on Serbia.

a) The bombing campaign initially failed to bring an end to ethnic terror, as refugees flooded into neighboring nations, though it eventually forced Milosevic to accept a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

b) With ethnic hatreds prevalent in the Balkans for the foreseeable future, the U.S. accepted the reality that U.S. forces had a long-lasting role to play as peacekeepers in the Balkan region.

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8) The Middle East would remain a major focus of Clinton’s foreign policy throughout his tenure in office.

a) 1993 – An historic meeting between Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasir Arafat took place at the White House.

1) The two agreed on the principle of self-rule for the Palestinians within Israel.

2) Hopes waned though two years later when Rabin was assassinated.

3) Atty General Madeline Albright spent the rest of the 1990s attempting to broker a permanent settlement that continued to elude Israel and the Palestinians.

b) In Iraq, Saddam continued to play games with the U.N. weapons inspectors monitoring the Iraqi weapons program.

1) 1998 – Chief U.N. weapon inspector reported that Iraq was out of compliance with the U.N. sanctions.

a) 1998 - The U.S. and Britain launched air strikes against Iraqi weapons factories and warehouses.

b) 1998 – The U.S. launched missile attacks against alleged terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for terrorist bombings that killed more than 200 people at U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

9) In Clinton’s last year in office, he stepped up his efforts to leave a legacy of an international peacemaker.

a) Along with his Middle Eastern efforts, he tried to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Korean peninsula.

b) He also traveled to India and Pakistan in an attempt to calm the rivalry between these two nuclear powers in southern Asia.

10) Though there were no guiding principles established yet for the post-Cold War era of foreign policy, Clinton’s approach was in real contrast to those minorities in both of the major political parties who advocated for a new American isolationism.

P. Scandal and Impeachment

1) Clinton had been dogged by scandal since before his administration had begun.

a) Allegations of clear wrongdoing, going back to his pre-presidential Arkansas days, included

1) Whitewater Land Corporation – involved Bill and Hillary Clinton’s investment in a real estate venture.

2) Suspicions were elevated when White House counsel and close associate of the Clintons, Vince W. Foster, Jr., apparently committed suicide in 1993. He had handled the Clintons’ legal and financial affairs.

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3) Clinton’s loose ethics and womanizing found fictional expression in the 1996 best seller Primary Colors.

4) A special Whitewater prosecutor was appointed, but never proved any Clinton wrongdoing in connection with the Whitewater deal.

5) 1998 – It was revealed that Clinton had engaged in a sexual affair with a 23 year old White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, and then lied about it when he testified under oath in a civil proceeding (Paula Jones’ lawsuit against Clinton for sexual harassment when she was a state employee back in Arkansas.)

a) The Supreme Court had ruled unanimously that the lawsuit could go on while Clinton was president, because it would not ‘significantly distract’ the president from his duties.

b) The accusation that Clinton had lied under oath in the Jones case gave Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr a huge windfall.

c) Clinton maintained for 8 months, that he was innocent – that he had not engaged in ‘sexual relations’ with ‘that woman.’

d) Clinton, when confronted with the evidence of the blue dress, was forced to acknowledge an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with Lewinsky.

e) Sept, 1998 – Starr presented graphic sexual details about Clinton’s involvement with Lewinsky, charging 11 possible grounds for impeachment – all related to the Lewinsky matter.

f) 1998 - Led by a strongly anti-Clinton Republican majority, the House passed two articles of impeachment against Clinton – perjury before a grand jury, and obstruction of justice.

g) The Democratic minority took the position that no matter how deplorable Clinton’s conduct was, it did not amount to the Constitutional standard for impeachment – treason, bribery, high crimes or misdemeanors.

h) The Republican House ‘managers’ who led the impeachment efforts in the House, claimed that perjury and obstruction of justice were very serious public issues, and that nothing short of the ‘rule of law’ was at stake.

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i) Thus, the Republicans wanted to ‘honor the Constitution,’ and the Democrats cried ‘sexual McCarthyism.’ (Party lines delineating these two camps though were not absolute.)

j) Most Americans apparently felt that Clinton’s actions did not rise to the level of conduct necessitating Constitutional removal from office.

k) 1998 – Midterm elections reduced the House Republicans’ majority, causing Speaker Newt Gingrich to resign his post.

l) Clinton’s job approval rating remained high and even rose throughout the impeachment ordeal.

m) January and February, 1999 – Senate trial of Clinton, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding.

n) Clinton was acquitted in the trial, as the prosecution failed to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority for conviction.

Q. Clinton’s Legacy

1) Clinton and the nation moved on from the impeachment trial, as Clinton attempted to secure a legacy as a good leader and a moderate reformer.

a) He designated large chunks of undeveloped land as protected wilderness.

b) He succeeded in winning the passage of a ‘patients’ bill of rights.’

c) He led Congress to apply huge federal budget surpluses to hire 100,000 more teachers and 50,000 more police officers.

d) The Republicans wanted large government surpluses to fund big tax cuts. The Democrats wanted to have a mixture of smaller tax cuts and new ways to shore up Social Security and Medicare.

e) Clinton’s legacy, beyond the dark mark of impeachment, would be mixed.

