George W. Bush

- Renka's Presidency Links
- Index of Modern Presidents

Bush, George W.- 43rd President
20 January 2001 to present

Russell Renka
Southeast Missouri State University

General Sources:
Internet Public Library POTUS - George W. Bush has eight subsections.
T. Jordan's The Compassionate Conservative has portraits, early news links from 2001, and several other caches of material.

White House, The:
    Welcome To The White House (URL: www.whitehouse.gov) is the Bush Administration's home site. In 2001 the website was rudimentary, as transition from Clinton to Bush did not treat this site kindly. White House Site Gets Clinton Purge shows that the new Administration did a drastic makeover of the Clinton White House website, leaving the revised site threadbare during 2001. That improved gradually in 2002 and 2003 to become a fully operational site.

Fake White House sites:
    For googlers using the term "White House": be forewarned that domain names are still unregulated, so kids should avoid "White House" URLs with suffixes other than "gov." A site calling itself Welcome To The White House at URL www.whitehouse.net is a humorous parody site complete with left-side links to the real White House. Welcome to the White House - WWW.WHITEHOUSE.ORG is a defiantly anti-Bush humor site. Its left-side links continue the parody.
    There is also Whitehouse.com, a pornographic site--not a good idea for children. Kids should redirect to White House Kids Home Page.

Personal Background of George W. Bush:
    The Washington Post has Bush -- The Making of a Candidate (washingtonpost.com), including The Life of George W. Bush, Understanding Bush, and Bush's Texas Record. A photographic gallery at Washingtonpost.com photo gallery - The Life of George W. Bush has extensive pre-presidential Bush photographs.

Academic Conferences on George W. Bush:
    The Program in Leadership Studies has "The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment" held at Princeton University on April 25-26, 2003. Included is a Bush Chronology of events for 2001 and 2002, and a Schedule of conference events with PDF files of the 10 formal paper presentations and two roundtables.

Major Speeches by GWB:
    George W. Bush Speech to Congress Sept. 20 2001 from The History Place has text and RealAudio versions of the speech that formally announced the War on Terrorism, nine days after 9-11.   President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly on 12 September 2002 formally launched the U.S. (and UN) confrontation with Iraq. See below for the 2001 Inaugural Address.

    The americanpresidency.org Audio-Video Archive - George W. Bush has numerous audio and video excerpts.

Radio Addresses by George W. Bush:
President's Radio Address from the White House has an Archive of these from 2001 onward..

Humor about George W. Bush :
A commercial site, Bushisms - Funny George Bush Quotes Updated Frequently. As always, the popup and flashing ads are annoyances, but the file is current.
George W. Bush Jokes and Humor by Daniel Kurtzman is another popular commercial site. See the 2004 version at George W. Bush Jokes - Late-Night Bush Jokes.

Hurricane Katrina and the President's response: This August 2005 natural disaster bids fair to become an historic test of the capacity of the post-9/11 American disaster response. A good site for gauging the magnitude of this storm is Hurricane Katrina NOAA Images.
Public opinion of the federal response is deeply divided by respondents' partisan predisposition (as with the war in Iraq).

Inaugurations (2001 and 2005):
    Inaugural05.com: Official Web Site of The 55th Presidential Inauguration is the official 2005 site. The U.S. Senate has Inauguration of the President January 20, 2005.
    There are more comprehensive links at U.S. Presidency Links - Russell D. Renka under the headings "Inaugural Addresses" and "Inaugurations." Or for comprehensive inaugurals coverage, go directly to the Library of Congress, I Do Solemnly Swear... Presidential Inaugurations and also Presidential Inaugurations: Menu of all Presidents.
    Bush Inauguration 2001 is from the Washington Post. C-SPAN - Transition 2001 and C-SPAN Presidential Inauguration 2005 have links and contextual material. For earlier inaugurals from 1933 through 1997, see C-SPAN Archival Presidential Inaugurations.

