Let's relive the Bush years!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Let's relive the Bush years!

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

Did you know that George W. Bush is bad, actually? Crazy, I know, but it�s true!

While known today mainly for making garbage tier paintings, dancing with Ellen, and saying Trump was bad that one time, George W. Bush actually has a long history of being one of the worst people ever spawned by this demon cracker hellstate. He was an idiot, a liar, a religious wing nut, and an honest to god war criminal with millions of deaths to his name. Being politically aware during his administration was not just frustrating, but traumatic. You know that uneasy feeling you get when you watch Trump tell the Dutch ambassador that she�s got the third best pair of tits he�s ever seen? That creeping feeling that something is very wrong and everything this country ostensibly stands for is collapsing under our feet? Well boo-fuckin-hoo I�ve been experiencing that for TWENTY loving YEARS and I can promise you that it was even worse under Bush.

Ah, but I get ahead of myself. For you see the purpose of this thread is for us to relive and re-litigate those magical years together.

Here�s how this will work. Every week I will be going through the Bush years month by month, digging through the media of the time and presenting you all with news and whatnot from that bygone era. I�ll start with the election in January of 2000 and continue all the way through to the Obama election in 2008, at which point maybe I�ll start a new thread dedicated to his bullshit or something, idk. As I do you are all welcome to discuss the events I post, or post your own discovered videos/articles/blogs/art/etc from around the same timeframe. They can be related to Bush himself, the various psychopaths in his administration, the media, or just the culture at the time. Anything you feel will help younger politics geeks out there get a feel for the time is fair game. All I ask is that you not jump *too* far into the future when discussing events to come).

_{(Dear lord this is going to be so loving bad for my mental health...)}

# ? May 8, 2020 02:45

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# ? May 5, 2024 10:34

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

We are currently in :siren:

August of 2000 :siren:

These are some of the things going on in the world right now:

The election is down to Bush and Gore with Gore already losing
Each party is having their conventions
The dot com crash continues quietly in the background
Globalization is starting to kick in and liberals are smug as gently caress about it
The Daily Show is starting to do it's Indecision 2000 coverage which will become very popular.
Maher is currently on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher on ABC having opinions that won't age well

Just FYI you can look through the NYT archives for free here but you can�t read the actual stories without a subscription. If you see a headline you�d like to read just let me know and I�ll post it/PM it to you.

E: Just for clarity, people are welcome to discuss non-news related events/media/etc from or about the time period in question if they want. If you do though try to post a link/video or something about it so we have a bit more to go on than "X thing happened". Also if you post links to article you might want to quote the text in case the website you're linking to dies (which is very likely with articles that old) and the article is lost forever.

readingatwork fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Jan 23, 2021

# ? May 8, 2020 02:45

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

Alright let�s get started! This week we will be discussing January of 2000

Okay, so before we discuss the Bush years it�s probably good to spend some time with the Clinton administration. The Clinton years, for all the horrible poo poo that happened, were actually a pretty prosperous time to be an American.

You know, assuming you weren�t black�

or gay...

or a female staffer for any major politician�

Anyways what I�m saying is that if you were lucky enough to be on the right side of the tracks you had it pretty good compared to most other times in history. The economy was good, technology was improving at a dizzying pace, and your prospects for the future were bright. Your parents had all done better than their parents, and it was fully expected that you would do far better still. There had been no major recession since the 80�s, and major disasters like global warming, were still just matters of vague academic debate. An issue to be dealt with later, if at all.

It�s also important to understand that the internet was a very new thing at the time. I got my first computer in 98 or so and it was the kind of machine that would take an hour to download a single pornographic jpeg. I remember I got VERY excited when my house�s internet speeds breached 1k/s.

Why is this relevant? Because at the time the news was dominated by cable channels like CNN, local news stations, major newspapers, AM radio, and of course Fox News which was still pretending to be just another CNN clone. We did not have the power to question most establishment narratives because our entire worldview was shaped by establishment sources. Unless you had a relative who learned some weird poo poo in college you would never know who Noam Chompsky is or what Marx actually stood for. You were told the world worked a certain way and the entirety of your experience backed this up. The internet profoundly changed (and is still changing) this dynamic and is probably why there was any resistance at all to Bush�s insanity.

But that�s still to come. For now, let�s look at some selections from January of 2000, just six months after George W. Bush, the Governor of Texas, announced his presidency and right when the Democratic primary results were starting to come in:

Jan 1: Against all odds the Y2K bug doesn�t kill us all!

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/01/us/1-1-00-technology-2000-momentous-relief-monitors-missiles-year-2000-note-relief.html

�The New York Times� posted:

TECHNOLOGY AND 2000 -- MOMENTOUS RELIEF; Monitors Of Missiles At Year 2000 Note Relief

The new decade arrived well before dawn here today at Peterson Air Force Base, but there was more relief than celebration as the world's 24 time zones began passing from the 20th century without nuclear conflagration.

In a collaboration that would have been inconceivable before the cold war ended a decade ago, American and Russian military personnel sat side by side inside an ad hoc Center for Y2K Strategic Stability, where they monitored data that would reflect any ballistic missile activity around the world.

As expected, there was none -- at least none that the American and Russian authorities here would discuss. American officials confirmed that the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is 13 miles from here inside Cheyenne Mountain, had detected launchings of three missiles but said the missiles' inability to travel more than 500 kilometers, or 310 miles, made them irrelevant to operations here.

