The Rather-Mapes Inquisition Revisited

On September 9, 2004, CBS aired a program segment that would cost producer Mary Mapes her job and would seriously damage the reputation of Dan Rather. The network produced photocopies of documents that showed that George W. Bush tried so evade his Air Guard duties in 1972. The documents were attributed to his commanding officer, Colonel Jerry Killian. One documents expert told Mapes the documents were trustworthy, and another supported his view. The problem was that several other experts advised CBS not to use them

The rest the mainstream press made the story CBS’s failure to establish beyond doubt that the copies were legitimate and resolutely refused to consider the context in which Mapes and Rather made their decisions. As a result, questions about George W. Bush’s Guard service was rendered out of bounds.CBS did not reveal its source, and some conservatives insisted they came from the Democratic National Committee. Later, USA Today turned up another document in which Killian tried to find out if Bush ever took the physical examination. Marian Carr Knox , Killian’s former secretary, said she did not type them but was certain their contents reflected the facts of the situation then and Killian’s frustration that Bush was defying him.

In the ensuing debate, neither her comments or the USA Today document were given any weight.Killian was not alive to verify the documents, but CBS had contacted his commanding officer General Bobby Hodges who said the memos reflected what Killian had told him about Bush. He did not vouch for their authenticity. After a storm of criticism arose, he told CBS they were forgeries and refused to verify that the contents reflected accurately what Killian reported about Bush.2 Right-wing bloggers said the documents were forgeries because they contained "superscripts", and they said typewriters in 1972-1973 were not equipped for that. CBS soon proved that government typewriters then did have "superscript," but no one seemed to listen and even now journalists praise the accuracy of those right-wing bloggers.

CBS had to reveal that the copies came from Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett, who had become an anti-Bush zealot because, earlier he had claimed, Bush operatives had purged Air Guard records of damaging information. He said that aids of the governor visited the archives of the Texas Guard at Camp Mabry in 1997 and scrubbed them of much of the information about Governor Bush’s service according to Burkett. He reported hearing Joe Albaugh, Bush’s chief of staff, discussing with Adjutant General Daniel James the need to get rid of documents that could embarrass the governor. Several days later, Burkett saw several such documents in a trash can and read them When he made that claim, he was counting on a colleague to support him; but that man backed out at the last minute.Burkett had said he made repeated attempts to tell the Kerry campaign that he saw documents like them at in the trash at his base. He never got beyond a number of youthful workers, so he sent an e-mail to Senator Max Cleland. He said he was never contacted by anyone from the campaign.

Burkett, a very religious man, probably did not forge the papers. He later admitted the were given to him by a Hispanic woman whose story he very much wanted to believe. This person seems to have vanished from the radar. Who sent her remains a mystery, but this writer would not be astonished if Karl Rove had enlisted her in a brilliant sting that discredited CBS and Dan Rather and made explorations into George W. Bush’s background out of bounds.

The known information about Bush’s Guard service certainly suggested that what the documents said was true, and this is probably why Mapes and Rather went with the story and made the mistake of assuming the documents were legitimate. For some reason, none of the critics of CBS showed an ioata of intererst in what was known from other sources about Bush's Air Guard Service. The team appointed to investigate Rather and Mapes was unable to demonstrate that they were forgeries. It was not instructed to look into Bush's service in the Air Guard. The inquisitors had many questions about Ms. Mapes' politics, as though liberals had a compulsion to fabricate evidence.

George W. Bush made a six year commitment to the Texas Air National Guard in 1968.The sons of other prominent Texas families occupied had found this a convenient way to have stateside duty. Bush scored the minimal points on a qualifying test and with the help of Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes was given one of two remain flying slots in a Guard Unit known as the "champaign unit." He was assigned to flying F102 interceptors. At the time there was a waiting list of over 100,000 people trying to get into the Air National Guard. 4 People who saw the papers of the papers of the late Colonel Jerry Killian indicate that Bush discussed with him ways to avoid regularly scheduled drills from May to November and to get around taking a physical examination in 1972 and that the colonel was pressured by superiors– one of whom was a legendary retired officer- too see that Bush received good ratings. Bush was ordered to take the annual physical examination but never did so .

Dan Rather later apologized for using the documents since it had become impossible to authenticate them.On September 29, 1972, the Air National Guard confirmed orders suspending Lt. Bush from flying status because he had not accomplished a medical exam. Years later, an aid to Governor Bush explained that he had decided to quit flying. This was at a time wheen the military started testing for drug use and insisting that the examinations be administered by military physicians. Bush had managed to arrange to meet his Guard obligations in Alabama, where he was involved in a Senate campaign.

Linda Allison, widow of the campaign chairman, and others reported that they had kn knowledge that Bush wanted to participate in the campaign until several days before his arrival. She said, "Well, you have to know Georgie....He really was a totally irresponsible person. Big George called Jimmy [ her husband] and said, he’s killing us in Houston, take him down there and let him work on that campaign...." She said she thought he was using pot and "perhaps cocaine."It was said that Bush thrashed the house he rented in Montgomery and did not pay the damages. There is no record he ever appeared for drills there in 1972-1973. General William Turnipseed, who then commanded the Alabama Guard, said Bush did not appear for duty. He received two special orders instructing him to return to Texas for duty, and he did log 36 days of duty, beginning in July, 1973.In the Fall of 1973, Bush was demoted to assignment in the Obligated Reserve Section in Denver because he was unable to meet his obligations as a jet fighter pilot. Bush was released early from the Guard in return for his signing a promise that he would enter the Reserves, but he never kept the promise. However, pay records that were later released showed that he made some effort to make up some service obligations while there working on a senatorial campaign.

In September, 2004, it was reported that critical written reports on Bush’s service, though required to be preserved had either not been written or had somehow disappeared. Bush had missed his medical examination in `1972, but somehow the report on this incident was missing. He had clearly missed five months of drills and regulations required that he receive counseling after this infarction. Yet no information on these events were found in his files.Questions about Bush’s military service were explored in some detail by the AP wire service, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and other print media during the campaign of 2000. The television news programs did not deal with it then and it was not a major issue. 7The issue briefly reappeared in early 2003. In February, 2004, the Bush White House tried to end the discussion of his Guard Service by making public hundreds of documents.They were mostly payroll records, but many key pieces of correspondence had somehow disappeared.

The documents proved difficult to understand, and only independent Paul Lukasiak of Philadelphia bothered to study them. The president claimed he had "made up" all their monthly training exercises he had missed, but Lukasiak proved that five months had not been made up. Bush’s records showed he often took substitute training before scheduled monthly training but there was no proof Alabama Guard authorities authorized these substitutions. Moreover, his substitute training did not conform to Air Force regulations requiring it occur no more than 15 days before a scheduled Unit Training Assembly or 30 days after it. One John Calhoun claimed he was Bush at 8 or 10 of the assemblies, but Bush himself never claimed to be at more than one of the assemblies Calhoun mentioned. Nevertheless, Calhoun was featured on many right-wing talk and cable shows in 2004. At the same time, one Bob Mintz, until recently a Republican, came forward to testify that he had been looking for Bush at the base because he wanted to find another bachelor to chum around with but never found him. Retired Colonel and flight instructor Leonard Walls, who is non-political, also testified that he never met Bush at Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Montgomery. Lukasiak raised many other troubling matters, one of which was why Bush was stripped of flight status in 1973, but the mainstream press showed no interesting in his investigative work.

The IRS and Religion

Two decades ago conservative strategists decided to play the religion card, and some of them talked about turning conservative churches into a vast network of Republican "club houses." The reference was to the political club houses of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Now, they have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, and the political churches or religious Republican club houses are vastly more powerful than the old club houses where people played cards, smoked cigars, and haggled over minor patronage.Last years, hundreds of Protestant and Catholic churches were treated to sermons on the theme that a good Christian could not vote for John Kerry. The priests and ministers usually stopped just short of saying the congregants should vote for George W. Bush.

However, these political churchmen came so close to doing so that conservative Congressman talked about introducing legislation permitting men of the cloth to cross the line a few times before endangering the tax-exempt status of their churches.In October, 2004, Rector Emeritus George Regas told the folks at All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena that Christ would not support a preemptive or preventive war. He also talked about poverty, but did not endorse the tough love approach to compassion, stripping the poor of benefits to compel them become creative and industrious. Regas did not urge people to vote for Kerry or against George W. Bush.Nevertheless, the IRS is now considering whether to strip that church of its tax exempt status. It is unlikely occur. Perhaps the threat to All Saints was intended as a means of arguing in favor of legislation permitting churchmen to discuss politics in the pulpit.

More than a few progressive clergymen will hear the warning shot and learn to trim their sails, even if it means backing off from some of the Christian message.How many religious Republican club houses has the IRS investigated? Narry a one.This is partly about intimidation and smart politics. Much more is involved. The people behind these policies support religious indoctrionation in public schools and at the Air Force Academy. They tried to produce a specially annotate version of the Bible for the Armed Forces.

At bottom many on the Religious Right are true believers who cannot brook dissent and find it blasphemous to even suggest that Jesus Christ would question American exceptionmalism or refuse to enlist in a crusade led by George W. Bush. The Catholics among them, worked ov ertime to explain John Paul II's opposition to both!

Tom DeLay's Smile

The former Majority Leader entered a Texas court room with a huge smile plastered on his face even though he was facing two indictments. He knew the odds were great that he would win his motion to replace a judgee who had made contributions to John Kerry and Move.On. After all, most folks in Texas knew MoveOn. Org members were crazy and unAmerican. They like other committed Democrats simply could not mkae fair judgments because the4y did not share the values Americans should share. The imperative that all Americans should share the same outlook is esentially wshat the New Right is all about.

