the collapse of the dot-com bubble, and
then the telecom crash, both beginning months before he had even taken office, the
result of events as disparate as a court ruling against Microsoft and a disastrously
wrongheaded merger between AOL and Time Warner. Once-mighty companies like WorldCom
and Global Crossing disappeared from the face of the earth, while other celebrated
companies, like Pets.com, imploded. The giddy sense of effortless enrichment among
investors collapsed just as thoroughly.
Worse, the seemingly unending series of interest-rate increases by the Fed had managed
to send the broader American economy into recession in March; by June the unemployment
rate had jumped to 6.4 percent—the highest in nine years—and late-night comedians
were beginning to joke that Al Gore had accomplished in six months what Clinton hadn’t
managed in eight years.
“Maybe,” David Letterman cracked, “it’s time to bring back to the White House someone
who know how to get things rising again. Anyone have Monica Lewinsky’s phone number?”
Nor was Gore finding any satisfaction in the fight for his legislative programs. The
Republican majority in the House was adamantly insisting on applying the entire surplus—still
estimated at more than $200 billion—toward a tax cut substantially skewed toward the
more affluent taxpayers; Gore’s plan to shore up the Social Security and Medicare
trust funds, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay insisted, was “just more proof that the
president marches to the beat of socialist drums.” From his own side of the spectrum
came more complaints that Gore was abandoning the core concerns of the Democratic
Party. Where were the large-scale investments in roads and bridges? Where was the
legislation making it easier for workers to unionize their factories and offices?
Where was universal health care? For heaven’s sake, there were even rumors that Gore
was considering the idea of an individual health mandate, the idea pushed by the right-wing
Heritage Foundation.
“I refuse to believe such rumors,” said Senator Hillary Clinton, who had famously
drafted a health-care plan as first lady that had gone down in ignominious defeat.
“No one who calls himself a Democrat could seriously entertain such a notion.”
The struggling economy and the legislative gridlock had combined to put a serious
dent in Gore’s approval ratings. Indeed, a poll release just that morning had shown
that if the 2000 election were rerun, Gore and Bush would once again finish in a dead
heat. And now there was a new annoyance—right there in the pages of the New Yorker magazine the president held in his lap.
It was a piece by Seymour Hersh, one of the most indefatigable investigative journalists,
the man who had exposed the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam back in 1969 and who
took special delight in ferreting out discontent in the defense and intelligence arenas.
Hersh’s ten-thousand-word article took a skeptical look at the killing of Osama bin
Laden, building a brief from dissident Defense Department and CIA officials. Hersh
questioned everything, from the president’s constitutional power to order extraterritorial
killing to the danger that bin Laden’s death could spark retaliation inside the United
States—“blowback,” as they called it in the intelligence community. There was no doubt
Hersh’s article would get heavy play on the network newscasts and the next day’s front
pages.
And that story would play at a time when fears of a terrorist strike were at a peak.
Back in July, Clarke had told Gore flatly that “something really, really spectacular
is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon.” CIA director Tenet was circulating
warnings from the Middle East that “something very, very, very, very big is about
to happen.” He had followed Clarke’s urgings, convened two principals meetings in
the past
then the telecom crash, both beginning months before he had even taken office, the
result of events as disparate as a court ruling against Microsoft and a disastrously
wrongheaded merger between AOL and Time Warner. Once-mighty companies like WorldCom
and Global Crossing disappeared from the face of the earth, while other celebrated
companies, like Pets.com, imploded. The giddy sense of effortless enrichment among
investors collapsed just as thoroughly.
Worse, the seemingly unending series of interest-rate increases by the Fed had managed
to send the broader American economy into recession in March; by June the unemployment
rate had jumped to 6.4 percent—the highest in nine years—and late-night comedians
were beginning to joke that Al Gore had accomplished in six months what Clinton hadn’t
managed in eight years.
“Maybe,” David Letterman cracked, “it’s time to bring back to the White House someone
who know how to get things rising again. Anyone have Monica Lewinsky’s phone number?”
Nor was Gore finding any satisfaction in the fight for his legislative programs. The
Republican majority in the House was adamantly insisting on applying the entire surplus—still
estimated at more than $200 billion—toward a tax cut substantially skewed toward the
more affluent taxpayers; Gore’s plan to shore up the Social Security and Medicare
trust funds, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay insisted, was “just more proof that the
president marches to the beat of socialist drums.” From his own side of the spectrum
came more complaints that Gore was abandoning the core concerns of the Democratic
Party. Where were the large-scale investments in roads and bridges? Where was the
legislation making it easier for workers to unionize their factories and offices?
Where was universal health care? For heaven’s sake, there were even rumors that Gore
was considering the idea of an individual health mandate, the idea pushed by the right-wing
Heritage Foundation.
“I refuse to believe such rumors,” said Senator Hillary Clinton, who had famously
drafted a health-care plan as first lady that had gone down in ignominious defeat.
“No one who calls himself a Democrat could seriously entertain such a notion.”
The struggling economy and the legislative gridlock had combined to put a serious
dent in Gore’s approval ratings. Indeed, a poll release just that morning had shown
that if the 2000 election were rerun, Gore and Bush would once again finish in a dead
heat. And now there was a new annoyance—right there in the pages of the New Yorker magazine the president held in his lap.
It was a piece by Seymour Hersh, one of the most indefatigable investigative journalists,
the man who had exposed the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam back in 1969 and who
took special delight in ferreting out discontent in the defense and intelligence arenas.
Hersh’s ten-thousand-word article took a skeptical look at the killing of Osama bin
Laden, building a brief from dissident Defense Department and CIA officials. Hersh
questioned everything, from the president’s constitutional power to order extraterritorial
killing to the danger that bin Laden’s death could spark retaliation inside the United
States—“blowback,” as they called it in the intelligence community. There was no doubt
Hersh’s article would get heavy play on the network newscasts and the next day’s front
pages.
And that story would play at a time when fears of a terrorist strike were at a peak.
Back in July, Clarke had told Gore flatly that “something really, really spectacular
is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon.” CIA director Tenet was circulating
warnings from the Middle East that “something very, very, very, very big is about
to happen.” He had followed Clarke’s urgings, convened two principals meetings in
the past
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