From the American perspective, any moments of real concern had passed by the turn of the year at Greenwich Mean Time, midnight in London. Every American missile system operates on Greenwich Mean Time, which means precise timing is imperative for encryption and other programs around the world.

We really thought we were all going to die, lol.

(By the way I will be relying heavily on the New York Times because it�s fairly representative of mainstream opinion and I have access to it�s archives. If you want me to post an old NYT article just ask. Also any links to other news archives will be greatly appreciated.)

Jan 1: The end of history is lookin� bright y�all!

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/01/opinion/2000-and-beyond-the-shape-of-an-age-to-come.html

The NYT Opinion Section posted:

2000 and Beyond -- The Shape of an Age to Come

So now at last begins the year 2000, a juncture in time so long anticipated it is hard to believe it has arrived, disguised as a mere Saturday. The year is so utterly new, all four digits overturned at once, that simply seeing the date in print jars the eye.

The very novelty of it -- this is the roundest year any of us will ever see -- suggests momentous change. In a practical sense, of course, that is far from true. What remained undone on Friday will still need doing on Monday. Yet there is no denying that we have arrived at the gateway to another epoch, and the moment commands respect and reflection about the world to come. In a thousand years, when people look back at what has preceded them, they will see that the chronicle of this new millennium began with us, on this day. We belong now to their history, as progenitors, in a different way than we did even yesterday.
Ideals for Posterity

When we gaze into a seeming infinity of tomorrows, we face the challenge that any generation confronts when it looks ahead: how to influence a future we cannot control or even predict. We can no more see the details of centuries yet to be than the residents of cultivated, tolerant, prosperous Baghdad in A.D. 1000 could imagine what their city would look like a millennium later under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. We also recognize that no civilization lasts forever, and that America a thousand years hence will be something very different, if it exists at all.
None of this, however, relieves us of the obligation to do what is within our power. That is to help form the future by bequeathing the best of what we have learned about constructing and sustaining an enlightened civilization. History teaches that the surest way to reach across time is through the transmission of enduring values and ideals. The convictions of Washington and Jefferson still guide us powerfully today, just as the ideas of the ancient Greeks and the Enlightenment philosophers emboldened them. We have a similar opportunity to inspire coming generations by projecting toward them the principles that we have honed in more recent times. They can be the distinctive legacy of our age.

A Fresh Way of Seeing the World

For we are the custodians of an attitudinal revolution that developed in the last decades of the century -- the final seconds, figuratively speaking, of the millennium. We have come to see the need to organize the world's affairs in ways that bridge territorial, political and cultural boundaries and to act in concert to protect the health of the earth itself.

These ideas, now widely embraced, represent a seismic shift in how we think about the world, the relations between peoples and nations, and our relationship with the planet that is our home. Globalization has become a term of art for unifying trends in trade, communications and management. But it could as easily refer to a generous new consciousness about how the world should manage not just its enterprises and armies but the task of crafting a shared destiny.

True, we have not ended bloodshed or eliminated ethnic violence, nor have we overcome poverty or defeated disease. The fact that this day arrives freighted with anxiety about terrorist attacks in our most joyous public spaces shows that we have not conquered the violence born of bigotry and political division. It would be naive, even reckless, to suggest that the world's problems do not weigh heavily as the centuries turn, and we do not mean to underestimate the dangers that may lie ahead.
But in these first hours of a new era, it behooves us to imagine the future with a sense of optimism, something that eluded our ancestors as they struggled just to survive. We have the humane vision and technological means to lift the world family to new levels of liberty, affluence, health and happiness. Forging that possibility into reality is the task that greets us in the morning of the new millennium.
Decisive Lessons

The blinding flash and towering mushroom cloud that filled the sky over Alamogordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945, signaled the advent of a new world in which adversaries could unleash nature's most powerful forces. Less than 25 years later, three men peered back at Earth as they circled the moon, and from the porthole of their spacecraft that Christmas Eve in 1968 we could see how small, how wondrous our planet is as it floats in the black emptiness of space. The profound paradox of those images -- one deadly, one supernal -- has instructed the progressive nations of the world in the last years of the millennium.

We had acquired the tools to deform the entire planet, and not with weapons alone. Unrestrained pollution and surging population growth are forces of equal, albeit more gradual, cataclysmic potential. Yet just at this point of paralyzing danger, we also gained the ability to see the earth as a miraculous and mendable entity, and to think and act in altruistic ways that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.
The origins of this transforming process -- a universal learning experience that may in time be compared to the Renaissance -- can be found in the blossoming of democratic spirit in 18th-century revolutions. Later, industrialization demonstrated the life-changing potential of technology and inventiveness. The military conflicts of the last century created both a worldwide hunger for peace and a sharpened antipathy to totalitarian governance. The rising aspirations of Asia and Africa showed the futility of imperialism, while the United States and its Western partners, in their farsighted moments, were seeking to guide the world according to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.

In more recent years this new perspective deepened with the recognition and fear that the technology of war had brought us to the edge of a disaster from which the world might never recover. But it also grew from the interconnectedness of the modern age, the realization that the welfare of a single nation could not be severed from the welfare of the entire world. More benign technologies -- airplanes, telephones, television -- spurred the process. Today, computers and the global communications network are all but erasing national boundaries and undercutting nationalism itself.