Don't be surprised if he also wins the motion for a change of venue. Too many Democrats and minmority folks in the Austin area. Thay could hardly be expected t o render all-American judgments. They are not quite good americans and do not realize that De Lay deserves praise and a pass for bending a rule or two in the cause of what red state people think is virtue. The odds of him walking are subnstantial.

The fists judge was replaced by a partisan Republican. then the power to select went to the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, a very partisan Republican, Wallace Jefferson. He selected a Democrat not known for partisanship, in a state where Democrats are usually pretty conservative. De Lay did not complain about this selection. Jefferson was associated with DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority, the outfit accused of shifting donations for federal elections to Texas legislative races. Even if the case goes against DeLay, it will go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, where all the judges are Republican. No wonder De Lay is all smiles!

A NEW THREAT TO OUR LIBERTIES

The Bush Administration has used the Katrina tragedy to justify calling for amending the Posse Comitatus ACt of 1878 to permit the military to become a first responder in national emergencies. This would mean the military could come into a state without being requested by its governor.

"Slippery slope" arguments are a logician's delight. But given the Bush administration's record in protecting civil liberties, one can only wonder where this new initiative could lead. It has used the Patriot Act to attempt to pull hundreds of cases out of the civilian courts. EVen after the courts ruled that detainees must be given hearings, it established military tribunals to simply go through the motions. In many ways, the Bushies have moved toward establishing a parallel legal system.

Next on the agenda seems to be a Homeland Security agency under its aegis. We've read for years about CIA domestic ingelligence and even some work by al alleged fifth division of the FBI.
One can only imagine the activities of the new agency when we read about the FBI and Secret
Service acting to suppress free speech. The most recent case involving a 10th grader who submitted an unflattering poster on Bush for a First Amendment project. Given the proclivity of conservatives to extend the reach of secrecy in government, we would nevere know the full extent of the new agency's activities.

A final concern that relates to this is the secrecy about military interrogation techniques and the determination of the administration to block a Senate amendment limiting abuse of prisoners.

When did Bush decide he was above the law? One of his first acts was to nullify tghrough executive regilations the Presidential Records Act, preventing scholars to get at his father's Vice Presidential and Presidential records. Then he extended executrive privilege to cover Cheney's energyn task force, even though Republicans had earlier forced Mrs. Clinton to disclose everything about her health task force. Then Alberto Gonzales told him that the Constitution was outdated, as a means of helping Bush to open the door to tortyuring prisoners. Then came his worst abuse, authorizing wiretaps without warrants on thousands of telephone conversations.

Noi wonder Capitol Hill Blue reports, after interviewing three immediate sources, that Bush has called the constitution "goddamned piece of paper," nothing in comparison with his powers as Commander in Chief.

RELIGIOUS INDOCTRINATION AT THE AIR FORCE ACADEMY

There have been numerous reports that evangelical officers and chaplains have been pressuring cadets to become evangelicals. Jewish and non-evangelical cadets complained about intolerance and discrimination. A parent of a cadet complained that his son was called "a filthy Jew."

The campus newspaper carried an advertisement signed by almost 300 Air Force personnel urging the cadets to get saved. Some professors began classes with prayer, several told cadets to get saved by the end of the semester. A coach once posted a huge evangelical banner in a locker room. Cadets are told they will go to hell if they are not born again.

It was alleged that Brigadier General John Weida, commondant of cadets, employed coded language to urge evangelical cadets to convert others. He later admitted that religious coercion on campus was a problem, but he had no idea how to deal with it. It would take decades to solve. The Academy officially sponsored a screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

Dr. Kristen Leslie from the Yale Divinity School issued what is known as the Yale Report, which complained if "pervasive evangelical" bias at the academy. Academy officials criticized the report and attempted to ignore it. Captain Melinda Morton, a Lutheran chaplain, had signed the report and was ordered by the chief chaplain Colonel Michael Whittington, to unsign it. Reverend Morton refused to retract her signature and defended the report. She was transferred to Okinawa before the end of her tour, and resigned her commission as a result. The Air Force conducted its own investigation, which only acknowledged a few problems.

In Congress, Representative David Obey complained about this situation and was denounced Republican John Hostettler of Indiana for participating in the "long war on Christianity in America..." The Hoosier added that Democrats are given to "denigrating and demonizing Christians." Obey offered a ryder calling for an impartial and thoorough investigation, but it was defeated 218-198.

All this is the more troublking in view of the fact that the numbere of evangelical chaplains in the servives is increasing exponentially while the ranks of Catholic and mainline Protestant military clergy are thinning our. The mainline Protestants have developed serious problems with militarism since Vietnam, and there are few Catholic priests to send to the Armed Service. Other reasons for concern were the number of Christian symbols on display at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and the fact that Lieutenant General William Boynton remains a top Pentagon planner. He had said publically that his American god was far superior to the Muslim god. Add to this the Pentagon effort to produce its own version of the Bible, and one might see the makings of a very unhealthy pattern.

FRIST INVESTIGATION A PUZZLER

A review of George W. Bush's history with the SEC leads one to wonder what the SEC could possibly find wrong with Bill Frist's selling of HCA stock from his blind trust.

Despite legal advice not to sell, George W. Bush unloaded his Harken stock soon after he learned the company was in deep trouble, and before the stock tanked. He had previously failed to meet SEC filing deadlines in othr matters. Nevertheless, the SEC did not even bother to interview him.

It is almost impossible to believe Bush was not using nonpublic information unless one assumed that he did not read reports or listen to what was occurring at meetings. In Frist's case, there is less reason for suspicion. He was told in 2002 what stock the trust held, but in 2003, he told interviewers that he did not know if HCA was in the portfolio. Under his unusual trust rules, he had a right to know what was there and to order a stock sold.

HCA was founded by his father Thomas Frist, and once run by Thomas Jr. Company officials sold off over $100 million in stocks before the firm announced that second quarter earnings would not live up to expectations. The senator ordered his sale in June and the stock was sold when it was near its peak.

Unlike the Bush case, there is room to doubt that the Tennessee senator held nonpublic knowledge and acted on it. Perhaps he had not discussed the hospital chain with his family.
How can it be proven that he did??? His investment in the firm was between $7 and $35 million. Maybe he weas not interested in the family business.

Frist's friend, SEC chair Christopher Shays has recused himself from this case, but it is a stretch to believe that his subordinates wopuld move against Frist. In the Bush case, the SEC chair was a Bush family friend who did not even bother to recuse himself.

The investigation is more likely an effort to remove this matter from the table before Frist runs for the GOP presidential nomination in 2004. A favorble SEC report and the blessing of his evangelical allies will be sufficient to make the matter disappear. To this day, the mainstream press has shown little interest in George W. Bush's SEC problems. It can be assumed that self-censorship will continue after the SEC clears Bill Frist.

THE KATRINA OUTRAGE: PERTINENT FACTS

Before the Hurricane
In the Reagan Administration, there was a concerted effort to get FEMA out of the disaster business, shifting the responsibility to local and state government. If you do some research of a FEMA conference at University of Miami in mid-eighties, you will learn what the new mission was to be. In 2001, Bush wanted to pick up where Reagan left off. Joe Albaugh, a Bush friend and campaign manager, took over FEMA and said FEMA should scale back its activities and leave disasters primarily to state and local government. He said the agency was "n oversized entitlement program" and said states should reply on faith-based organizations ...like the Salvation Army." Later, when Bush hugged the two distraught women in Louisiana, all he could say was that the Salvation Army would attend to their needs.

In 2002, Michael Parker, a former Republican Congressman from Florida, was forced to resign as head of the Corps of Engineers. He had protested drastic funding cuts.

By 2003, plans were developed to take FEMA out of the disaster business. This outlook might explain why Governor Blanco had so many problems contacting the president and other ranking officials by telephone. The plan assumed disaster work would be carried out by private enterprise. Plerasant Mann, head of the union for PHEMA employees, noted that Our professional staff are being replaced by politically connected novices and contractors....A lot of the institutional knowledge is gone."

The new orientation included shutting down successful Project Impact, created under Clinton, which mitigated damage by moving and elevated "repetitive loss"dwellings most likely to be hit by storms. FEMA has estimated that mitigation saved two dollars for every one spent. Eventually it was replaced with a much smaller operation that could only be employed by wealthy communities able to provide matching funds.

Max Mayfield , head of the National Hurricane Center, briefed Secretary Chertoff on what would happen when th4e level four hurricane struck New Orleans. Mayfield warned that the levees could be overwhelmed. He also briefed President Bush via conference call. Later, Bush, Chertoff, and Brown all said they were surprised by what happened. Bush later told Diane Sawyer that he didn’t think anyone thought the levees would break. But Mayfield commented, "It was not like this was a surprise."

In 2004, FEMA disaster relief activity in Florida had more to do with reelecting George W. Bush than helping people. Republican areas in Miami-Dade were receiving windfall payments even though Hurricane Frances barely touched the area. The South Florida Sun Sentianal obtained Jeb Bush’s e-mail correspondence with FEMA, which showed the FEMA operation there was about indirectly purchasing votes.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency on August 26 and asked for federal help on August 27. Then George W. .Bush declared a state of emergency, but his document did not include New Orleans or some other coastal areas among those eligible for assistance.

The Bush administration reduced by 44% the amount that had been appropriated under Clinton to protect New Orleans. Among the items slashed was money for more pumping stations. The 2005 budget eliminated all money to improve the New Orleans hurricane plan. To be fair to Bush, there was some work funded to repair the levees, and the two breaks occurred where some repairs were made. In 2004, federal funds for the levee was cut to a trickle. The East Jefferson Levee Authority managed to find $2, 250,000 by raising property taxes to make some repairs. Lacking funds, the local Corps of Engineers imposed a hiring freeze.

