National Journal articles from January 2001

National Journal archives from January 2001

CORRECTION.(Correction Notice)
January 6, 2001... An article about Reps. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-La., and Michael G. Oxley, R-Ohio, (12/16/00, p. 3902) provided an incorrect partisan identification for lobbyist Gary Lytle. He is a Republican.

BUSH VS. GORE: WHY THE COURT WAS MORE RIGHT THAN WRONG.
January 6, 2001... The debate over the U.S. Supreme Court's Dec. 12 decision ending Al Gore's claim to the presidency has so far been dominated by the passionate outcries of those who portray it as a rank political act by conservative Justices willing to betray...

THE CLINTON YEARS: AN EPIC OF WASTED TIME AND CHANCES.
January 6, 2001... Looking back on the past eight years, two things stand out--how well the economy has performed, and how little the Clinton Administration has achieved. Bill Clinton could have done so much. How many Presidents have been as politically talented?...

Promises, Promises.
January 6, 2001... PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES MAKE LOTS OF PROMISES ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL. AND ONCE IN OFFICE, THEY USUALLY TRY TO KEEP THEM. "Politicians are the same all over," Nikita Khrushchev once said. "They promise to build a bridge, even where there is...

What Bush Has Promised.
January 6, 2001... HIS TWO CENTRAL PLEDGES WERE NOT ABOUT POLICY, BUT ABOUT CHANGING THE CULTURE OF WASHINGTON AND RESTORING DIGNITY TO THE OVAL OFFICE. The tumultuous end to the 2000 presidential election short-circuited much of the conventional...

Invasion of the Greens.
January 6, 2001... DESPITE ALARMS FROM THE LEFT, RALPH NADER WANTS THE GREEN PARTY TO FIELD 1,000 CANDIDATES IN 2002. In a tattered, pre-Civil War town house in Washington, former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and a small band of...

Brussels' Sprout.(European Parliament)
January 6, 2001... STILL IN ITS ADOLESCENCE, THE LITTLE-NOTICED EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IS EMERGING IN FITS AND STARTS AS A KEY PLAYER IN EUROPE'S ECONOMIC GAMESMANSHIP WITH AMERICA. BRUSSELS, Belgium--By twos and threes, members of the European Parliament...

PIVOTAL EVENTS IN CONGRESS.
January 6, 2001... Senate Grapples With a 50-50 Split Senate Democrats officially took control of the evenly divided chamber this week in an odd and historic spectacle that featured several key players of the 2000 presidential campaign. Democratic control...

LESSONS LEARNED.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... With the convening of the 107th Congress this week, Capitol Hill moved in its seasonal evolution from campaigning to governing. Various aspects of the Nov. 7 election have been thoroughly dissected, from the Electoral College and rules about...

REMINDERS FROM THE RIGHT.
January 6, 2001... On Dec. 20, Karl Rove, the chief campaign strategist for George W. Bush and soon-to-be presidential counselor, was the headliner at the regular Wednesday meeting of conservative Republican activists in Washington. For 90 minutes, he spoke in a...

WHEN THE EVIDENCE IS SECRET.
January 6, 2001... On Dec. 15, Attorney General Janet Reno released on bond Mazen al-Najjar, a 43-year-old Palestinian who had been incarcerated for three years and seven months by the Immigration and Naturalization Service on the basis of "secret evidence," to...

REDISCOVERING AN AMERICAN DREAMER.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... The least-heralded detail of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman's legacy may be his rehabilitation of Henry A. Wallace, Glickman's most controversial and influential predecessor. An Iowan who invented hybrid corn, Wallace was Agriculture...

Poll Track.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
January 6, 2001... The Administration ??HOLA, W.! On Jan. 20, George W. Bush will take the oath of office and become the 43rd President of the United States. Then what? Education should be Bush's top priority, according to a Princeton Survey...

REVVED UP OVER DRIVER NAP TIME.
January 6, 2001... The trucking industry is using all of its considerable horsepower to reshape--or, if necessary, to run off the road--pending federal "hours-of-service" rules that set the conditions under which truckers can haul freight. "This is without...

Surprise! Bushies Are Everywhere.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... Scores of K Streeters, eager to have a shot at influencing Bush Administration policies and priorities, have been tapped by the Bush-Cheney transition office to serve on 15 advisory teams tot such key agencies as Agriculture, Energy, and...

Emptying the Penalty Box.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... Lobbyists will soon be wrangling over a new federal provision that changes the recipient of greenbacks whenever penalties are imposed for foreign violations of America's trade laws. Periodically, when the United States rules that foreign...