A Different International Order

Our political and economic models are changing as the cold war recedes. We have learned that our leaders should be judged not by their ability to defeat enemies or conquer new territories, but on their capacity to extend prosperity and peace[LOOOOOOOOL!]. Because even small countries can obtain the weapons to threaten not just adjacent lands but distant capitals, every nation has a critical interest in seeing every other nation do well. In the Middle East and most recently in the Balkans, the United States and its allies have found common purpose in combating regional bloodlettings and preventing rogue nations from acquiring biological, chemical and nuclear arms. We must be imaginative and wise in helping Russia and China become responsible world powers after tortured decades under Communism.

The third millennium's economy has to be a mutually beneficial construction of expanding productivity and shared prosperity, built around the engine of trade. It is easy to see a developing nation's wealth as an opportunity for new markets. We must also perceive that a poor nation's hunger is a danger to the well-being of the whole. One of the great goals for mankind in the opening decades of the new century must be to lift hundreds of millions of destitute people from poverty.
For poverty, like war, is contagious. It can destroy life, and the prospect of living as well. Deprived people must consume an earth they cannot afford to protect. They turn farmland into desert. They develop communicable diseases that can spread across continents in days.

Preservation of the Planet

Surely one of the modern epoch's greatest gifts to the third millennium is a new reverence for the environment. Until the most recent moment in human history, our relationship toward nature was always carelessly rapacious. But only since the Industrial Revolution have we been capable of doing irreparable damage to the land, water and air. We are the first generation to accept ecological stewardship as a duty to unborn generations.

Yet we cannot ignore the fact that our desire to see poor countries reach prosperity is colliding with our need to curb fossil fuels, deforestation and the depletion of an all too exhaustible sea. Resolving those conflicts early in the new millennium may well be the test by which posterity most stringently grades us[Prophetic. Dayum�.]. If managed properly, capitalism, with its roots in individual self-interest, can be a powerful tool for creating the wealth that allows developing nations to cleanse the air, earth and water.
Future generations will also measure what we did with the world's knowledge reserves. One of the rules for the next millennium must be that we have an obligation to disseminate, not hoard, new information about science, health and technology. The Internet has given us the tools for sharing. The will must still come from the human heart. In the end, the democratization of wealth and health depend on the worldwide democratization of knowledge.

The Light of a New Day

We will turn soon enough to the tasks that await us. Even now, the monumentality of this moment fades in the old familiarity of morning and afternoon. The sun has barely begun to gather itself after the winter solstice, and the light over the city and the country is so fragile that it threatens to splinter and fall in flakes to the ground, as it always threatens to do in January.

And yet something about the sound of 2000 draws past and future near in a way that we have never quite known before. So here we are now, all of us, just next door to yesterday and yet somehow in a different world. This day's firstborn are already with us, and the first of us to die in this new calendar have already gone. Soon we will have slept a full night in this strange-sounding year, and then another. We cannot know how the new millennium will end, but we do have the power to determine how it begins and, perhaps, what it will remember of us.

Christ what an rear end in a top hat...

Jan 3: The last peanuts strip is printed (Sunday strips would continue through February)

This is not strictly political but it's my thread and I'm allowed to indulge myself God damnit!

Jan 4: The Daily Show with John Stewart was incredibly important at the time so expect me to talk about it a lot. Here�s what it looked like at the beginning of the millennium.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0pzlo8/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-headlines---2000

He�s still funny. Fight me.

Jan 15: I wonder what the Bush campaign was doing at this time...

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/15/us/campaign-briefing-george-w-bush-the-confederate-flag.html

�New York Times� posted:

CAMPAIGN BRIEFING: GEORGE W. BUSH; THE CONFEDERATE FLAG

The Texas N.A.A.C.P. asked Mr. Bush yesterday to back its effort to have the image of the Confederate battle flag removed from a plaque on the state Supreme Court building. South Carolina's N.A.A.C.P. has called for an economic boycott of South Carolina as long as it flies the battle flag over the state Capitol. Mr. Bush has said the decision in that dispute is up to the people of South Carolina. After the question about the Texas plaque was raised, Mr. Bush's campaign issued a statement saying, ''We are proud of our diversity.'' The statement added, ''We certainly hope that people are not trying to politicize this in the context of a presidential campaign.''

Oooooooh yeah that�s the stuff�

Jan 18: Anybody curious what the Democratic debates looked like at the time?

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/18/us/the-2000-campaign-excerpts-from-bradley-gore-debate-in-des-moines.html

The New York Times posted:

THE 2000 CAMPAIGN; Excerpts From Bradley-Gore Debate in Des Moines

Following are excerpts from the Democratic presidential debate last night in Des Moines between Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, as recorded by The New York Times:

Q. Some 46,000 people, twice the number predicted, showed up today for a King Day rally in Columbia, S.C. They were, of course, protesting the flying of the Confederate battle flag atop the State Capitol. . . . Do you support and do you intend to abide by the N.A.A.C.P.'s boycott of the State of South Carolina until that flag is removed?

MR. GORE: I ask for your support to help bring our country together. And one of the ways we can bring our country together is to recognize that the Confederate battle flag divides America. It stands as a hurtful symbol to millions, not only African-Americans, because it recalls the pain of slavery. It should be removed from the State Capitol building in South Carolina and from any government institution so as to make them welcoming to all of our citizens. I do not think a president of the United States should ever boycott an individual state because a president needs to bring our people together. . . .

MR. BRADLEY: I'd pull it down today. I think it should be withdrawn absolutely. I think it's an offense to our common humanity and it is not the future of this country. . . . If we're going to move forward in this country we have to tell the truth. And somebody once said, many people want to change the world, but few people want to change themselves. If we're going to make progress on race in America, we have to do both those. We have to change the conditions of discrimination and poverty and we have to change our hearts so that we can bring everybody along as our brother or sister. . . .