Inaugural Address 2001 (54th Inauguration):
Audio-video file is at Inaugural05.com Presidential Inauguration - History with links to the 54th Inauguration. Text files include President George W. Bush inaugural address; Inaugural Address; USA George W. Bush Inaugural Address 2001; and George W. Bush Inaugural Address U.S. Inaugural Addresses. 2001.

Libby Trial (Scooter Libby): The March 2007 verdict against Vice President Cheney's former top aide Scooter Libby is portrayed at The National Security Archive, The Scooter Libby File.

News Management: This Administration has attained new standards for doing self-promotions from government sources masquerading as news, via the "video news release" or VNR which uses public funds to issue video reports while concealing the source. The reformist Center for Media & Democracy follows this. See their Video news releases - SourceWatch. They also run a Spin of the Day not restricted to the White House--but featuring it more often than any other offender.
The General Accounting Office also monitors this emergent practice, per GAO Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services --Video News Releases, B-302710, May 19, 2004.

Opinion Polls and Presidential Approval ratings:
    RealClear Politics - Polls keeps a running compilation of Bush Job Approval ratings from numerous sources.
    PollingReport.com's President Bush has compilations from at least 12 major poll sources, on The Bush Administration, Bush Job Ratings, and Bush Favorability Ratings. All show the extraordinary impact of 9-11 upon the result and the associated public criteria for evaluating the President.
    The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) from University of Maryland has American attitudes Program on International Policy Attitudes with an October 2003 release entitled Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War with PDF files showing Report of Findings, Press Release and a Questionaire.

Photographic Histories of the Bush Administration: pending

Presidential Approval after 9/11: See Charles H. Franklin's recent Presidential Approval in Perspective on the Gallup series dating from 1937, and on the post 9/11 approval ratings of President Bush's performance.

National Security Strategy and the Bush Doctrine:
    The Department of State's site for the important National Security Strategy (NSS) statement issued on 20 September 2002, is The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. The White House site is The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. The White House also published The National Security Strategy of the United States in September 2002. The Department of Defense has a PDF link to it, and related materials, at U.S. Department of Defense - Publications.
    The New York Times has Full Text: Bush's National Security Strategy. The first-strike doctrine is briefly outlined in the Times article dated 19 September 2002, Bush to Outline Doctrine of Striking Foes First. Elsewhere, see Full Text Bush's National Security Strategy from CommonDreams.org.
    President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point, on 1 June 2002, foreshadowed this doctrinal change three months before the official publication.
    There are numerous reviews. See U.S. National Security Strategy A New Era -- Bibliography and Key Internet Sites, U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda, December 2002, Department of State, International Information Programs for site links and articles, including The Brookings Institution - Policy Brief 113 by Michael E. O'Hanlon, Susan E. Rice, and James B. Steinberg in January 2003; Foreign Policy -- A Grand Strategy of Transformation by John Lewis Gaddis. None are critical, of course, but elsewhere, these are commonplace. One from Cato Institute is The New National Security Strategy Is American Empire by Charles V. Peña.
    Valuable course syllabi devoted to Bush Administration war and terrorism include Political Science 391 - Introduction to Terrorism and Homeland Security, with Links to sources on United States Foreign and National Security Policy, by Bill Newmann at Virginia Commonwealth University; and GINT 740 by Jerel Rosati at University of South Carolina.