Somebody Else After the Tax Code.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... More than a dozen generally conservative groups want to put aside their nasty squabbles about other matters to collectively push for sweeping changes to the federal tax code. The Coalition tot Fundamental Tax Reform, as the alliance is called,...

ONCE A FELON, NEVER A VOTER?
January 6, 2001... VOTING RIGHTS Thomas Johnson is a black resident of Florida who was eager to vote for George W. Bush for President. Johnson, who lives in Gainesville with his wife and five children, is executive director of a nonprofit Christian...

STORM WARNINGS BEYOND THE BELTWAY.
January 6, 2001... FISCAL POLICY If there was any doubt about the direction and tone of Budget Debate 2001, Bill Clinton made it clear last week that it is going to look and sound an awful lot like Budget Debate 2000. After weeks of hearing George W....

CLINTON'S TREAT.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... ON THE MEDIA It was a holiday gift from the President to the media. It arrived on Christmas Eve morning, wrapped in a blue plastic New York Times bag. We opened it right away, and couldn't believe our eyes. We've been cherishing it...

A WRITER LEAVES, BUT NOT HIS WORDS.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... APPRECIATION Washington is a one-industry town with a single product: words. Bureaucrats mangle them. Politicians spout them. Journalists record them--and sometimes make their stories sing. This town overflows with journalists. One of...

LET THE REDRAWING BEGIN.(census and legislative districts)(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... Even though the art of statistical estimation has become more sophisticated in recent years, several surprises emerged from the Dec. 28 press briefing held by U.S. Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt about which states will gain or lose...

THE 50 STATES AT A GLANCE.(Statistical Data Included)
January 6, 2001... This table shows partisan control of the governor's offices and legislatures in the 50 states before and after Election Day. Next, the table lists the composition of the state's U.S. House delegation and the change in its number of seats for...

HOW THE ELECTION IN 2002 LOOKS NOW.
January 6, 2001... In the wake of the anything-but-conclusive result of the 2000 election, the 2002 contest promises to be hand-to-hand combat between two evenly matched parties. The near tie for President was just the tip of the iceberg. For the first time since...

Hotline Extra.
January 6, 2001... McCain Waves Payback is hell? According to a report in Business Week, President-elect George W. Bush's team is "beginning to worry" about the agenda of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The Senator "is drawing up a wide-ranging reform plan, which...

People.
January 6, 2001... Image-Makers After eight years in the Clinton-Gore Administration, Melissa T. Skolfield, 42, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Health and Human Services Department, is joining the public relations firm of Colin/Harris...

AFTER CLINTON, A WIDER CULTURAL DIVIDE.(President Bill Clinton)(Brief Article)
January 6, 2001... First we had the election, in which issue differences were muted and voters could have gone either way. Then we had the post-election ordeal, when the country seemed torn apart. The stakes suddenly escalated, and millions of voters had a...

Promises to Keep.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... In a little over a month's time, the presidential race has finally been decided, a new Congress has been sworn in, and President-elect Bush has named his cabinet, including Rod Paige, his nominee for Secretary of Education. And as we celebrate...

A CHARACTER ASSASSIN SHOULD NOT BE ATTORNEY GENERAL.
January 13, 2001... Former Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo. is an able and accomplished man who won the respect of many Senate colleagues in both parties. But he is unfit to be Attorney General. The reason is that during an important debate on a sensitive matter,...

HOW TO BUILD A BETTER CIGARETTE--AND HOW TO SNUFF IT OUT.
January 13, 2001... A few days after Christmas, I made my way to an office building in Bethesda, Md., for a visit with Paul L. Perito, the chairman and president of a small company called Star Scientific. Star had only just moved into its new executive suite, so...

Inaugural Auguries.
January 13, 2001... WHETHER INTENTIONAL OR NOT, THE SYMBOLISM OF INAUGURATION DAY HAS OFTEN FORESHADOWED THE NEXT FOR YEARS. Rumors swept through the capital that the Democratic nominee, who had been so narrowly and (to his partisans) so unfairly defeated, was...

Chilly Winds, Youthful Energy.
January 13, 2001... Before John F. Kennedy took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1961, the main topic of discussion in Washington was the previous day's storm, which had dumped 7.7 inches of snow on the city and had effectively paralyzed it. So damaging was the...

It Was a Very Texas Affair.
January 13, 2001... At a pivotal moment in American history, Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in for a full four-year term on Jan. 20, 1965. The assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, 14 months earlier was an unavoidable subtext. The ceremony was...

In War's Shadow.
January 13, 2001... When Richard M. Nixon was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1969, as the 37th President of the United States, the day marked a comeback for Republicans, but especially for Nixon himself. Although the former Vice President, Senator, and Congressman had found...