Q.: You know the story very well in upstate New York, Oneonta, N.Y. Where this elderly white woman was attacked. . . . She only saw one of his hands. And from the color of his skin she knew that he was an African-American. She filed a police report, and the police in Oneonta, N.Y., this small college town, arrested, went and questioned rather, every single African-American man in town. . . . Would you agree with the decision of the Second Circuit Court that said that those cops in that city acted properly?

MR. BRADLEY: Racial profiling is particularly pernicious because we're talking about people who pay their taxes, work hard, abide by the rules and they are plucked out because of our inability to see beneath skin color or eye shape or ethnicity in this country and stopped on a regular basis. If I were president of the United States, I would put an executive order in immediately that would end racial profiling in the federal government. I would work to get local police departments to keep data to be able to demonstrate that there was racial profiling. And then I'd sic the Justice Department after them to make sure they were going to abide by the law in which no racial profiling.

MR. GORE: I said at the beginning of my campaign for president that on the first day of a Gore presidency, I would issue an executive order to ban racial profiling. And the first civil rights bill introduced from the White House of the year 2001 would be a bill outlawing racial profiling. There's a lot of pain out there in this country on the part of Latin Americans and Latinos and Asian-Americans who feel as if they have been singled out unfairly and sometimes in a very harsh way because of the way they look. That is unacceptable. . . .

MR. BRADLEY: Al, I know that you would issue an order to end racial profiling if you were president of the United States. But we have a president now. You serve with him. I want you to walk down that hallway, walk into his office and say, ''Sign this executive order today.''

MR. GORE: I don't think President Bill Clinton needs a lecture from Bill Bradley about how to stand up and fight for African-Americans and Latinos in this country.

EDIT:

Found the whole Jan 5 debate on CSPAN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4506348/user-clip-2000-01-26

Jan 24: Gore wins Iowa (the first primary state of the primary). He beat out Bill Bradley, a supposedly more liberal challenger that I know literally nothing about. Bush won Iowa and Alaska against Alan Keyes and John McCain, who I honestly forgot ran in 2000 lmao.

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/25/us/the-2000-campaign-the-overview-iowans-deliver-victory-to-bush-and-gore.html

The New York Times posted:

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas and Vice President Al Gore were the clear victors in the Iowa presidential caucuses tonight as voters -- although just a few of them -- for the first time affirmed their positions as front-runners for their parties' nominations.

In the Republican race, Steve Forbes, the wealthy publisher who had pumped millions into the race, finished second, roughly tripling the 10 percent he drew here four years ago.
Alan Keyes, a former State Department official who, like Mr. Forbes had courted the religious right, was third, outpacing another religious conservative, Gary L. Bauer. Senator John McCain, who did not campaign here, won a handful of votes, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah came in last.

With 41 percent of the vote, Mr. Bush, a two-term governor in his first try for national office, surpassed the 37 percent that Bob Dole drew in a six-candidate field in 1988. Mr. Bush had set that figure as his goal.
Yet in a sign of the potency that the abortion issue held here, his results did not match the total votes of Mr. Forbes, Mr. Keyes and Mr. Bauer, who all criticized Mr. Bush as being soft on the question.
In the Democratic race, Mr. Gore outpolled former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey 63 percent to 35 percent. The outcome was a setback for Mr. Bradley, who had campaigned aggressively in the state.
The victors hope their triumphs will embolden their campaigns in the nation's first primary on Tuesday in New Hampshire. But Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore face different political landscapes there -- as well as polls showing that they are neck and neck with Mr. McCain and Mr. Bradley.

In fact, some New Hampshire voters pride themselves on not following the lead of Iowa.

Moreover, Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore are no doubt aware that while this state has been at the epicenter of American politics, the results have been far from a reliable indicator of who will end up at the White House, or even win their parties' nomination.

The state is hardly representative of the nation -- it is overwhelmingly white -- and those who participated tonight tended to be more conservative or liberal.

Although the showings of Mr. Forbes, who drew 30 percent, and Mr. Keyes, who captured 14 percent, underscored the potency of religious conservative voters in these caucuses, Mr. Bush drew a substantial proportion of their support as well, according to surveys of voters entering the caucuses. Mr. Bauer tallied 9 percent; Mr. McCain, 5 percent; and Mr. Hatch, 1 percent.

For more than a year, Mr. Bush has towered over the Republican field because of his record-breaking fund-raising, impressive poll numbers and endorsements. Now, the first voters declared him the leader as well.

Mr. Bush, smiling as he watched the coverage in his hotel suite here, declared victory barely 45 minutes after the caucuses had opened. ''We've had a record-shattering victory,'' he said, ''and I never dreamt I'd be able to get such a high vote total.''

Later, at a rally in Des Moines, Mr. Bush said: ''Tonight marks the first election of the new millenium. The beginning of the process by which America will choose the President to lead us into the 21st Century.''

Mr. Gore's victory marked a comeback of sorts. For months he had been worried about Mr. Bradley's surging campaign.

The Bradley operation had spent more than $2 But Mr. Gore benefited from the support of labor and much of the state's Democratic establishment.

An ebullient Mr. Gore, at a rally late tonight, declared, ''Thank you for the biggest victory of the contested caucuses here in Iowa. Wow! Thank you.''

It was a far cry from the 1988 presidential campaign when Mr. Gore skipped Iowa, deriding the caucus system as ''madness'' and calling it ''the small state of Iowa.''