Democratic Mayor Ray Negin "strongly encouraged" people to evacuate New Orleans but he did not do much to help those without transportation to leave. We will hear his defense when a Jount Congressional Committee looks into the disaster. Democrats on the committee have not been given the power to issue subpoenas, meaning they cannot pursue independent lines of inquiry.

Pedestrians tried to escape New Orleans via the Greater New Orleans Bridge but were turned back by the police from the integrated suburb of Gretna, Louisiana. A black councilman and policemen agreed there were no resources to share with the displacees.

To the East, St. Bernard Parish authorities blocked roads with cars and trucks.

After the Hurricane Struck

Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley offered to send 100 policemen, 36 firemen, 140 street and sanitation workers, 130 other people, plus various trucks and equipment to New Orleans. FEMA declined the offer and requested one tanker truck.

FEMA turned away 500 Florida airboaters who volunteered for rescue operations, and the Department of Homeland Security delayed the American Red Cross from entering.
Loudoun County, Virginia sent twenty deputies who were turned away. FEMA turned down offers of trains, generators, diesel fuel, other equipment and water from corporations, states and municipalities.

The Pentagon drowned in paperwork requirements offers of National Guard assistance from New Mexico and some other states. But miraculously some units from Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas got there by late Tuesday and Wisconsin somehow also managedc to get units there despite Pentagon restrictions.

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police rescue team got to New Orleans before the U.S. Armed Forces arrived in significant numbers.

On the fourth day, large numbers of US troops began to appear. They were brought in from Iraq. 40 % of the Guard from the Gulf States were deployed in Iraq, and the necessary equipment and high-water vehicles had been sent there as well. Soon thereafter, US mercenaries were redeployed to New Orleans from Iraq to keep the peace.

Two days after all hell broke loose, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA director Michael Brown had no idea people were starving in the New Orleans Convention center.
While people on the Gulf Coast were suffering, FOX pundits were complaining that federal funds would have to be spent to help these people. Fred Barnes said these folks were bilking "the taxpayers with their cavalier choice of domiciles," and Charles Krauthamer said, "It’s a bit unseemly to talk about cutting off aid while the hurricane is still roaring through Mississippi. But let’s give it a try." Senator Rick Santorum thought people who refused to leave their homes should be fined in the future.

Bush indefinitely suspended the Davis-Bacon Act for the Gulf States, making it possible for federal contractors to pay laborers less than the prevailing wage. That wage for construction workers in Mississippi is $9.50 an hour.

SPINNING THE BUSH RESPONSE TO NEW ORLEANS DISASTER

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina’s attack on the Gulf Coast, the mainstream media began to cover the disaster in a manner favorable to the Bush administration. Chris Matthews trumped about how much was being accomplished as a super power turned its attention to disaster relief. Wolf Blitzer asked former Senator John Breaux if Bill Clinton was responsible for inadequate funding of levee repair, but he did not request information about George W. Bush’s dismal record. A few days later, media people were so appalled by the enormous disconnect between the official story and what they were seeing, that they actually pointed out this discrepancy and the Bush administration’s failure to respond to the crisis. Soledad O’Brien even asked FEMA director Mike Brown, "How is it possible that we’re getting better intel than you’re getting?" Conservative Jack Cafferty even acknowledged that broadcasters were not mentioning "the elephant in the living room," the possibility that racism had something to do with the slow response to the needs of New Orleans. It would be too much to suggest the mainstream media was growing a backbone, as it soon returned to treating the Bush administration with kid gloves. But still, it provided a few days of honest reporting that gave every American the opportunity to see just how badly the Bush administration had dealt with the catastrophe.

A September 6 CNN poll showed that 63% of Americans believed no federal official should be fired in connection with the slow response to the New Orleans disaster. Thirty-five percent thought Bush’s handling was good or great. These were people who were simply incapable of believing the Bush administration could bungle anything this serious. Forty-two percent thought the president’s performance was bad or terrible. Among independents , 29% approved Bush’s performance, and 47% disapproved. That many more people did not find Bush’s performance bad or terrible is a tribute to the exceedingly effective Republican spin operation and the simple fact that the community values of Franklin Roosevelt are being edged out by those of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Bill O’Reilly, on his September 9 telecast, told his conservative followers that Bill Clinton and Al Gore were responsible for the disaster in New Orleans. In view of the federal government’s incredibly slow response, it is clear that the GOP noise machine needs to craft a message to distract attention from this failure of the Bush administration. O’Reilly usually mirrors the party line to a fault, so his broadcast may have been a trial balloon. This time the default response of blaming Clinton did not seem to work.

Republican commentator identified the main theme of the GOP response when he said, ""I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victimes" [ who dared to criticize his Leader]. He called the people who remained in New Orleans "scumbags." The American Spectator, which often tests new Republican positions, emphasized New Orleans’s historically high crime rate without linking it to deep poverty. The blame-the-victim approach was helped by the fact that almost all the victims in New Orleans seemed to be black and very poor. Senator Rick Santorum blamed the victims for not leaving the city. Too much of the television coverage focused on lawlessness that did occur after the hurricane and flooding, and there was too little attention to enduring deep poverty. Rush Limbaugh, the most influential GOP propagandist, harped on the theme that the suffering, stranded people of New Orleans were responsible for their own fate because they did not evacuate. By Saturday, FOX NEWS was focusing almost entirely upon successes that did occur in the rescue operation. The various fact checking organizations kept batting down wild claims about black storm victime, but they kept popping up. A month later, Sean Hannity was talking about victime using FEMA checks to rent condos at Martha's Vineyard, whee $2000 would not go far), buying alcohol ( probably true), and purchasiong many lap dances. Such tales not only deflect attention from Bush's failure, they further diminish the nation's sense of compassion and connectedness.

Much blame was placed on the mayor of New Orleans and Governor Kathleen Blanco. It has been said that the mayor could have saved those left behind by evacuating them on city buses and school buses before the storm struck. Whether he had the resources to do this needs to be examined. Even though Governor Blanco had sent Bush detailed information on what assistance would be needed before the hurricane struck, she has been the target of much criticism. On September 4, The Washington Post acccepted the Republican claim that Governor Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency. In fact, she did this on August 26. It is said–with no evidence- that she delayed Red Cross assistance from reaching New Orleans. Newsweek the same false story and added to it saying, that Blanco "seemed uncertain and sluggish, hesitant to declare martial law or a state of emergency, which would have opened the door to more Pentagon help." The delaying of the Red Cross was the work of FEMA, and the governor had declared a state of emergency and requested help--several times-- before disaster struck. The Post later printed a correction. Given they had been party to printing lies and political propaganda, both publications should have outed their White House source.

Blanco resisted having the Louisiana guard federalized because that would place too many restrictions on them in keeping the peace. Her reasons for taking this position were never mentioned by GOP critics. She is also denounced for at first refusing to meet with Bush when he traveled to the area on September 9. The truth was that she had not been informed of his itinerary.

Bush’s visit was a masterpiece of PR. He hugged two comely, well-dressed African American women. Fifty fire-fighters from the North were diverted to pose with him, and a Coast Guard helicopter was diverted to be used as a prop. He was photographed at a hastily assembled food distribution point, which German ZDF news reported was quickly disassembled as soon as he left. Senator Mary Landreau, a conservative Democrat, referred to another Bush appearance that day as "a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity." When Bush appeared at the breached 17th Street levee, there was a great deal of equipment there. When the Senator flew over the site the next day, the assemblage of machinery was reduced to a "lonely piece of equipment." Several days before, Michael Brown bragged at a news conference that his agency was feeding everyone at the still crowded New Orleans Super Dome. The New Orleans Times-Picayune, publishing on line, retorted that "Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that...." Yet, Bush subsequently praised "Brownie," saying "You’re doing a heck of a job."

The trouble is that the Bushies are "doing a heck of a job" with spin, covering up their poor performance. In time, a substantial number of Americans may come to see George W. Bush as the Second Hero of New Orleans!

GOP Propagandists Renew Efforts to Blame 9-11 on Clinton

The current debate over whether the findings of a Pentagon anti-terrorism task force had been given to the 9-11 commission has resulted in renewed attacks on Bill Clinton by Republican journalists and radio shock jocks. The new information does demonstrate that the Pentagon knew Mohammed Atta was a potential threat. Rush Limbauigh has jumped from this to claiming Clinton must also have known about Atta.

The Clinton Justice Department is being blamed for erecting a wall prevented intelligence agencies from sharing information with thge FBI. In fact, the Justice Department was enforcing legislation passed before Clinton entered the White House.

The second charge, made by a retired Pentagon anti-terrorism expert, was that Clinton only considered Al Qaeda as a criminal justice problem. In fact, Clinton sent teams to assassinate bin Laden, sought unsuccessfully on two occasions to get the Joint Chiefs to approve military action against Al Qaeda, and unsuccessfully attacked an Al Qaeda base with missiles. There were other military actions taken, including keeping missile subs in position to launch more attacks.

The third claim is that Sudan offered to turn ocver Bin Laden but that the Clinton administration was not interested. The only attack on the former president worth consideration appeared in Vanity Fair, where it was alleged that the Clinton administration refused to even consider a Sudanese offer to turn over Osama bin Laden and vital information. When the Sudanese government offered to turn over Bin Laden in 1996 , the FBI told the administration that it lacked evidence to indict him and the matter was dropped. At that time, Bin Laden was not seen as a major problem. Indeed, the American intelligence community only began to take him seriously in 1995. The magazine’s claim was vigorously denied by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other Clinton officials. They detailed repeated efforts to discuss Bin Laden with Sudan and obtain information. They denied blocking FBI efforts to deal separately with the Sudan. The Sudanese were anxious to improve their image if they could besmirch that of their American detractors in the process.