Walking the Walk.
January 13, 2001... Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer and former Georgia governor, was sworn in as the 39th President of the United States on Jan. 20, 1977, in an inaugural ceremony that closely followed the populist themes and poignant symbolism of his winning...

Goose Bumps and Omens.
January 13, 2001... Ronald Reagan was 13 years older than Jimmy Carter, the incumbent he had defeated by more than 8 million votes, but on the day Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President, "the Gipper," as he was widely called, seemed the younger man. Four years...

"George, That's You!".
January 13, 2001... Stepping out of Ronald Reagan's shadow, George Herbert Walker Bush took the oath of office in 1989 with his right hand raised and his left resting on two open Bibles--one belonging to his family, the second used by George Washington 200 years...

The Boomers Take Over.
January 13, 2001... The 1993 inauguration marked the passing of the torch to a new generation of Americans. For 40 years, from Dwight Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush, the nation had been governed by men who had worn a uniform during World War II. When Bill...

Striking the Right Notes.
January 13, 2001... You can thank the British for helping to establish one of the most powerful features of the presidential inaugural address--its setting. In 1817, James Monroe became the first President to take the oath of office outdoors at the Capitol, which...

Seven Rules of Inaugural Coverage.
January 13, 2001... "We'll come back and, when we do, the famed artist Peter Max will be with us. Peter was chosen to do the inaugural paintings, and he has done an incredible array of three types. We're going to show them and talk with him, as well. And as we...

Corporations, K Street Throw a Party.
January 13, 2001... It was the kind of solicitation that most Americans would find a tad too pricey. But for 180-odd, Republican National Committee "regents"--individuals and corporations who chipped in t least $250,000 to the RNC in 1999-2000--the recent plea for...

Why 100 Days?
January 13, 2001... In only a few decades, we have managed to thoroughly explode most of the myths of the presidency. Today, no detail of the political process stays hidden, and any high-minded justification for action from the White House is usually ignored. When...

THE FIRST FIRST 100 DAYS.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... No President has moved as boldly or accomplished as much as Franklin D. Roosevelt did during his first 100 days in office, so it is no surprise that successive Presidents and their staffs have often planned out the early months of their...

A WAR, A DEATH, AN INSTANT PRESIDENT.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... George W. Bush's transition team may well lament having to take office with only half the normal preparation time, an uncertain mandate, and a cooling economy. But the toughest transition in modern times has to have been Harry Truman's. ...

WHEN FOREIGN POLICY WAS THE FOCUS.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... Republicans had high expectations in 1953, when their party last assumed control at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Dwight D. Eisenhower was taking office as the first Republican President in 20 years following a momentous chain of...

A VISIT TO THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... He was elected President by a razor-thin margin after a campaign in which his foreign affairs expertise seemed dwarfed by that of his opponent, the incumbent Vice President. Undaunted, he was determined to quickly put his stamp on the...

CHANNELING SORROW INTO ACTION.
January 13, 2001... At 11 p.m., Lyndon B. Johnson called aides Jack Valenti, Cliff Carter, and Bill Moyers into his bedroom at his home in Washington. It was Nov. 22, 1963, and President John F. Kennedy had been shot that afternoon. Johnson sat in bed in his...

FROM THE START, A FIXATION WITH SECRECY.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... On the face of it, Richard M. Nixon's first 100 days as President provided few clues about his Administration's future course. He did nothing dramatic on domestic policy--ending patronage employment at the U.S. Postal Service was probably the...

DOOMED BY THE STROKE OF A PEN.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... "Our long national nightmare is over," Gerald Ford told the nation at his swearing-in on Aug. 9, 1974. For the previous two years, the Watergate scandal had consumed America, and in the end, it forced Richard Nixon, the nation's 37th President,...

TOO MUCH, TOO SOON.(the first 100 days of the Jimmy Carter Administration)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... When Dick Cheney, then chief of staff to outgoing President Ford, cleaned out his White House office on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 1977, he left behind a bicycle wheel with broken spokes as a parting gift for Hamilton Jordan, the senior aide to...

GRACE UNDER LITERAL FIRE.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981 with no Washington experience and thus no first-hand knowledge of how to negotiate the myriad agencies and rival power centers of the federal government, a thicket he himself often derided as "the puzzle...

FOR POPPY BUSH, A LOT OF SLACK.(the first 100 days of the George Bush Administration)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... If George W. Bush wants to accomplish great things during his first 100 days in office, his father's example doesn't provide much guidance. The elder Bush set low expectations in 1989 for his first 100 days in the White House. And he largely...