War on Terrorism:
    General locales for source materials include Terrorism and Attacks on the U.S. at Vanderbilt University, Federation of American Scientists - America's War on Terrorism, The Rule of Law: War on Terrorism at the U.S. Department of State's informational site, and The September 11 Sourcebooks from The National Security Archive at George Washington University. The GSA official site FirstGov -- America's Response to Terrorism has other search locales. The White House site National Security also has numerous links.
    Among more specialized sites, Federal Bureau of Investigation - War on Terrorism includes customary publicizing techniques such as the Most Wanted Terrorists. Advertised as Alternative Sources is the U of Pittsburgh site Alternative Resources on the U.S. War Against Terrorism with many links. FindLaw has FindLaw Legal News Special Coverage War on Terror with Cases. Also on legal issues, see The Rule of Law War on Terrorism from the U.S. Department of State's Office of International Information Programs.
    Among newspapers and magazines, The Atlantic magazine's The War on Terrorism tracks many of their fine articles on terrorism, including the superb work of William Langewiesche. Numerous western newspapers in the U.S. and Europe also have special sections on the subject. One of the best is the British Guardian Unlimited Observer Special reports War on Terrorism Observer special. The official British perspective from 10 Downing Street is at War on terrorism - Latest. Jane's Information Group's War on Terrorism - Jane's Analysis site specializes of course in their military and security subjects.
    More specific official coverage by subtopic from the White House is The Global War on Terrorism. Specific Bush executive orders on terrorism are included in the NARA subject catalog at Executive Orders - George W. Bush. The Britannica.com - War on Terrorism has background and contextual links on terrorism, plus current information on the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Presidential Job Performance Page from The Roper Center shows the abrupt rise of the President's approval rating after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the nation. C-SPAN Bush Administration has daily coverage, including C-SPAN Executive Branch with a RealVideo archive of recent White House press briefings. C-SPAN Capitol Spotlight (jointly run by C-SPAN and CQ) has related coverage on the 107th and 108th Congresses. The President's nationally televised speech of September 20 is at President Declares Freedom at War with Fear from the White House site. The radical change in agenda after 11 September is illustrated in a pre-attack issue of Foreign Policy, at Vox Americana by Steven Kull September-October 2001 Foreign Policy Magazine.

Geneva Conventions (on prisoners of war):
The White House Fact Sheet - Status of Detainees at Guantanamo on 7 February 2002 declared the Geneva Convention to apply "to the Taliban detainees, but not to the al-Qaida detainees" since the latter "is not a state party to the Geneva Convention; it is a foreign terrorist group." That position was directly conveyed by the Department of State (Status of Detainees at Guantanamo).
The position was immediately challenged by Human Rights Watch (U.S. Geneva Conventions Apply to Guantanamo Detainees(Human Rights Watch Press release, New York, January 11, 2002) and Amnesty International (AFGHANISTAN Making human rights the agenda). That position was then reversed, but vigilant international observance of the Guantanamo conditions did not abate (The Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies - Commentary - Prisoners of War and Gulf War II), and suspicion has remained ever since that this White House and Pentagon would not authentically observe Geneva Convention treatment standards (Jordan Paust, JURIST - Paust The Common Plan to Violate the Geneva Conventions). This is reflected in late October 2004 analysis from the New York Times (Tim Golden, After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law and Golden, Administration Officials Split Over Stalled Military Tribunals).

WMDs (weapons of mass destruction):
    The White House WMD Strategy entitled "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction" was published in December 2002, on the eve of war with Iraq.

Homeland Security:
    Executive Summary of U.S. Commission on National Security Report was issued on 31 January 2001 from a 14-person bipartisan commission headed by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman. Included is a "proposal for a new, cabinet-level National Homeland Security Agency that would combine the Federal Emergency Management Agency with several other agencies, and a prescription for recasting a "crippled" State Department and the Department of Defense." Attachment has the full 140 page report.
    Former Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge was named on 20 September 2001 to head the newly formed Office of Home Security. Bulletins associated with this are at This Week In Homeland Security. The White House site Homeland Security Actions tracks recent adoption of a massive Department of Homeland Security.