It is likely that the FBI was willing to assist in this process and that the State Department had been unwilling to let the bureau deal separately with the Sudanese. The original article left the impression that the administration had little interest in enlisting Sudanese cooperation, a claim that appears clearly false. The sources for the article were the Sudanese government and the first Bush administration’s ambassador to the Sudan. If the offers existed, they were made to the security apparatus and not to the State Department. It is clear that the Sudanese government has a long history of supporting terrorism and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Christians.

Lacking a full investigation, it comes down to who is most believable. The Clinton administration had no reason to trust the Sudanese because the CIA believed it had evidence that, with the help of Osama bin Laden, it was attempting to manufacture biochemical weapons.

The Clinton administration in 1998 had sent cruise missiles to destroy a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant were materials for chemical weapons were being manufactured. The television networks showed film clips of the movie "Wag the Dog" and conveyed the impression that the action was intended to divert attention from Clinton’s scandals. It was widely reported that the plant only made medicines and the belief was that the strike Clinton had carried out the attacks to distract people from his impeachment problems. However, most intelligence professionals did not criticize Clinton’s decision. In 2002, evidence was made public that the administration was correct in its initial assessment. The CIA later found the precursor of VX nerve gas outside the plant. The plant was owned by Mohammed Hussein al Amoudi and Khalid Bin Mahfouz. Al Amoudi was later accused of financing Al Qaeda, and bin Mahfouz is Osama bin Laden’s brother in law and had a number of business ties to the Bushes.

After the Khartoum bombing, the Clinton administration "actually waged a vigorous campaign against bin Laden…." and doubled the counterterrorism budget. It eventually kept two Los Angeles class submarines in the Persian Gulf for the purpose of launcing missiles against terrorists.

Marc Rich, whose treatment of Clinton has generally been balanced, has suggested that Clinton’s main failure in battling terrorism was for not firing Louis Freeh, whose bureaucratic and traditional style as director of the FBI was considered by Clinton advisors to be a major impediment to dealing with terrorists. Two National Security Council staffers who worked on counter-terrorism have noted that Freeh’s FBI refused to cooperate with the NSC in anti-terrorism efforts and would not pass on information it had. Freeh detested Clinton, was busy investigating him, and even refused to obey the directives of Attorney General Janet Reno. Yet the firing of Freeh would have been the occasion for an enormous political firestorm as the Right venerated him for his relentless and highly partisan pursuit of Clinton and his actions, which undercut Attorney General Janet Reno, whom the Right also detested.

Despite these problems, the Clinton administration prevented the millennium bombing of the Los Angeles airport and several related bomb plots. The administration actively sought ways to thwart Bin Laden, and Janet Reno attempted to assist John O’Neill, the most effective FBI counter-terrorist operative. However, he faced determined opposition at the highest levels of the FBI and was eventually forced to resign. William Danvers, a former special national security advisor to Clinton, answered the criticisms of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, an aid to Vice President Richard Cheney, who disparaged the Clinton administration’s accomplishments in combating terror. He noted that Clinton doubled the anti-terrorism budget and succeeded in thwarting expected millennium attacks. Those who first bombed the World Trade Center were also caught on Clinton’s watch. He seemed to confirm reports that the second Bush administration had reduced the anti-terrorism efforts they found in place.

ERODING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

The title of this article may seem alarmist, but the facts more than support it. Andrew Bacevich, a scholar not known for liberalism, says the American political "system is fundamentally corrupt and functions in ways inconsistent with the spirit of democracy."

Over three years, six Indian tribes, on the advice of Tom DeLay’s friend Jack Abramoff, gave $66 million to public relations man Michael Scanlon, formerly DeLay’s director oc communications. Abramoff was recently indicted in connection with other matters, and it remains to be seen if the Bush Justice Department will use this opportunity to probe his relationship with members of Congress.As Elizabeth Drew wrotes, everything is for sale in Washington. A source close to lobbyists reports, "There are no restraints now; business groups and lobbyists are going crazy—they’re in every room on Capitol Hill writing legislation. You can’t move on the Hill without giving money."

Yet the corruption Bacevich mentions runs much deeper than influence peddling and lining pockets. It involves a fundamental disrespect for democratic values. It is not confined to politicians. The touching , unrepublican reverence ordinary citizens pay a wartime president is not healthy. It has made it possible for an administration to take the nation into war based upon fake intelligence. The veneration of military prowess and belief that things American are naturally superior to those of other nations makes it easy for a regime to hollow out democracy at home and abroad. The abuse of detainees –- even children!--on our network of prisons is partly based on this false sense of superiority and the idea that military goals justify a multitude of grievous sins.

Contempt for democratic values and our political system is displayed in so many of the actions of those in power. Those who believe that the press serves a vital, though informal role in our system are alarmed by the Bush administration’s successful efforts to discourage investigative journalism and make the press dependent upon it for information. However, many do not believe that journalists serve the republic as watchdogs.

We should all be able to agree on the sanctity of the legislative process and the need that all elected representatives have ample opportunity to express their views and participate actively in framing legislation. In recent years, the House of Representatives has held open votes for long periods until people could be bribed or intimidated into changing their votes. Recently, it was held open an hour beyond the limit; two years ago it was 3 hours. When Speaker Jim Wright exceeded the limit by 15 minutes, there were many expressions of outrage. Legislative procedures, especially in the House, have been changed to prevent the minority from effectively proposing legislation or participating in the legislative process.

It is now not uncommon to exclude minority party members from committee meetings and even conference committees. Lobbyists sometimes are permitted to attend meeting from which elected representatives are excluded.. Legislation supported by 40% of the members of a chamber is frequently considered even at the committee level. Speaker Hastert has announced a new and unprecedented rule that only significant legislation approved by the majority of the Republican caucus can reach the floor.

Important legislation favored by the majority party in the House is usually considered under rules that forbid amendments. Likewise, decision s about when legislation reaches the follow of the House are often made in the wee hours of the morning so that only one party knows when a bill will come up for a vote. When the Democrats had power, the occasionally prevented amendments, but todays abuses far exceed what could have been imagined even in the 1980s, when Speaker Tip O’Neill and the majority occasionally stepped over the line.

The hollowing out of democracy can seen in the way political demonstrators are handled these days. In the 2004 campaign, demonstrators were kept large distances away from George W. Bush, being rounded up and placed in so-called "free speech areas." Recently, a woman who had lost her son in Iraq was kept four and a half miles from the president’s Crawford, Texas ranch. What does this say about out belief in free expression? That fact that so few ordinary Americans seem perfectly willing to accept these practices suggest that they share their leaders’ contempt for democratic values.

Waiting for Jeffersonian Democracy in Iraq

After the First Gulf War, General Colin Powell ridiculed the idea that if Saddam Hussein somehow disappeared "some Jeffersonian democrat is waiting in the wings.....there should be no illusions about the nature of that country or its society. " He added that if the US had gone onto Baghad, American soldiers [ would be patrolling the streets two years later still looking for Jefferson [ laughter]."

When the WMD pretext for the Second Gulf War finally collapsed, the George W. Bush administration and Secretary of State Powell replaced it with a new justification–preparing the way for a Jeffersonian Iraq. Amazingly, that idea quickly gained traction in our nation which was weaned on Jeffersonian and Wilsonian idealism. Never mind that Jeffersons’ belief that democracy was inevitable elsewhere was absolutely not predicated on exporting it by American troops.

Speaking of all of democracy’s advances in Iraq, Sy Hersh has just produced overwhelming evidence that the American administrators worked mightily to fix the election Our efforts reduced what would have been even greater Shiite dominance. They were partly counterbalanced by Shiite rigging. So much for the election that was a great triumph of democracy. It should be noted that the rigging was done as an off the books operation by retired security men as the administration failed to get the covert Congressional approval required by law.

Delegates are are now writing a new constitution for the Islamic Republic of Iraq, which states that its laws will be firmly based in the Koran. Voters should be ble to pass on it in October. Paragraph 16 recognizes the unique right of the Shiite Grand Ayatollah to instruct the state. Some think this could mean that his fatwas could overrule secular laws. The constitution contains provisions moving it away from a secular state, giving Shiite law a firm grip. One consequence of this is that the rights of women will be diminished.

Two years ago, respected Muslim scholar Tariq Ali wrote that it was likely that Iraq would eventually be divided into three pieces, the largest of which would be a Shiite state allied with Iran. As matters now stand, Iran and Iraq are now military allies, and Iraq is being ruled by people who had been exiles in Iran before the fall of Saddam. In other words, Iraq is allied with one of the two remaining members of the "axis of evil." For several decades, US planners have looked for a strong counterweight to Iran in the region. George W. Bush’s policies have strengthened Iran immeasurably.

The more worldly and cynical of us might be willing to justify the invasion if it gave the US a strong grip on Iraq’s oil. Bush’s neoconservative advisors clearly intended to sell the oil assets off to American firms, thus reducing the price of oil. Soon, the American oil industry prescribed an Iraqi state oil firm that would support OPEC. This would help American refiners by guaranteeing high prices, so the American administration in Baghdad reversed course. The US is building permanent bases athwart major pipelines, so the intention might be to control the flow of oil in that way.

The reasons for invading Iraq remain unclear. AS for Jeffersonian democracy, we have a long, long wait ahead of us.