EARLY ACTION, EARLY TROUBLE.(the first 100 days of the Bill Clinton Administration)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... Although our collective memory of President Clinton's tenure is still fresh, it takes a minute to recall the earliest days of 1993, when a somewhat overoptimistic former governor of Arkansas had to learn some presidential lessons the hard way:...

LESSONS FROM A MASTER OF DISASTER.(James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency)
January 13, 2001... TUSCALOOSA, Ala.--James Lee Witt was supposed to be enjoying the start of his Christmas vacation in his home state of Arkansas. But when a tornado ripped through this city on Dec. 16--killing 11 people, injuring dozens more, and destroying...

YEAR-END GIFT A MIXED BLESSING FOR SENIORS.(HMOs, finance and planning)
January 13, 2001... Barely more than a month ago, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, a bill to give health maintenance organizations an extra $11 billion over five years to care for seniors enrolled in Medicare. Now the Medicare HMOs are facing a Jan....

DARE TO BE BOLD, SECRETARY RUMSFELD.(evaluation of the Department of Defense)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... To: Donald Rumsfeld, incoming Secretary of Defense Re: Penetrating the Pentagon Fog Dear Mr. Secretary: Welcome back to the bear pit! If you pedal one of those in-house tricycles through the Pentagon like you and Bill Greener...

Hotline Extra.(political news)
January 13, 2001... Pardon Parcel Bored of pardons? President-elect George W. Bush might soon be. After a recent "suggestion" from Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, that Bush pardon President Clinton "for am crimes he might have committed in the Monica Lewinsky...

DON'T LOOK FOR AN END TO `SEARCH AND DESTROY'.(George W. Bush's Cabinet choices)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... Holiday Inn's old slogan "the best surprise is no surprise" also applies to Cabinet nominations, as the controversy over Linda Chavez's short-lived bid to be Labor Secretary reminded us. The simple fact is that known people provide fewer...

People.(activities of public employees and politicians)
January 13, 2001... Image-Makers The Washington public affairs firm Strat@comm has picked up some new talent, including a former Clinton Administration official and a Gore/ Lieberman campaign staffer. Lynnette Johnson Williams, 46, formerly deputy assistant...

A CABINET THAT CAN MAKE WHEELS TURN.(George W. Bush's Cabinet choices)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2001... Cabinet government? That's supposed to happen overseas. American government has become more of a one-person show. Nevertheless, President-elect George W. Bush is reviving the idea of a "management team." It sounds like good business, but it's...

SMEARING LINDA CHAVEZ: THE POISON OF PARTISAN THINKING.
January 20, 2001... "The narcissism and duplicity of Chavez's [Jan. 9] press conference announcing her withdrawal... was simply staggering.... She trotted out a gaggle of immigrant admirers to offer staged testimonials about her history of assisting those in...

IT'S TIME TO PUT THE BRAKES ON THE TAX CUT BANDWAGON.
January 20, 2001... In the weeks before the election, many liberal commentators noted, and in varying degrees celebrated, the strange unpopularity of the tax cuts promised by George W. Bush. Why was the policy failing to bring voters around? they asked,...

Lott's Big Gamble.
January 20, 2001... Look at Trent Lott, and you're bound to notice. Every hair on his head--that's right, every one of them--appears to have its assigned spot. Not one seems to move from day to day or week to week. How does he do that? Whatever his secret, it says...

Hastert's Hidden Hand.
January 20, 2001... THE HOUSE SPEAKER SOLIDIFIED HIS POWER OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS BY REMAINING STEADFASTLY LOW-KEY. For a burly guy whose suspenders barely seem to restrain him, J. Dennis Hastert sure has a light touch. The 59-year-old Speaker has been much...

Gridlock on Budget, Taxes? Maybe Not This Year.
January 20, 2001... Washington has witnessed the same exhausting budget cycle for each of the past several years: Fierce partisan squabbling was followed by seemingly endless gridlock that culminated in debilitating year-end fiscal crises. But this year, a new...

Doling Out the Rations To Soldiers and Diplomats.
January 20, 2001... What the Defense and State departments should do to help keep peace in the world, and with how much money, will be more hotly debated in this Congress than in any other since the Cold War ended a decade ago. The extra heat will be generated...

Schoolyard Brawls Might Give Way to Bipartisanship.
January 20, 2001... Because of the partisan feuding and gridlock that blocked key education and social policy legislation during the Clinton years, the congressional agenda this year holds many volatile leftovers, ranging from school vouchers to gun control to...