Tonight, Mr. Gore conceded that he faced far different competition in New Hampshire. ''I don't think there's any such thing as the so-called 'bounce,' '' he said of the prospect that his victory here would give him a lift in New Hampshire. ''That race must be won on his own terms.''

Conceding his loss, Mr. Bradley also said he was gearing for a hard-fought contest in New Hampshire. ''Let me congratulate the vice president on his strong showing tonight,'' Mr. Bradley said. ''He's an opponent who is tough and I know I'll be seeing a lot of him in the coming weeks.''

He added: ''Tonight, I have a little bit more humility, but no less confidence that I can do that job.''

Mr. Forbes also warned that the fight had only begun. He asserted that his second-place finish ''demonstrates that ideas matter, principles matter -- and if you have a strong conservative message, you can get broad-based support within the conservative party.''

While Mr. Forbes had long been viewed as Mr. Bush's toughest competitor here, the showing by Mr. Keyes was particularly striking because he had run a low-budget campaign and many Republicans had dismissed him as little more than a protest candidate. But he had impressed voters with his performances in many of the debates.

The last candidate to win a contested caucus and be elected president was Jimmy Carter in 1976. In 1988, the eventual nominees, Michael S. Dukakis and George Bush, placed third in the caucuses. The two victors, Richard A. Gephardt and Mr. Dole, had quit the race by the end of March.

Four years ago, there was no contested Democratic race. Mr. Dole won the Republican caucuses, but he was followed closely by Patrick J. Buchanan, who then triumphed in New Hampshire but lost the nomination to Mr. Dole. In recent years, the voting here has been more important for narrowing the field.

Early entrance polls tonight suggested that many Republican voters cared more about a candidate's moral values than his stance on taxes, Social Security, abortion or education. Those voters heavily backed Mr. Bush, followed by Mr. Keyes and Mr. Forbes. About a third of the Republican voters said they had never attended a caucus before.

Much has been made of the character issue in this campaign, and voters said they were looking for a candidate who stood up for what he believed in rather than one who understood complex issues or cared about the average American.

Nearly 25 percent of caucus participants said they were members of the religious right, and 75 percent described themselves as politically conservative. Sixty percent said someone who lived in their household had served in the military.

Many other states have derided Iowa for all the attention that it draws from the contenders, and from the press, saying it is not particularly representative of the nation. Of the 1.8 million registered voters here, officials tonight estimated that about 166,000 participated in the caucuses.

The found that Republicans said they were looking for a moral leader and one who would change the tax code.

Democratic voters, by contrast, were largely self-described liberals seeking a leader who was concerned about protecting Social Security and Medicare and would improve education.

More than half the Republican caucus-goers were men; nearly 6 in 10 of the those who attended the Democratic caucus were women.

Among Democrats, the survey found Mr. Gore was favored by voters on just about every issue. Only those searched for a leader with new idea backed Mr. Bradley over Mr. Gore.

The Republican vote was merely a straw poll and will have little impact on the selection of delegates to the convention, who will be chosen at county conventions, Congressional district conventions and state conventions.

For the Democrats, the voting tonight will have more influence on the selection of actual delegates.

On the Democratic side, Iowa will eventually account for 56 of the party's 4,337 convention delegates. The state will send 25 of the 2,169 delegates to the Republican convention.

Before Iowans voted, the contenders devoted one last day to trying to persuade and cajole the undecided and the uncommitted. Mr. Bush got an early start, striding into a restaurant here at 7:45 this morning and competing with eggs and pastries for the attention of the scattered diners.

''No rest for a while,'' he told a diner. ''It's like running a marathon. I ran a marathon in 1993, and it just requires patience and discipline and focus, and this is Mile 6.''

At a subsequent stop in Ames, where he delivered a speech at Iowa State University, Mr. Bush was upbeat and folksy, offering a homespun riff on how hard it has been to spend so many days on the campaign trail.

Jan 30: HEY GUYS REMEMBER THE PETS.COM SUPERBOWL AD!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXHrlm5Nk5w

You have no idea how omnipresent these stupid ads there were for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_JAhiY7xOA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN-U5x-5kv8

God drat that's a lot of text for only a few stories and I've only scratched the surface of this month. I could have easily broken this down by week if I wanted to, lmao. To keep this post from getting even more massive I�ll leave things here for the moment and post more stuff over the week as I find it. We will progress to February next weekend (the 17th).

There�s no set schedule btw but I will try to have updates on Sundays.

readingatwork fucked around with this message at 03:02 on May 17, 2020

# ? May 8, 2020 02:45

Bel Shazar: Sep 14, 2012

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK you you fake Texan son of a bitch.

# ? May 8, 2020 02:48

Bel Shazar: Sep 14, 2012

Also serving a reminder that Dick Cheney shot someone in the face and then forced them to get on television to apologize for getting shot.

# ? May 8, 2020 02:49

sirtommygunn: Mar 7, 2013

I don't remember anything political about the Bush years because I was a child during that time and insanely sheltered, so I'm looking forward to learning about some of the less well remembered stuff.

# ? May 8, 2020 02:52

Tommah: Mar 29, 2003

cheney's bulge belongs on the first page of this thread

this is how we dressed in 2004

# ? May 8, 2020 03:23

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

I just found the entire Jan 5 Democratic primary debate on CSPAN and I am watching the gently caress out of it. Very highly recommended viewing. Al Gore suuuucks as a speaker and it's kind of adorable.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?154474-1/democratic-candidates-debate

Edit: Whoops. It was Jan 5. I was looking at the wrong window.

readingatwork fucked around with this message at 03:49 on May 8, 2020

# ? May 8, 2020 03:28

Son of Thunderbeast: Sep 21, 2002

sirtommygunn posted:

I don't remember anything political about the Bush years because I was a child during that time and insanely sheltered, so I'm looking forward to learning about some of the less well remembered stuff.