Santorum and DeLay's K Street Project

When Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, Senator Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay initiated their K Street Project. The object was to force businesses to fire Democrat lobbyists and hire Republicans in their place, making K Street a Republican preserve. Republican members of Congress were asked to refuse to speak to Democrat lobbyists. An added incentive to hiring Republican lobbyists was that House committees were taking to allowing lobbyists to sit with them in drafting legislation. Indeed, it is likely that lobbyists often had more influence over legislation than Democratic Congressmen, who have had increasing problems getting legsilation to the floor. Indeed, they are frequently excluded from committee sessions.

When Republicans gained control of the White House, there was even more reason for businesses to comply with the K Street Strategy. Many in the executive branch will not speak to Democrat lobbyists. Elizabeth Drew has written recently in the New York Review of Books that the new alliance of Republicans and lobbyists has led to an unprecedented level of corruption in Washington. David Brooks, a Republican columnist, recently said on a PBS program, that the greatest threat to continuing Republican domination is the potential for corrupti0n built into this alliance.

In 2003, Congressman Michael Oxley's staff tolds the Investment Company Institute that his investigations of mutual funds would ease up if its top Democratic lobbyists were replaced with Republicans. The organization complied, and the investigation seemed to ramp down.

In 2004, the Motion Picture Association of America made a huge mistake in hiring Dan Glickman, a former Clinton cabinet member, as its chief lobbyist. Grover Norquist, a leading Republican operative, said this action was a studied insult. He added that he would not be satisfied until all the secretaries on K Street were Republicans. Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, has played a key role in helping DeLay and Santorum in identifying firms that have been tardy in firing Democrats and hiring Republicans. The House of Representatives retaliated by scrubbing a $ 1.5 billion tax break for the motion picture industry. Roll Call reported that "Santorum has begun discussing what the consequences are for the movie industry." The matter was resolved by Glickman keeping his job but MPAA hiring a bevy of Republicans, including the former PR person for Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Until 1995, lobbyists were not almost equal to congressmen in the legislative process.
They had an informal role, and often they possessed useful expertise. Though they now have far greater influence, they privately complain that their expertise is often of no value as they can only make suggestions that are in accord with prevailing ideology. They also note that every consideration and contact they make seems to require contributions or at least arranging luxury outings for members of Congress.

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THE PENTAGON'S NEW BIBLE

Last year, the Pentagon advertised for a printer to produce 10,000 copies of a Bible that would contail "Army provided photographs and text materials." ( For the advertisement: www1.eps.gov/servlet/DocumentsR/1051015).

We have no idea what the pictures or text were about. To be charitable, we can assume that the Bushies were not adding to the scriptures. The only other alternative is that they were supplying interpretive material, which is not the business of government! Maybe they were explaining away Christ's teachings against violence. Who knows?

It is known that the Bibles were intended for the use of the U.S. Special Operations Command. The publishing contract was awarded to International bible Society in Colorado.

Steve Peacock, an activist in Binghamton, New York, filed a Freedom of Information request to gather more information and learn what had been added to the Bible. Rather than release any information, the DOD cancelled the purchase order, claiming it was no longer obliged to honor the FOIA request. Peacock disagrees with this interpretation of the law but notes that the Pentagon bas exceeded the numbers of days that can ellapse before it must at least acknowledge that he had appealed the original decision not to provide the information.

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FLIPPING ELECTIONS

Tallahasee computer programmer Clinton Curtis has testified that before the 2000 election Tom Feeney, a Congressman and former Speaker of the Florida House, asked him to develop software to "flip an election" without being detected. Feeney, who often lobbied for Curtis’s employer had been Jeb Bush’s running mate in 1994. Feeney wanted a program that could be accessed with no additional equipment of software. The software firm also did work for NASA, the Defense Department, and the Florida Department of Transportation.

Curtis was a lifelong Republican and at first assumed that Feeney needed the prototype as part of a plan to unearth Democratic skulduggery. Then he learned that the software was needed to change the vote in southern Florida. As the meeting with Curtis and three others occurred in October, 2000, it can only be assumed that the plan was to use the software in 2002 and thereafter.

After the 2000 election, Feeney bragged to Curtis that an elimination list had been used to prevent some Democrats from voting and that the Florida state police had been positioned to prevent some blacks from getting to the polls. Curtis wrote the program and then quit his job. .1
Curtis landed a job at the Florida Department of Transportation. He soon poked a hornet’s nest by showing that his former employer was billing the department for services it did not provide. In 2002, he and another whistleblower were fired.

Feeney thought the patrol had prevented 25% of African Americans from voting. This writer was there in 2000 and estimates that around 5% of blacks were frightened into not voting.

After losing his job, he went to the press with his story. It included the claim that one illegal immigrant. Eventually, the government accused the illegal immigrant with there was somehow spying. with sending guidance chips for the Hellfire anti-tank missile to Red China. The St. Petersburg Times reported that Curtis passed a polygraph administered by a recognized Florida expert.

Raymond Lemme, a Florida DOT investigator, who was looking into the termination and related matters, turned up dead on July 1, 2003 at a Valdosta,Georgia motel. The death was ruled a suicide, there was neither an autopsy nor a thorough investigation. Lemme’s last comment to Curtis was that he was sure the investigation would lead all the way to the top. We do not know if by "top" he meant the White House or the governor's mansion.

How Fair Was the Election of 2004

While the 2004 vote was still being cast, a possibly tipsy New York Republican Representative Peter King appeared on the White House lawn with a blue plastic drinking cup in his hand. He told a documentary film-maker, "Its over! The election’s over-we won." When asked what that meant, he added, " It’s all about but the counting, and we’ll take care of the counting." King is one the better members of Congress and he seemed to be disquieted this knowledge.The election victory of 2004 violated two long-standing rules of thumb.( 1) Last minute undecided votes usually do not break for the incumbent. (2) An incumbent whose approval rating falls below 50% usually loses. These rules are not written in stone. Questions should be raised about the 2004 election because the results are not statistically probable and there was much evidence of gaming.

Recently, Christopher Hitchens published a piece in the March 2003 Vanity Fairentitled "Ohio's Od Numbers" and argues that the Federal Election Commission should take a careful look at the strange outcomes in Ohio. A sharp critic of John Kerry, Hitchens only looked at a few obvious problems and did not view the outcome from the standpoint of a statistician. He also gave full weight to the Republican argument that the Ohio election could not have been fixed because that would have required the cooperation of a significant number of people.There was less physical intimidation of minority voters in 2004 than in 2000, but there were probably even more efforts to suppress the minority vote. There were was less irrefutable evidence of efforts to almost openly fix machines, but those that did turn up almost always favored the GOP.

Almost gone was the shifting large numbers of votes to obscure minor party candidates for president. We can no longer expect to see the obvious and huge shifting of votes that occurred in Valusha County and elsewhere in Florida in 2000 or the unauthorized reprogramming of a large number of electronic machines, as occurred in southern Georgia in 2002. However, the election was replete with the kinds of anomalies and strange, unpredictable outcomes that alarmed statisticians and seasoned election observers.The election was unusual because there was such a great disparity between the exit polls and the actual results. The exit polls called for a Kerry victory , but the actual results gave Bush another term in the White House. In 42 of 51 states ( and District of Columbia), the states moved more toward Bush than the exit polls indicated. When it was clear that the exit polls appeared to be very wrong, the Edison and Mitofsky exit poll results were "rebalanced" early in the morning of November 3 so they came closer to actual results. An important assumption in the "reweighing" was that Bush got every vote he garnered in 2000; no one died and no one changed his mind.

This data was published by CNN and a CALTECH/MIT study, based on the modified figures, pronounced that the disparity between the exit polls and actual results was not great enough to warrant further inquiry. The actual exit poll data became available two weeks later and great disparities or "red shifts" in favor of Bush. In Delaware it was 10%,in New Hampshire 9.8%, in North Carolina 8%; in Ohio 6.2%, and Florida 6%. (2)In ten of the eleven battleground states, the differences between tallied and exit poll margin favored Bush. For two generations, the media’s exit polls have never been more than a tenth of a percent off. Freeman and Mitteldorf noted that there was a huge 10.0 average within precinct error in precincts that went at least 80% for Bush. On the other hand, the WPE for similar Kerry precincts was 0.3. Even Republican consultant Dick Morris told FOX News that "Exit polls are almost never wrong." The discrepancies were far outside the allowances for random error and chance. Statisticians have concluded that the chances of the wide variances of 2004 occurring were less that one in a thousand.

The chances that Kerry only received 47.1% of the vote in Florida are only three in a thousand. The best explanation Gallup pollsters could come up with was that Kerry people were much more willing to participate in exit polls than Bush backers. This became the official explanation of the pollsters. Yet 56% of those approached completed the surveys in Bush precincts, compared to 53% in Kerry bastions. (3) In states where a variety of means were used to count votes, there was no meaningful disparity between exit poll results and actual tabulations. However, there was a great difference between the exit polls and reported results in states were electronic programs were used to register and count votes. (4) The three corporations that control the manufacture and maintenance of electronic voting machines and the programs that tabulate votes are controlled by people with strong GOP ties. Moreover, their vote tabulating programs are easily hackable.

The many statistical anomalies of 2004 almost all benefitted the GOP, and they were a sort that could not be readily investigated. Indeed, Republican computer security expert Chuck Herrin noted that they "benefitted us 100% of the time." In the election of 2004, the electoral count was settled favor of George W. Bush in Ohio and Florida, both states where electronic voting and tabulation was predominant. A Quantitative Methods Research Team at the University of California at Berkeley examined the Florida election and found that "a county’s use of electronic voting resulted in a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush " and that the random chances of this happening were "less than once in a thousand...." They conservatively estimated that Bush received between 130,000 and 260,000 more votes than could be statistically expected." Some voting machines there actually counted votes backward against Kerry. Bush carried the state by 5% , but lost it by 2% according to the exit polls. From a common sense but not rigorous statistician’s perspective, the results appear even more difficult to believe.. Among the 57 counties that used vote-scanning technology to count votes, 29 had been overwhelmingly Democratic. This time then became Bush bastions. The GOP gained 128.45% in those counties, and the Democrats lost 21%. In Liberty County, which is 88% Democratic, Bush gained 700%. Where optional scan technology was not used, voting followed predictable patterns. In Broward County, voting workers said there were boxes of uncounted absentee votes that were later removed from the court house. Before the election there, 50,000 applications for absentee ballots somehow got lost in the postal system. 6Analyzing the races in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania ( where a Senate seat was involved), Professor Ron Baiman thought the discrepancy between exit polls and tabulated votes could only occur once in 155,000,000 times.

