US History 101

I’m impressed by the audacity of the person at the Department of State who wrote this Outline of U.S. History. It’s remarkably biased, but also walks a thin line by intimating instead of explicitly praising or blaming presidents. Here are my favorite sections:

THE COUNTERCULTURE

The agitation for equal opportunity sparked other forms of upheaval. Young people in particular rejected the stable patterns of middle-class life their parents had created in the decades after World War II. Some plunged into radical political activity; many more embraced new standards of dress and sexual behavior….

Few denied that pollution was a problem, but the proposed solutions involved expense and inconvenience. Many believed these would reduce the economic growth upon which many Americans’ standard of living depended. Nevertheless, in 1970, Congress amended the Clean Air Act of 1967 to develop uniform national air-quality standards.

KENNEDY AND THE RESURGENCE OF BIG GOVERNMENT LIBERALISM

Even though the Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress, conservative Southern Democrats often sided with the Republicans on issues involving the scope of governmental intervention in the economy. They resisted plans to increase federal aid to education, provide health insurance for the elderly, and create a new Department of Urban Affairs. And so, despite his lofty rhetoric, Kennedy’s policies were often limited and restrained….

The overall legislative record of the Kennedy administration was meager. The president made some gestures toward civil rights leaders but did not embrace the goals of the civil rights movement until demonstrations led by Martin Luther King Jr. forced his hand in 1963….

THE CARTER YEARS

Jimmy Carter, former Democratic governor of Georgia, won the presidency in 1976. Portraying himself during the campaign as an outsider to Washington politics, he promised a fresh approach to governing, but his lack of experience at the national level complicated his tenure from the start. A naval officer and engineer by training, he often appeared to be a technocrat, when Americans wanted someone more visionary [Reagan!!] to lead them through troubled times….

Carter’s political efforts failed to gain either public or congressional support. By the end of his term, his disapproval rating reached 77 percent, and Americans began to look toward the Republican Party again.

CONSERVATISM AND THE RISE OF RONALD REAGAN

For many Americans, the economic, social, and political trends of the previous two decades — crime and racial polarization in many urban centers, challenges to traditional values, the economic downturn and inflation of the Carter years — engendered a mood of disillusionment. It also strengthened a renewed suspicion of government and its ability to deal effectively with the country’s social and political problems….

President Reagan’s unflagging optimism and his ability to celebrate the achievements and aspirations of the American people persisted throughout his two terms in office. He was a figure of reassurance and stability for many Americans. Wholly at ease before the microphone and the television camera, Reagan was called the “Great Communicator.”…

A NEW PRESIDENCY

President Clinton’s closest collaborator was his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the campaign, he had quipped that those who voted for him “got two for the price of one.” She supported her husband against accusations about his personal life.

LAUNCHING A NEW DOMESTIC POLICY

In practice, Clinton’s centrism demanded choices that sometimes elicited vehement emotions. The president’s first policy initiative was designed to meet the demands of gays, who, claiming a group status as victims of discrimination, had become an important Democratic constituency.

Immediately after his inauguration, President Clinton issued an executive order rescinding the long-established military policy of dismissing known gays from the service. The order quickly drew furious criticism from the military, most Republicans, and large segments of American society. Clinton quickly modified it with a “don’t ask, don’t tell” order that effectively restored the old policy but discouraged active investigation of one’s sexual practices….

Although Clinton had talked about a “middle class tax cut” during the presidential campaign, he submitted to Congress a budget calling for a general tax increase….

The president also co-opted part of the Republican program. In his State of the Union address of January 1996, he ostentatiously declared, “The era of big government is over.” That summer, on the eve of the presidential campaign, he signed a major welfare reform bill that was essentially a Republican product.

INTIMATIONS OF TERRORISM

On October 12, 2000, suicide bombers rammed a speedboat into the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole, on a courtesy visit to Yemen. Heroic action by the crew kept the ship afloat, but 17 sailors were killed. Bin Laden had pretty clearly been behind the attacks in Saudi Arabia, Africa, and Yemen, but he was beyond reach unless the administration was prepared to invade Afghanistan to search for him.

The Clinton administration was never willing to take such a step. It even shrank from the possibility of assassinating him if others might be killed in the process. The attacks had been remote and widely separated. It was easy to accept them as unwelcome but inevitable costs associated with superpower status. Bin Laden remained a serious nuisance, but not a top priority for an administration that was nearing its end.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2000 AND THE WAR ON TERROR

Bush established a position closer to the heritage of Ronald Reagan than to that of his father. He displayed a special interest in education and called himself a “compassionate conservative.” His embrace of evangelical Christianity, which he declared had changed his life after a misspent youth, was of particular note. It underscored an attachment to traditional cultural values that contrasted sharply with Gore’s technocratic modernism. The old corporate gadfly Ralph Nader ran well to Gore’s left as the candidate of the Green Party….

New weapons inspection teams were unable to find the expected stockpiles of chemical and biological weaponry. Although neither explanation made much sense, it increasingly seemed that Saddam Hussein had either engaged in a gigantic and puzzling bluff, or possibly that the weapons had been moved to another country.