I remember quite a bit but it was filtered through the lens of being raised by a very conservative father who listened to Limbaugh and volunteered for the bush campaign, so I'm extremely looking forward to revisiting all this poo poo

# ? May 8, 2020 03:28

Tommah: Mar 29, 2003

readingatwork posted:

I just found the entire Jan 26 Democratic primary debate on CSPAN and I am watching the gently caress out of it. Very highly recommended viewing. Al Gore suuuucks as a speaker and it's kind of adorable.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?154474-1/democratic-candidates-debate

why is peter jennings standing in front of the polish flag

# ? May 8, 2020 03:30

Gonzo McFee: Jun 19, 2010

Bush did 9/11

# ? May 8, 2020 03:31

Falstaff: Apr 27, 2008; I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

Bel Shazar posted:

Also serving a reminder that Dick Cheney shot someone in the face and then forced them to get on television to apologize for getting shot.

Dude! Spoilers!

readingatwork posted:

Jan 4: The Daily Show with John Stewart was incredibly important at the time so expect me to talk about it a lot. Here’s what it looked like at the beginning of the millennium.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0pzlo8/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-headlines---2000

He’s still funny. Fight me.

Thinking about the moment I had to admit that Stewart was just a lovely, lovely human being still makes me feel :negative:

# ? May 8, 2020 03:53

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

This isn't Bush but Y2K was a legit big deal and there are a lot of old software engineers who get real mad anytime someone acts like it was a hoax or myth.

George Bush doesn't care about black people.

# ? May 8, 2020 04:26

Freakazoid_: Jul 5, 2013; Buglord

welcome to the gun show

# ? May 8, 2020 04:32

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

readingatwork posted:

I just found the entire Jan 5 Democratic primary debate on CSPAN and I am watching the gently caress out of it. Very highly recommended viewing. Al Gore suuuucks as a speaker and it's kind of adorable.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?154474-1/democratic-candidates-debate

Edit: Whoops. It was Jan 5. I was looking at the wrong window.

Bill Bradley had a not awful healthcare plan.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bradley092999.htm

So obviously he lost because this is a hell country.

# ? May 8, 2020 04:34

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

Gumball Gumption posted:

This isn't Bush but Y2K was a legit big deal and there are a lot of old software engineers who get real mad anytime someone acts like it was a hoax or myth.

George Bush doesn't care about black people.

If you have any articles on the subject feel free to post them. I'd be very interested in reading them.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Bill Bradley had a not awful healthcare plan.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bradley092999.htm

So obviously he lost because this is a hell country.

Let's take a look...

quote:

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley outlined a plan today intended to provide all Americans access to health coverage by significantly expanding federal subsidies and tax credits to help families buy insurance.

Done.

Also if the debate I'm still watching is to be believed his plan would have also eliminated Medicaid.

# ? May 8, 2020 04:44

yellowcar: Feb 14, 2010

How long will it take to capture Baghdad? 2 days
Will Saddam be killed? Yes
Total Iraqi civillian casualties: 500 dead
Total military casualties Iraq: 3000 dead
Total military casualties U.S.: 15 dead
Will the Iraqi army regulars hold the lines? No
Will the Republican Guard fight to the end? No
Will chem/bio weapons be used on invading troops?: Yes
Will Saddam launch attacks on the Kurds? Yes
Will Saddam launch attacks on Israel? No
-If yes; will Isreal retaliate harshly? Yes
Will Saddam sacrifice Baghdad (gas/nuke it)? No
Will the Kurds make a grab for independence? Yes
Will Iran do anything silly like try for land? Yes
Will Saddam burn the oil fields? Yes
How long will the US be occupying Iraq? ~15 years
Will the Iraq war catalyze increased terrorism in America?No
In the long run, will this war be good or bad for the world? Good

We have to look at what those civilian casualties are- just because they're civilian doesn't make them innocent! Lets take a look at a few possibilities:

1) A civilian walking down the street to market gets killed by a cruise missile fired at the market.

2) A civilian asleep in their house is killed when their house is targetting by a smart bomb and blown up.

OK, these two are regrettable innocents being killed- but since the US doesn't make a habit of targetting markets or houses, they're very small in number!

3) A civilian working at a chemical weapon factory gets killed when the chemical weapon plant is bombed.

4) A civilian security guard at a weapons depot is killed when the weapons explode.

5) A civilian contractor repairing a tank is killed by a MOAB dropped on the unit.

6) A civilian engineer is killed when the military command center he works at is destroyed.

7) A civilian delivering snackiecakes to the baghdad bunker vending machines eats a 5,000lb bunker buster.

etc, etc. The list goes on. My point is that there are a lot of civilians directly supporting the military that aren't exactly "innocent" and would be mire rightly counted among the military casualties than civilian. I'm a civilian and work for the US military, but I acknowledge I'm also a valid military target because of what I do. And I think the vast majority of civilian casualties in this campaign will not be innocent.