The race was especially close in Ohio, where Bush eventually was declared the winner by less than 130,000 votes. There was not one elected statewide official who was a Democrat, and the secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell, who counted the votes, was the Bush campaign chairman. Every possible legal and marginally legal device was used against Kerry. . In Franklin County there was a pattern of taking voting machines out of strongly Democratic precincts so that the lines would be longer. There were 580 absentee votes in Trumbull county which could not be matched with voters in the registration list. If this were extrapolated statewide, it would come to 62, 513 fraudulent absentee votes. A former ES&S employee was allowed to tamper with the vote counting computer in Auglaize County on October 16. In Warren County( about 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati–Kings Island), the court house was locked down so that reporters could not observe counting. In the past, there was room for the media in the court house during elections. It is important to know this is one of the last counties in Ohio to close its polling places. That county had a 33% increase in votes cast over 2000. In Perry County, more votes were cast than people who signed the register as on site voters or absentees/ In Butler County, the Kerry-Edward ticket ran far behind other Democrats. In the Columbus area, there were 4,258 votes in a Gahanna precinct and 260 for Kerry. Fortunately this was corrected. However, there were only 800 voters there. Miami County was very slow counting its votes and only released its complete total when almost the entire state had been heard from. Bush picked up an amazing 19,000 more votes than in 2000 in this rural county. , Kerry carried 31.38% of the voter, compared to 36.38 for Gore.. The county boasted an almost impossible increase in turnout, with the new votes shared between the candidates in these proportions. Some precincts had nearly 98% turnouts. In Mahoning County, many voters reported that they attempted to vote for Kerry on the video machines, but the vote kept turning up for Bush. Some might recall that this is Youngstown and naturally wonder is some kind of corruption were involved. In Lucas County where Toledo is located, , numerous machines consistently malfunctioned. Outside of Xenia, polling officials applied special standards to prevent black students from Wilberforce University

The Ohio recount was also marred by allegations of fraud. Triads Corporation, that services the punch card voting system in 41 counties was found to be sending people to court houses to prepare computers for recounts. The clearest case of abuse was in Hocking County, where Michael from Triad appeared to brief workers on "tricky" questions attorneys might ask and to work with tabulator and computer/ He asked which precincts had been designated for recount and then worked on the computer, telling the employees not to turn it off as the correct results were then on display. He also helped employees post a "cheat sheet" to help them with the recount. The deputy election commissioner who blew the whistloe on this conduct was subsequently fired by Hocking County, which was presured to do so by Secretary J. Kenneth Blackwell.In Lucas County, a Diebold technician reprogrammed machines prior to the recount, and in suburban Sylvania Precinct 3 the programming card was reprogrammed..Voting officials in Shelby County admitted they had destroyed critical materials, making a recount there impossible to the recount, Secretary of State Blackwell ordered voting officials in the counties to prohibit others from examining poll registers, a violation of Ohio law which made it impossible for Democratic observers to analyze the election or make sense of the recount.

Strange occurances seemed to mark the recount in many of the counties of northwestern Ohio. Moreover, Blackwell did not impound a single machine or computer, so a trustworthy recount was impossible. Moreover, he refused to appear before a House committee investigating the Ohio outcome even though its chairman was a Republican who would have treated him gently. In the same spirit, the Ohio Atgtorney General has demanded that the State Supreme Court discipline four attorneys who unsuccessfully litigated in a quest for a more thorough recount. Much more could be said about the abnormalities in the Ohio recount. One wonders why any rigging was even necessary in view of the fact that Ohio was certain to certify the original results.Before the election, many efforts were made to hold down the minority vote.The Republican Secretary of State in Ohio attempted to invalidate voter registration forms in Cleveland because they were not printed on pound stock paper.9 A quarter of a million African Americans in Ohio received letters warning them that they could not vote; among the reasons given were being registered by the NAACP.

Misleading pamphlets were also sent to Milwaukee blacks in an effort to discourage their voting. John Perzel, speaker of the Pennsylvania House of representatives, openly stated it was necessary to suppress the black vote in Philadelphia. 11In Las Vegas, Nevada , the Republicans hired Voters Outreach of America to register voters. The firms managers were caught destroy Democratic registration forms. Employees said they were only being paid for Republican signature. In Oregon, the same firm was discovered to be repeating this performance. However, there it sometimes used public libraries, claiming to be official registrars. Its employees were reported to have told University of Oregon students that by registering as Republicans they were somehow fighting the sexual abuse of children. Similar problems appeared in West Virginia.. 12 In Florida, election officials tried to remove another 22,000 Blacks from the voter roles, even though they were not felons. Republican Secretary of State Glenda Hood disqualified an additional 10,000 registration forms of likely Democrats because they had checked in only one place rather than two that they were citizens of the United States.

Former President Jimmy Carter, whose center has monitored elections around the world, noted that the process in Florida did not meet international standards in part because it is operated by people holding "strong political biases," and he predicted that the 204 Florida election would again be characterized by irregularities. 13The usual efforts of those in power to prevent some groups from voting were much in evidence. By placing outmoded equipment in black precincts, the chance of having many "spoiled votes" was greatly increased. In the 47 Dayton, Ohio precincts that went heavily for Kerry, the spoilage rate was 5.16%, compared to 1.31% for the rest of Montgomery County. This is partly why blacks have a 800 % greater chance of not having their votes counted than whites. Similarly, placing too few machines in black precincts created great lines and discouraged people from voting. The situation was so blatant in Ohio, that the very Republican Columbus Dispatch felt obliged to report on it. It found that the number of machines in Democratic parts of Franklin county were reduced by 17 while the Republican precincts received eight more machines.

In Democratic Cuyahoga and Summit Counties, old machines were used and the average number of votes per machine was less than half those per machine in the Columbus area. The provisional ballot, was a new technique made possible by HAVA, allowed people to provisionally vote if they showed up at the wrong place or broke some other regulation. These votes were usually not counted . Even Hitchens, a sharp critic of Kerry, noted that the massive bottlenecks "had a tendency to occur in working-class and, shall we just say, nonwhite precincts." Many people simply gave up and did not bother to complete the provisional ballots that officials eventually decided to offer them.

In Gambier, Ohio, there was only working machine where Kenyon College students voted. Many of them gave up and refused to bother with the provisional ballots because they believed the paper ballots would not be counted. These techniques were widely used, especially in Ohio, and boosted the number of uncounted votes to the 3,000,000 mark In addition there were 95,000 lost votes in Franklin County, 12,000 in Mahoning, and 6,400 in Warren County. In some southwest white Republican counties,, C. Ellen Connally, an unfunded African American running for Ohio Supreme court, somehow ran far ahead of John Kerry. 14 In two predominantly black Cleveland precincts, this also occurred. The normal patteren in presidential election years is that the highest number of votes would be at the top of the ticket, and that there would be a sharp drop-off thereafter.Social scientists are supposed to be pragmatists, so it is probably unfair to complain about efforts by a political campaign to suppress the opposition vote. Similarly, extremely stringent regulations for the identification of some voters and increased efforts to eliminate legitimate black voters as part of programs to purge felons might be considered benefits of incumbency.

Perhaps some would draw the line at capriciously changing voting place locations or how many new machines are placed in black precincts might cross the line for many realists. If all the above were considered part of rigging election, many would be justified in concluding that John Kerry should be sworn in as President in 2005. But leaving these things aside, we still have results that defy any reasonable statistical or common sense analysis. Whether the election of 2004 should have gone to John Kerry cannot be established, even though a shift of 65,000 votes in Ohio would have made the difference. Electronic machines and computerized tabulation systems are extremely difficult to audit and there is very little possibility that this situation will change. We can expect more elections like this in the future. One piece there provides extensive background information on the potential for fraud offered by electronic voting machines and computerized counting systems

.1. To view the film clip---http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/Movies/peterking.mov (Some who viewed this film clip concluded he may have been a bit tipsy.)2. Alastair Thompson, "Complete US Exit Poll Date Confirms Net Suspicions," Scoop.com ( November 17, 2004)3. Steven F. Freeman, "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," (November from voting. 10, 2004) stfreema@sas.upenn.edu; Jonathan D. Simon and Ron P. Baiman, "Who Won the Popular Vote? An Examination of the Comparative Validity of Exit Poll and Vote Count Data,"The Free Press.com ( December 29, 2004)4. Michael Meacher, "Did Dubbya rig the election?" New Statesman (November 29, 2004), 22-235. Herrin, "Empathy Training for Compassionate Conservatives,"6. "UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds ‘Smoke Alarm’ for Florida E-Vote Count," (November 18, 2004) ucdata.berkeley.edu; Sean Sabatini, "Exit Polls and Vote Fraud: A user-Friendly Explanation," OPEDNews.com( undated); "Countdown," MSNBC.com ( November 3, 2004)7. John Conyers and others to. Kenneth Blackwell ( December 2, 2004), Truthout.com; Richard Hayes Phillips, "Hacking the Vote in Miami County," The Free Press.com (December 25, 2004).8. William Rivers Pitt, "Proof of Ohio election Fraud Exposed," Truthout.com ( December 15, 2004); Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, and Harvey Wasserman, "American Democracy Hangs by a Thread in Ohio," Yurca Report.com ( December 15, 2004); Toledo Blade, January 5, 20059. "The Poll Tax Updated," The New York Times, October 7, 2004)10. ABCNews.com (October 31, 2004)11. Bob Herbert, "Days of Shame," New York Times (November 1, 2004)12. PBS.com (October 13, 2004); Laura Kurtzman, "GOP Paid Firm Faces Voter Fraud Charge," San Jose Mercury (October 14, 2004); Adrienne Packer, "Voter Fraud Alleged," The Las Vegas Review-Journal (October 14, 2004); Associated Press and KGW News, "KGW Report Prompts Oregon Voter Fraud Investigation." (October 13, 2004)13. Jimmy Carter, "Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote," Washington Post (September 27, 2004); Kurtzman, "GOP Paid Firm Faces Voter Fraud Charge."