It's Wildlife Protectors vs. The Resource Industries.
January 20, 2001... Two words will dominate this year's environmental debate on Capitol Hill: "multiple use." Those will be fighting words for the antagonists in a conflict over whether some of the nation's sprawling wildlife refuges and nature preserves should be...

Prescription Drug Bill May Be a Quick Remedy.
January 20, 2001... George W. Bush will need lots of luck, Democratic cooperation, and economic prosperity to achieve three of his major campaign promises: reforming Social Security, strengthening Medicare financing, and providing prescription drug benefits to the...

Campaign 2000 Lends Urgency to Reform Bills.
January 20, 2001... During his presidential campaign, George W. Bush called himself a "reformer with results," and he'll have a chance to prove his boast when Congress considers two high-profile issues this year: election reform and campaign finance reform. ...

Action Looms on Internet Privacy, Fast-Track.
January 20, 2001... Technology, trade, and banking may not be top legislative priorities for the 107th Congress and the Bush Administration, but these issues that affect Americans where they work, shop, and save will make their way onto the agenda. The...

CLUES TO BUSH'S HIGH-TECH PLANS.
January 20, 2001... In 1994, when George W. Bush launched his campaign for governor of Texas, Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. spent thousands of dollars to help defeat him because the company was ringing up billions of dollars a year as a state-sanctioned...

A PARDON PROPOSAL.(Statistical Data Included)
January 20, 2001... Robert Ray, the nation's last standing special prosecutor, now confronts a momentous decision: whether or not to seek a criminal indictment against a former President of the United States. That is the decision Ray must make about Bill...

A K STREETER RETURNS TO THE WHITE HOUSE.
January 20, 2001... You're a highly regarded K Street veteran with blue-chip corporate clients. You re co-owner of one of Washington's top boutique lobbying firms, and you're pulling in a high-six-figure--maybe seven-figure--annual income. You're asked to go back...

FROM THE K STREET CORRIDOR.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2001... Racing for Racicot Several of Washington's top law and lobbying firms are in a bidding war for the services of Marc Racicot, the recently retired governor of Montana and a friend of George W. Bush. Among the suitors are Barbour Griffith &...

A BURDEN THE PENTAGON FAILS TO LIGHTEN.
January 20, 2001... THE MILITARY Raising a disabled child is never easy. But some things can make it even harder than it has to be. Being a military family is one of them. Take Tyler, the 5-year-old son of Navy Petty Officer Second Class John Denman and...

ASHCROFT IS BUSH'S CHARITABLE CHOICE.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2001... SOCIAL WELFARE Those intent on deciphering George W. Bush's commitment to "compassionate conservatism" might be surprised to find more than a few hints of it in his nomination of former Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri as U.S. Attorney...

THE DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL DESTRUCTION.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2001... ON THE MEDIA Lani Guinier is back. Media outfits of all stripes have been mentioning her, from NPR to Fox News. We just love precedents, and the Ashcroft hostilities sure look like the Guinier hostilities of eight years ago. More...

ATTENTION, BUSHIES: IT'S NOT THE '80s.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2001... When the Bush Cabinet convenes for its first formal sit-down after George W. officially becomes the new President, some outsiders might joke that the only person missing is Michael J. Fox. Unfair, perhaps, but this assembly of familiar faces is...

People.(employment of legislators, public employees, and politicians)
January 20, 2001... Image-Makers "Putting on paper the President's legacy" is how Stephanie A. Cutter described the focus of her final weeks as deputy director of communications and deputy assistant to President Clinton. Cutter, 32, has just left the White...

Hotline Extra.
January 20, 2001... Fellow Boomers MSNBC's Chris Matthews and columnist P.J. O'Rourke recently had a deep and meaningful chat about our nation's leaders. As for Bill Clinton, Matthews asked: "He was the first of our generation to make it to the Big House, but...

INSIDE MCAULIFFE'S CAMPAIGN.(Terence R. McAuliffe)(Brief Article)
January 20, 2001... For the past eight years, Terence R. McAuliffe has been the most prolific fund-raiser in the Democratic Party. Now he's running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and he's lining up votes just as effectively as he collected...

BUSH NEEDS TO SCHMOOZE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.(George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
January 20, 2001... As the first President in 124 years to be elected without receiving a plurality of the popular vote, George W. Bush was bound to face difficult times. And he's facing them now, in the controversies over some of his Cabinet selections. The key...

The Administration.(public opinion of George W. Bush's Cabinet choices)(Brief Article)
January 20, 2001... PICKIN' AND GRINNIN' George W. Bush is getting good marks from the public for his Cabinet selections, according to a Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said Bush's picks were "outstanding" or "above...