# ? May 8, 2020 04:49

Viola the Mad: Feb 13, 2010

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck why must you bring back all the buried trauma

I was a liberal white teenager coming of age in a liberal white bubble, so the views on current events that I absorbed and spat out were just about what you'd expect. It definitely gave the era a growing sense of dread. I recall being horrified at various Things but for the life of me I can't remember what they were now. But I was pretty oblivious to race issues for obvious reasons, so I'm sure there's plenty of stuff that flew over my head then but will be a nasty surprise now.

# ? May 8, 2020 04:54

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

readingatwork posted:

If you have any articles on the subject feel free to post them. I'd be very interested in reading them.

Let's take a look...

Done.

Also if the debate I'm still watching is to be believed his plan would have also eliminated Medicaid.

https://junkee.com/y2k-bug-1999-hoax/192228

This one is pretty good. The big thing is that a lot of the fear people had was overblown. The power grid wouldn't go down, planes wouldn't fall out of the sky. But that's because a lot of people spent a lot of time making sure those things wouldn't happen or fixing it in cases where it would.

Sadly they also protected the credit card company and wall street computers.

# ? May 8, 2020 04:55

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

Jan 5 2000 Dem Primary debate observations as I had them:

Did not realize Al Gore was a Vietnam war vet. You�d think he�d be cooler
Gore is a terribly awkward communicator but in a way that�s kind of charming as hell.
Also did not realize that Gore was a born again christian. Learning all kinds of poo poo today.
�People say you find politics disgusting and that�s a bad thing. What�s up with that?� lmao
Gore was also a journalist!?
Reporter: �Bill Clinton unilaterally limited logging in national forests but some Republican jaggoff says that�s bad. How do you respond?�
Gore: �Look, I know it looks like Bill did a good thing. But I want to promise you that it only LOOKS like this will have any sort of positive effect on the environment�
Bradley: �The Republican jaggoff has a point and we should let lumber companies have their cut.�
Bradley was running on gay people being allowed to openly serve, universal healthcare, and basic gun control. Not a bad platform for the time actually.
Al Gore was running on �high quality ~afordable~ healthcare for all�. Nice to know that particular con is as old as I am.
Apparently the term �progressive� was already floating around politics by this point which I wasn�t aware of.
I take it back Bradley might actually suck. According to Gore his plan was to replace Medicaid by giving people $100 to buy a congressional healthcare plan or something. Bradley clarified but didn�t deny it.
This is SO much more watchable than this year�s trash debates.
Gore has a 3x5 card full of facts he�s refferencing
LOL, Bradley believes in the power of markets to make insurance companies lower prices through competition.
Oh! Bradley is taking pharma money. That explains SO much.
Gore apparently got in trouble for some kind of bad phone calls to lobbyists. I might do some research on that later. Either way that�s an adorable scandal by today�s standards.
Gore is for public financing of elections and eliminating �the majority� of TV/radio ad buys.
Gore seems to have a pretty good handle on his opponent�s voting record. It�s actually kind of impressive.
Gore is bragging about his vote to intervene in Kuwait against Sadam Hussein. NOT a good look in hindsight.
There it is! He�s talking about global warming!
Gore: �The financialization of our economy is good actually because freedom�
Bradley: �I agree, financialization is good actually because freedom but we also need to make it work for everybody�. He did not explain how to do this.
They are talking about the Columbine shooting. For some reason I thought that happened during the Bush administration.
Bradley wanted licensing and registration of all guns but Gore only wants it for *new* purchases. Anything more is ~unrealistic~.
Lots of talk about Saturday night specials which is a blast from the past.
Bradley does not regret voting for Reagan�s budget. He justifies this by saying he voted against Reagan�s tax cuts which were the real problem.
Bradley opposed intervention into Kuwait but was okay with maybe doing it later. A very Democrat response.
Gore is very proud of gutting welfare and says doing so �freed� people.
Bradley regrets voting against Alan Greenspan �the first time�.
Gore thinks it�s good for a president to make mistakes sometimes. Man is he going to love the next 8 years.
Gore supports gay people in the military and affirmatively states that he would make it a litmus test when hiring for the joint cheifs of staff. A surprisingly good answer.
Bradley agrees. Also a good answer.
Bradley is now deficit scolding Gore about supporting national health insurance in 1993. He asks why Gore isn�t for it now and Gore doesn�t really answer.
Oh poo poo Ted Kennedy is still alive!
The Clinton administration �saved� Medicare from bankruptcy by cutting it didn�t they?
Gore has a bug up his rear end about setting aside money for Medicare that I actually really like. Later this will morph into his �lockbox� meme that he will be roundly mocked for.

Final thoughts:

Gore sucks more than I remembered but less than I thought he might. I think he would have been a lovely president but far better than Bush.
The big twist of this debate was that Bradley was surprisingly poo poo despite marketing himself as the liberal opposition. He spoke in left wing terms but his plans sucked and he kept criticizing Gore using right-wing framing. It�s disappointing but I don�t think there was an actual left wing option to vote for this cycle.

Winner: Gore

# ? May 8, 2020 05:37

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

Found the Republican Debate for Jan 15 2000. I'm posting it now but will watch it tomorrow while I should be working.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?154478-1/republican-candidates-debate

This might be rough...

E: Dear lord...

readingatwork fucked around with this message at 05:47 on May 8, 2020

# ? May 8, 2020 05:43

ANIME AKBAR: Jan 25, 2007; afu~

just lol at the John Stewart photo, he looks like a teenager trying on daddy's suit

# ? May 8, 2020 05:52

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ogibWCNKI

# ? May 8, 2020 06:12

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!: May 31, 2006

ANIME AKBAR posted:

just lol at the John Stewart photo, he looks like a teenager trying on daddy's suit

its particularly funny because that was a function of him trying really, REALLY hard to look young

a thirty-seven-year-old third-tier new york comedian has to try really hard to look like he's connecting with young audiences, because he can hear the Borscht Belt calling his name and it's not an attractive sound.