The New Right in Historical Context

The right-wing populism of the New Right shares many characteristics with the right-wing populism in Europe and right-wing populism in the American past. Among the commonalities are a sense of victimhood, intense nationalism, fear of cultural pluralism, and the potential for acceptance of conspiracy theories and authoritarianism.

In 1984 ,the French National Front became the first European right-populist party to escape marginalization at the polls by combining nationalist xenophobia with ant-government establishment nationalism. The combination of these issues represented a successful "master frame"– as the European scholars call it, which was soon copied by emerging similar parties in Europe. They were also partially successful in overcoming the stigma of anti-democratic policies, authoritarianism, and biological racism that they inherited from similar movements earlier in the Twentieth Century. These parties attracted largely working class voters, people who generally would have stayed with left and socialist parties had then shown any inclination to address the economic threats posed by postindustrial society.

Once convinced that their old parties could not or would not deal with the problems growing out of the global economy, these voters looked to express their concerns about declining social status and threats to their cultural values. Biological racism is no longer acceptable in Europe, so these new parties adopt what some call "culturalracism," but they claim not to go beyond pointing out that new subcultures are incompatible with the European heritage. The claim that the new subcultures would bring about the extinction of the older European tradition caused great fear and rage, emotions likely to cement political affiliations and mobilize voters. Anti-political establishment populism was very attractive to them because they were convinced that the liberals and socialists in power no longer cared about them and richly deserved punishment. Leaders of the new right-populist parties portrayed themselves as being outside the political class. People who have lost faith in government and their old political party are more likely to form new cognitive routes to interpret reality.

It is difficult to establish how much racism attends right-wing populism in the United States. It is rarely an overt element, and appeals to it are masked at as calls for law and order and criticisms of people who are alleged to lack the work ethic. Right-wing populism in both Europe and the United States is marked by intense nationalism, fear of cultural pluralism, and contempt for much of the heritage of the Enlightenment.

Some believe that right wing populism is an ante-room to fascism, but worries about this cannot be entertained until Republican populists have serious violated constitutionalism and deprived others of basic rights. The New Right has demonstrated strong authoritarian tendencies by drastically limiting the rights of the minority in the House of Representatives and threatening to strip the Senate minority of certain filibuster rights. There is also an on-going effort to muzzle progressive professors. The Right has consistently attempted to intimidate the media into providing coverage it considers suitable. However, none of this represents clear violations of law, and intemperate rhetoric is not an acid acid test for fascism.

Polish writer Adam Michnik suggested that populism always contains an element of envy and employs demagoguery. When mixed with intense nationalism, it can produce fascism. After 9/11 intense nationalism was wed to right- wing populism , producing an irresistible political force Populist nationalists have learned that extreme nationalist and aggressive policies can forge powerful political majorities, and they have been unable to refrain from regular use of this very effective political ploy. Provoking hatred of foreign enemies as well as fellow Americans who happen to disagree is too effective a tool not to deploy whenever necessary. Republicans used it to tar opponents as allies of terrorists and Saddam Hussein, increasing their majorities in the House and Senate and reelecting their warrior-hero George W. Bush.

The traditional conservative thinker John Lukacs wrote, "when...temperance is weak, or unenforced, or unpopular, then democracy is nothing else than populism. More precisely : then it is nationalist populism....the fundamental problem of the future." Right-wing populism easily morphed into nationalist populism. Anyone objecting to any policy claimed to be part of the war on terrorism was likely to have her patriotism questioned. Jim Gibbons, a Republican Congressman from Nebraska, was to say it was "too damn bad we didn’t buy {critics of the Iraq war} tickets to become human shields there. He also said those who complained about corporate contributions to President Bush were "communists. " Such outbursts are relatively rare because they tend to spook independent voters, but his remarks accurately reflect the spirit of nationalist populism. There were many other ways to say the same thing without alarming independents and moderates.

So far the union of right-wing populism and extreme nationalism has not produced fascism, but it has clearly threatened the health of our democratic polity. John Lukacs believes the new populism could almost destroy democracy because it so easily degenerates into the tyranny of the majority. 'Nationalism is a very low and cheap common denominator that unites people,'' Lukacs says. ''It is hatred that unites people. People take satisfaction from the idea that we are good because our enemies are evil. This is a very American syndrome, but it is also universally true of mankind.'' Lukacs was one of the few conservative intellectuals to object to Senator Joseph McCarthy; it is likely that he will have even less company this time around.

Previous manifestations of American right-wing populism have had the quality of a Roman candle. They burned brightly but fairly briefly. There were the anti-Semitic followers of Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Communist crusaders led by Senator Joseph McCarthy who also the American WASP establishment, and the anti-black backlash populists of George C. Wallace. In many ways ,Wallace pioneered in developing many of the arguments employed by the today’s New Right. Those three movements were short lived because their extremism quickly became obvious. This lesson has been learned by right-wing populist strategist here and abroad.

Especially in the United States, the movement has continued to grow over three decades because its extremist tendencies have been somewhat contained and masked. The New Right constitutes a serious threat to democracy, and will probably result in drastically remodeling how the Congress and Executive Branch do business. Popular pressure will probably further mute the mainstream press, but in the short term official assaults on individual rights may not exceed what was accomplished in the Patriot Act. The drift toward authoritarianism will most likely be contained because rapid progress in that direction could alarm a large portion of the electorate.

The New Right, Right-Wing Populism, and Displaced Economic Anxiety

Historically, movements for social change have often been instruments of status groups that felt an intense need to assert and legitimize their identities. Right wing populism, here in the form of the New Right and abroad, usually is fed by the bitterness and frustration of people facing status loss. These people do not want to be like people in the so-called "blue" states; they are simply intent upon expressing their identity as "decent" people and their anger over being mistreated because of that decency. Their status group anger has been framed in terms of authenticity. They are the real Americans as opposed to the phoneys.

Economic stagnation and the breakdown of welfare capitalism in the United States disoriented millions of people, who sought answers and affirmation of their identities. One might expect them to drift into a political movement that clearly and directly addressed their situation. However, cultural arguments touch people more deeply, and they were to accept an ideology that somewhat tangentially offered them some economic relief. Economic historian Alexander Cershenkron noted that even nations with long democratic traditions can become democracies without democrats. It is not so difficult to have a generous view of fellow citizens when living standards are rising. Economic growth makes the expansion of democracy possible. When people's ecopnomic prospects are declining, it is so much easier to be less inclusive, less trusting, and more inclined to accept views that place blame on a nation's woes on others.


The 2004 US election provides clear evidence of the extent to which anxiety rooted in economic concerns was displaced to
cultural matters. Sixty one percent of white voters refused to support John Kerry. In 1991, Stanley Greenberg wrote that "unless thre are some limits to the [ Democratic] party's moral agnosticism," it will not win over the averagfe family.

In Europe, those who lost their jobs, faced great insecurity or had to accept less income and benefits are loosely called the "abandoned workers." In the United States, there is a very broad definition of middle class, and the New Right here is considered a middle class phenomenon. Among the recruits to
right-wing populism were many Reagan Democrats, who faced great economic insecurity but also believed their cultural and religious values were under assault.

What has emerged in the last thirty years, is a self-conscious status group in the United States, the members of which would not object to the descriptive term "Middle America." Over time, this vast status group became desperate and anxious, believing their social and economic positions were slipping or in danger of slipping.. These middle class Americans developed a sub-culture or collective consciousness made up of orientations that guide their actions, particularly at election time. These orientations represent a form of conservative populism. Invariably, conservative populists identified their own fates with that of the nation, which also faced very grave threats. They, like their nation, were virtuous and deserved primacy among other people and nations. Their opponents were not just somewhat wrong, they were "evil."

Max Weber argued that there is a strong need for psychic comfort or a feeling of established worthiness. He thought that class consciousness was essentially "psychological thoughts of men about their lives. " In this instance, we are not dealing with a class. Status groups also a very similar form of consciousness, and in the late Twentieth Century marketing and other techniques that make it possible to frame information and arguments in such a way as to shape the content of that consciousness. Weber believed the most compelling ideologies developed when a powerful set of ideas were taken up by the disadvantaged. That is why it was so important to persuade a vast slice of middle Americans, regardless of their economic status, that they are somehow disadvantaged.

Today, the party of the right-wing populists controls every branch of the national government state governments. Nevertheless, the anger of the right-wing populists has not abated because they believe that the media, press, universities, and entertainment are still dominated by liberals who are committed to destroying American culture. To some degree the belief that they are conspired against victims is a tonic and confers upon them special identities. They cannot congratulate themselves on their political success or the fact that the press largely has been intimidated into soft-pedalling or ignoring stories that would offend conservatives. Their radio and television shockmeisters continually remind them that they are not safe as long as there is a Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy in the Senate or as long as The New York Times or Washington Post remain in print.

