40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation

By James Carville and Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, Simon & Schuster. Posted May 2, 2009.

The Bush administration thoroughly and relentlessly implemented the recommendation of the Dowd memo. The result was the rise of the Christian right in U.S. politics and the establishment of a near neo-theocracy, and, of course, a disastrous war, among other things. That memo may well go down in history as one of the most important, influential political documents of the century (if anyone can find it).

Now we come to our second harbinger of disaster. The Bush administration, like a bunch of teenagers with a new car, was eager to take Dowd's strategy for a test drive as they came into office. They wanted to see how far from the middle, how distant from truth, they could go.

And here let's take a quick minute for Carville's story time. I've got a real good one, courtesy of my friend Terry McAuliffe, who's done exhaustive, and, I might add, unchallenged research on the subject of Republican falsehoods. I'll tell you this story because it gives us great insight into just how far they were willing to go and how great the consequences of such a comparatively small lie were.

When the Bush administration was first moving into the White House, doing whatever it is Republicans do to feel at home, someone decided the staff would claim that the "Clinton people" trashed the White House. Although I'm not prepared to name a suspect at this point in time, I might venture a general guess that the suspect's initials are Karl Rove.

It was a very involved process, putting out this rumor. The Bush people got creative, giving us an early inkling of that loose relationship with the truth we'd see so much of later on. They told everyone that these Clinton maniacs had removed all the "W" keys from the keyboards of the computer. (I have a lot of things in my closet, but no keyboard keys.) Then the Bush folks set about shopping this rumor to see if the press would bite, if the Democrats would protest, and generally just see how far they could take the strategy.

Ari Fleischer got out and said that the Bush administration staff would be "cataloging" the extensive vandalism that was being rumored of the Clinton staffers. The exact quote? As reported by the New York Post, Fleischer said, "What we are doing is cataloging [what] took place." Fleischer volunteered that the White House might itemize the cost of the pranks to taxpayers, but graciously conceded that the cataloging was "very informal -- we're going to note it and that's that. Nothing will ever come of it."

The ease with which Republicans were able to feed fiction into the national news cycle told the White House that (a) they could say whatever they wanted and the press would not challenge them; (b) the Democrats were too confused or afraid to mount a vigorous defense; and (c) the public was willing to believe their lies. It wasn't until May that the media finally conceded to debunk the rumor.

Republicans were so successful that their carefully crafted rumor about the Clinton staffers even resurfaced, no doubt by design, this year during the Obama administration transition. In the Christian Science Monitor, Jimmy Orr wrote on January 15, 2009, "Remember eight years ago when dozens of computer keyboards in the White House had the W keys removed?"

The Dowd memo and the story about the Clintons trashing the White House were the flapping of the butterfly's wings that caused the tsunami. They were the low-pressure depression of the Cape Verde Islands that caused a category five storm or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The Republicans had gotten away with stealing the election, and now they knew they could get away with a lot more.

"How did they get away with this?" It's the question I've been asked most frequently during the Bush era. It has many variations. I hear it every time I give a speech, of course, but also at the grocery store and in line at the movie theater. I can't even go into a men's bathroom without getting asked. People want to know, "Why did the American public let this happen?" "Why didn't the press do something?" And, of course, "Where were the Democrats?"

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