1) He entered office attempting to make economic growth his top priority, and his efforts met with success.

2) He benefited from global expansion that he himself had done little to foster, but he had nonetheless made good appointments to top economic posts and kept a close eye on the federal budget.

3) By 2000, the U.S. had achieved nearly full employment, poverty rates had declined, and median income had reached new highs.

4) From 1998, the federal budgets attained surpluses rather than deficits.

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5) As a centrist and a ‘New Democrat’, Clinton had done more to consolidate the Reagan-Bush revolution against New Deal liberalism which had charted the direction of the national government and the Democratic party for fifty years.

6) As a great communicator, Clinton kept the vision of racial harmony and social justice. But as an executive he discouraged people from having too-high expectations for remedying all of the social ills of the nation.

7) By setting such a low standard for his own personal conduct, he brought back the public cynicism about politics that Vietnam and Watergate had created in the previous generation.

8) In the last days of his presidency, Clinton negotiated a deal with the Special Prosecutor to be granted immunity from legal prosecution over the Lewinsky scandal by agreeing to a fine and a five-year suspension of his law license.

9) Controversy followed Clinton out of the oval office, as he pardoned several people that were political backers or donors.

R. The Bush-Gore Presidential Battle

1) Vice President Al Gore became the Democratic nominee for president in 2000

a) Gore was in a difficult position – he tried to align himself with the Clinton economic prosperity, and tried to distance himself from the Clinton scandals.

b) Gore chose Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut - an outspoken Democratic critic of Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Lieberman was the first Jew on a major party national ticket.

c) Gore was very experienced – he had been a member of the House, the Senate, and then Vice President.

d) Gore, a longtime champion of environmental policies, stood to lose votes to the third-party “Green” candidate Ralph Nader.

2) The Republican nominee was two-term Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of former President George H. W. Bush.

a) He campaigned on a promise to ‘restore dignity to the White House’.

b) Bush selected former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney as his running mate. Cheney was a key planner of the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

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c) Bush fashioned himself as a ‘compassionate conservative,’ and promised to bridge the gap between moderates and conservatives in the party.

d) Estimates that the federal budget would produce a surplus of about $2 trillion over the next decade provided the rosy backdrop to the campaign.

1) Bush called for returning 2/3s of the surplus ‘to the people,’ in the form of a $1.3 trillion across the board tax cut.

a) Bush called for private sector initiatives, such as

b) ‘faith-based’ institutions to serve the poor

c) school vouchers, and

d) reforms to the Social Security system permitting workers to invest their payroll taxes in private retirement accounts.

3) Gore countered that the Bush tax plan would benefit the wealthy much more than the poor. Gore called for a more modest tax cut targeted at the middle class and the lower classes. He proposed using most of the surplus to reduce or eliminate the national debt, shore up Social Security, and expand Medicare.

4) Foreign policy did not figure largely in either candidate’s campaign.

5) The election –

a) Gore received well over half a million more popular votes across the nation than did Bush, but, with Florida unable to be determined, neither candidate had a majority in the Electoral College.

b) The razor thin difference in the Florida vote necessitated a recount under Florida state law.

c) The second tally confirmed Bush’s paper-thin Florida victory.

d) Democrats called for further hand recounts in several counties where faulty machines and confusing ballots seemed to have denied Gore victory.

e) Republicans turned to the Courts to block more recounting.

f) A huge legal battle ensued between the Democrats and the Republicans.

g) When the Florida Supreme Court ordered a hand count of approximately sixty thousand ballots that machines had failed to read, the Republicans responded.

1) The Florida legislature, dominated by Republicans, moved to name a set of pro-Bush electors, regardless of the vote tabulating and re-tabulating that was underway.

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2) The Bush campaign took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court where, the Court ruled five to four in favor of Bush. It determined that because neither Florida’s legislature nor its courts had established a uniform standard for evaluating disputed ballots, the hand counts amounted to a violation of the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

3) Though the ruling gave Bush the victory, it cast a shadow of illegitimacy over his presidency. Bush also faced a Congress that was the most evenly divided in history. (The Senate was 50-50, and in the House the Democrats held a 10 member majority.)

h) Our nation survived the contentious and disputed election, and demonstrated how insightful the forefathers were in their creation of a system of elections and courts that could arrive at a resolution. The election pointed out the need for modernized and nationally uniform balloting procedures. Some also called for the abolition of the Electoral College system.

S. Reelecting George W. Bush

1) Positioning himself for his bid for reelection in 2004, Bush tried to clearly define himself as a compassionate conservative.

a) 2003 – Bush was able to get Congress to pass an expensive prescription drug program for senior citizens.

b) He also cultivated conservative supporters by emphasizing tax cuts and calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

c) Most of all, he fashioned himself as strong and resolute president in a war on terror.

2) The Democrats nominated liberal Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry, who ran on his record as a decorated Vietnam veteran to counter charges that he lacked vigor in the war on terror.

a) Kerry’s role though in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era prompted vicious attacks from some veterans groups.

b) Substantial job losses and unsettled circumstances in Iraq during Bush’s first term gave Democrats hope for victory.

c) Results of the election: Bush won comfortably.

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