# ? May 8, 2020 06:35

Code Jockey: Jan 24, 2006; 69420 basic bytes free

I appreciate this thread thank you

ah, that mixture of amusement at how loving stupid everyone was about patriotism and terrorism and colored threat level charts, and being constantly, deeply terrified that I'd be drafted any day now

good times

# ? May 8, 2020 07:24

Yadoppsi: May 10, 2009

The excellent podcast, Blowback is doing a retrospective on the Iraq War and the lead up to it and I highly recommend it. It's I think on premium Stitcher but it's going to be released for free once it's over and the creator has said he doesn't mind people sharing pirated links if they can't afford to pay for it.

# ? May 8, 2020 08:13

BrainDance: May 8, 2007; Disco all night long!

This is mostly what I remember from the Bush years

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/32543

# ? May 8, 2020 08:18

Nuebot: Feb 18, 2013; The developer of Brigador is a secret chud, don't give him money

Falstaff posted:

Thinking about the moment I had to admit that Stewart was just a lovely, lovely human being still makes me feel

What did Stewart do? I've been out of the loop since he stopped hosting his show, and even then wasn't that aware of him outside of the show.

# ? May 8, 2020 08:42

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

quote:

The very novelty of it -- this is the roundest year any of us will ever see -- suggests momentous change. In a practical sense, of course, that is far from true.

loving Christ, this is the Worst-Aged Quote of Human History.

# ? May 8, 2020 08:46

justcola: May 22, 2004; La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo

Not to drag the thread into nostalgia, but internet culture was interesting in 2000. The internet wasn't really mainstream yet, most of what I went on was Gamespy forums, IRC chatrooms and sites like Stile Project and SomethingAwful, and I could count on one hand the number of people I knew who had the internet. Over the years it became awash with anti-Bush cartoons and imagery (mgs3 hadn't come out yet so memes hadn't entered nerd lexicon just yet) that had a certain aesthetic I relate heavily to that period. I don't think I remember seeing any Pro-Bush stuff at the time, unlike now where half the internet seems awash with pepe poo poo.

Images were usually badly compressed jpgs like this

the 'inspirational quote' format was also very popular at the time

# ? May 8, 2020 09:40

Issaries: Sep 15, 2008; "Negotiations were going well. They were very impressed by my hat." -Issaries the Concilliator"

I'm not sure of this Gore. He sounds awfully like the Bush fella.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dvbM6Pias

# ? May 8, 2020 09:45

Tommah: Mar 29, 2003

heyyy George it's your favorite neighbor

https://youtu.be/mC-m1ptBzuI

# ? May 8, 2020 12:07

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Nuebot posted:

What did Stewart do? I've been out of the loop since he stopped hosting his show, and even then wasn't that aware of him outside of the show.

ruined summerslam several years in a row

# ? May 8, 2020 13:07

Venomous: Nov 7, 2011

Raskolnikov38 posted:

ruined summerslam several years in a row

no, WWE did that just fine on their own

# ? May 8, 2020 13:58

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

Nuebot posted:

What did Stewart do? I've been out of the loop since he stopped hosting his show, and even then wasn't that aware of him outside of the show.

The main points of criticism are that his theory of political change sucks (See: The Rally to Restore Sanity which I will cover in detail when it comes up in like a million weeks) and also that he was staunchly anti-union and kind of a dick about it. I'll still defend him on a lot of fronts but on these points his critics are 100% correct.

# ? May 8, 2020 15:01

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

justcola posted:

Not to drag the thread into nostalgia, but internet culture was interesting in 2000. The internet wasn't really mainstream yet, most of what I went on was Gamespy forums, IRC chatrooms and sites like Stile Project and SomethingAwful, and I could count on one hand the number of people I knew who had the internet. Over the years it became awash with anti-Bush cartoons and imagery (mgs3 hadn't come out yet so memes hadn't entered nerd lexicon just yet) that had a certain aesthetic I relate heavily to that period. I don't think I remember seeing any Pro-Bush stuff at the time, unlike now where half the internet seems awash with pepe poo poo.

Images were usually badly compressed jpgs like this

Here's my favorite, courtesy of stupidpicture.com:

# ? May 8, 2020 15:10

Freakazoid_: Jul 5, 2013; Buglord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoc4GQ_04r8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgO1LUijb0k

# ? May 8, 2020 20:46

Martian: May 29, 2005; Grimey Drawer

This thread is a great idea. I'm not American, but I turned 18 in 2001, was very disturbed by Bush being elected, 9/11 and the war in Iraq, and have followed American politics ever since. I also worked in the USA for three months in 2007, the waning days of the Bush administration. It will be great to re-read and watch all the stuff I've forgotten over the years!

# ? May 8, 2020 20:46

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Great thread.

I hope you talk about the "guy I'd like to have beer with" poo poo the media made up.

I still hear that verbatim to this day, YOOL 2020

# ? May 8, 2020 20:55

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# ? May 5, 2024 10:34

Ssthalar: Sep 16, 2007

I think I'll pass on reliving the year where my schizophrenia, depression and general psychosis decided to fully manifest.
gently caress Bush and everything he enabled.

# ? May 8, 2020 20:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Let's relive the Bush years!

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