Cultural crusades have been powered by anxiety rooted in economic and status tensions. Concern over economic and status questions is redirected to cultural quests where the chances of success seem greater. At work is an historical process that somehow displaced feelings of deep economic anxieties, which reappeared as cultural resentments. The "somehow" means we cannot explain how or why it happened other than to note that these occurrences from Roman times forward can best be seen as examples of the irrational and unconscious in history. What can be called psycho-cultural climates exist in history, as the great Lucien Febvre suggested, but the followers of Clio have made little progress in deciphering t hem. Intense stress and fear that one was losing control of ones destiny generates the emotional energy that drives these psycho-historical situations. Going back even farther than the Romans, we find examples of oppressed peoples becoming somehow "Gods’s elect." Arguably this occurred in the case of the ancient Jews. Historians have developed the formula "oppressed people, elect people." Elect, of course, meant chosen. In the modern American setting, the word "elect" is both an adjective and a verb.

The rise of the New Right had some of the characteristics of a half-political, half-religious revival. A psychohistorian would say that revivalism is sometimes "a symptom of incipient regression in a life of a community under conditions of stress." The revival need not always take a religious form, for example contemporary Rumania seems to be going through a period of great anxiety that is producing a revival of old songs, ballads, and dances, and interest in imaginary heroes of the past. In the contemporary American case, the religious revivals of the 19th Century are being reenacted in modern form and the laissez faire economics of the robber baron heroes are recast as the essentials of American tradition. Of course, the United States is very different from Romania. Yet both have entered periods when radical cultural reorganization, when the corporate spirit has declined and many have not quite figured out how to cope with the fre4edom and individualism that came with it. Some experience an intense need to belong which adherence to the New Right satisfies. ( In fourth century BCE Athens, a similar period of anxiety and transition occurred and many reacted by joining the new mystery cults while others embraced a greater degree of secularism.)

In the case of contemporary America, economic anxiety occurred after a period of great abundance and what seemed to be the promise of continued affluence– fulfillment of the American Dream. It occurred simultaneously with the emergence of postmodern culture, which brought in its wake ambiguity and contradiction in respect to values. A great majority of the same people experiencing economic anxiety were also troubled by new threats to their values. Perhaps some found the new mental freedom an invitation to inner anarchy, as Adorno noted half a century ago. In any event, they lacked the mental structures to address the cultural disorientation of the period and its potential threats in matters of conscience. Some probably found that their central cultural and religious beliefs were not as strong as they had though and that they craved a consistent and rigorous way of thinking. They were unprepared for a pluralistic culture and moral ambiguities. The crusade of the New Right seemed to resolve these inner conflicts and allowed them to cope with the anxieties of these times.

RIGHT-WING POPULISM: THE GOP'S MOST POTENT WEAPON

After the 2004 defeat of John Kerry, many concluded that it was how one spoke about cultural issues that made the difference, and that George W. Bush’s appeal to conservative religious people explained what had happened. In fact, a more powerful and complex force was at work in establishing Republican dominance in the United States, right-wing populism as embodied in the New Right. At work was much more than many people responding to several hot button, values-laden issues. The Democrats were up against a complex, powerful social movement that took decades to build and a mind-set that will prove very difficult to change. True, the outlook of the Christian right lends itself to right-wing populism, but they are two different but closely related phenomena. Today’s incarnation of Right-wing populism is equated with evangelical religion, but it could stand alone as it frequently does in Europe. Right-wing populism is at the heart of the New Right’s identity and is largely a reaction against social change and comes wrapped as ultra-Americanism and assertive nationalism, which got a great boost from the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

Failing to fully understand what they were up against, some Democrats slightly toned down their support for all forms of abortion, and many of them acquired a book on cognitive linguistics that correctly showed that Republicans were very skilled at recasting unpopular policies in favorable langage and at "branding" Democrats as very undesirable political products. The reading will do them some good, but it is necessary for them to learn much more about right-wing populism.

The main elements of populism are celebrating "the people" and battling elites. American right-wing populists believe the country is dominated by an elitist coalition of big government bureaucrats, old money aristocrats, and the so-called "New Class" of academicians, intellectuals, media people, and technocrats. The belief that the elite looks down on other Americans gives right-wing populism its great force which is expressed in anger, resentment, and determination to go to the polls and strike a blow against their enemies. The elitists are accused of trying to destroy American culture, and the New Right sees a nation divided by two starkly different cultures, one good and one evil. The term "liberal" has been redefined to mean people who are trying to overturn traditional American culture by supporting moral relativism, permissiveness, softness on crime, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and stem cell research. It is a simplistic black and white picture that bears little resemblance to reality but, with the help of a small army of propagandists, pundits and preachers, it has become the core frame of reference for the New Right. Growing belief that liberals are conspiring to undermine American culture and are contemptuous of ordinary Americans has generated paranoia and rage which has activated the New Right and enabled it to grow steadily as a political force over three decades. The fear and loathing of so-called elitists and their alleged plans to destroy American culture is far more important in motivating political action than particular issues like abortion or gay marriage.

American right-wing populism’s four main characteristics are majoritarianism– even in defiance of constitutional government, anti-elitism, intense nationalism, and anti-intellectualism. Historically, populism has led to anti-Semitism and racism. Polish writer Adam Michnik suggested that populism always contains an element of envy and employs demagoguery. When mixed with intense nationalism, it can produce fascism. However, it is likely that right populism would lose some of its charm in the United States if it were to spawn overt and excessive authoritarianism and obvious anti-Semitism or racism.

In the past, forms of populism in the United States have burned themselves out fairly quickly because they soon were manifesting more than a little bizarre and outrageous behavior. This latest incarnation has steadily grown over three decades, and zealous followers have been kept on somewhat acceptable paths by an army of radio talk show hosts, pundits, and very adept political managers. It has been no small accomplishment.

American right-wing populism it is very attractive to small entrepreneurs and ordinary Americans, often members of the white working class. In both Europe and America white males from the working class were particularly attracted to populism. They faced job insecurity and declining standards of living, and, especially in the United States, they resented the loss of privileges that had traditionally flowed from their status as white males. Yearning for the restoration of their roles as defenders and providers, some American men even joined militias, extremist organizations that display the repressive dimensions of right-wing populism when carried too far.

In the United States, however, right-wing populism appealed to an element that was not so important in Europe–evangelical, fundamentalist, and traditional Christianity. What has developed is, in the words of Italian writer Emilio Gentile defined "political religion, " defined as the use of religion , its language and symbols for political combat. The Christian adherents of the new right-wing populism have been called the Religious or Christian Right. Forty-two percent of American voters describe themselves as born-again, and about 75% of them have come to support the Republican party. In time the majority of traditionalist Catholics joined them on the religious right. It was unified by opposition to abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, and homosexual practice. Some members of the Christian Right differ from non-religious right-wing populists in that they are interested in eroding the wall separating church and state, and they are even more opposed to an open society. A few on the Christian Right adhere to "dominionism," the belief that true Christians must acquire political power and lead the nation by carrying our their biblical principles.

The Christian Right took shape in the 1970, and were helped come into being by conservative operatives and strategists Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie, E.E. McAteer, and Howard Phillips. Their strategy proved to be so effective that one would expect it to have been hatched by several brilliant sociologists. In an 1976 interview, Viguerie said they were busy building support among evangelicals and getting "preachers into politics." They focused on ministers like Reverend Jerry Falwell, who believed America was being ruled by the "wicked." Christian Voice, an important evangelical group, was then saying that America was being attacked by "Satanist forces." This kind of black and white thinking did not invite dialogue, only fear, anger, and determination to seize power. By 2005, members of the Christian Right were announcing that those who opposed efforts to strip Democratic Senators of the right to filibuster against Republican judicial nominees were enemies of God. Republican Congressman Christopher Shays admitted that his party had been transformed into the "party of theocracy." Former Senator John Danforth, an Episcopal priest, observed that his party had been transformed "into the political arm of conservative Christians."

In most respects, there was a meshing of views and attitudes between the evangelicals and the right-wing populists. Even many members of the evangelical Churches, while usually voting for Republicans, were much more inclined to agree with their ministers on the evils of feminism or abortion than on other questions. Perhaps they were acting at the polls more as right-wing populists than as evangelicals, but certainly the appeals to the Religious Right helped activate their populism. Whether as evangelicals or as populists, they were equally disposed to demand that the United States take a more assertive role in world affairs, and they were frustrated when foreign countries failed to heed the leadership of this virtuous nation. Both were likely to see the Vietnam War a noble venture. For decades, this burning nationalism or what scholars call "foreign policy fundamentalism" bad been firmly suppressed by a bipartisan foreign policy establishment. With the election of George W. Bush, those favoring a far more aggressive and assertive foreign policy took power, and public outrage over the terrible events of September 11, 2001 made it possible for them to implement their policies. For some on the Christian Right, the invasion of Iraq was predicted in the Book of Revelation and should be seem as a large step toward the events of end times when one third of humankind is slain and millions of sinners are sent to eternal hellfire and torment.

It is unclear how far and how fast right-wing populism can continue to spread across a population. It is growing by leaps in bounds in Islamic countries, where conditions are more than ripe for its spread. Experience in the United States has demonstrated its steady growth, and the continual spread of evangelical Christianity seems to prepare its way for still more New Right growth. In the 1950s, people who held views similar to those of the New right were considered part of the so-called lunatic fringe. By the 1980s, there were many more of these people, but their views were not considered mainstream. Today, the New Right dominates the nation’s most powerful political party and has reason to claim that its outlook is becoming that of mainstream America.