11 September 2001 Attack - Archives, Images:
    An archival source is The September 11 Digital Archive, including its Site Map. See also its Guide to September 11 Websites - very comprehensive.
    The vileness of this attack by terrorists is well conveyed by innumerable close-up pictures of the 25-acre destruction site where the World Trade Center once stood. Witnesses remark that they are overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Ground Zero destruction zone, realm of which is not conveyed by these pictures. Less is said of the Pentagon attack, where the building by nature constrains the viewing of the destructive impact of the jet crash. But overhead shots from a distance convey effective portraits at both sites. The commercial firm Space Imaging, Inc. (at www.spaceimaging.com) has Space Imaging - Attack Gallery of the Trade Center and the Pentagon in before-and-after modes.
    Smoke Plume: World Trade Center, New York City from NASA defines the Trade Center attack from a greater distance. So does Spaceflight Now Breaking News SPOT satellite images World Trade Center fires. SPOT Image Corporation has one gallery item linked (for now) from its introductory page. Earth Observatory's EO Newsroom New Images - Aftermath of World Trade Center Attack uses Landsat 7 to obtain images that require no text.
    Recently some more information was released on or near the 9/11/02 first anniversary of the attack. The U.S. Geological Service released http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/pub/open-file-reports/ofr-01-0429/ entitled "Environmental Studies of the World Trade Center area after the September 11, 2001 attack" showing effects around the site after the collapse of the buildings. NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center released Top Story - SEPTEMBER 11 2001 FROM SPACE - Sept. 05 2002.

9-11 Commission Report (July 2004) and follow-up Project:
    National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is the official website of the 9-11 Commission. The full 13-chapter 9-11 Commission Report (at 7.4MB in pdf) is accompanied by an Executive Summary (at 5.9MB) and a Public Statement by the Chair and Vice Chair Regarding the Report (36KB).
    White House response to the Report's July 2004 issuance is at National Security. There is very little here in 2005.
    The 9-11 Public Discourse Project is a private 501(c)(3) entity created after disbanding of the Commission as a governmental entity on 21 August 2004. The Project's core purpose is to follow "The Unfinished Agenda" of the Commission's Recommendations. Their summer 2005 hearings and Report are backed by Voices of September 11: non-profit 9-11 family advocacy group providing information and resources for families and survivors. This same group of 9-11 family survivors was the principal factor behind creation of the original governmental Commission and Report. Their Voices of September 11th - 9-11 independent commission demonstrates backing of the Project's June 2005 Unfinished Agenda hearings.
    The New York Times International News World Special is the mother site for that newspaper's coverage.

11 September 2001 Hearings:
    National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States - hearings_8 hearings site, co-led by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, is the principal site for post hoc review in 2004. Its "eighth public hearing on March 23-24, 2004, in Washington, DC" includes all or nearly all the heavyweights from both the Bush and Clinton Administrations. Included is Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, former National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger, and former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard A. Clarke. Expect a conclusion soon: (pending site).
    Within the Congress, the Intelligence Committees from Senate and House conducted a Joint Investigation during June to October 2002. See Congressional Reports Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 for the full Report; or go to 1 FINAL REPORT PART 1 December 10, 2002 THE JOINT INQUIRY THE CONTEXT PART I FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS Factual Findings. Hearings are shown at Intelligence Congress 2002 Hearings. Separate reports from congressional participants are Congressional Joint Inquiry Into 9-11 Additional Views of Sens. Jon Kyl, Pat Roberts. NPR interviews with two senators are at Online NewsHour Improving Intelligence -- December 11, 2002.
    The Joint Investigation's concluding Report was not the final word. Critics of the congressional review efforts are many. Basically they charge White House stonewalling on full inquiry into responsibility for failure to foresee and prevent this disaster. See John Prados, "Slow-walked and stonewalled" - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2003 issue. A compilation of complaints is at The Memory Hole - Documents From Congress' Joint Inquiry into 9-11. A major one was lack of detailed access to White House documents and staff. Important questions of executive privilege arose; see John Dean's FindLaw's Writ - Dean The 9-11 Report Raises More Serious Questions About The White House Statements On Intelligence (from an experienced hand on executive privilege claims).
    Executive privilege is still an issue. Similar complaints have accompanied the National Commission's proceedings: see Guardian Unlimited Special reports Terror inquiry hampered by White House and 9-11 inquiry may subpoena White House.

War with Iraq:
    The Public Broadcasting System's Frontline: the long road to war PBS has extensive background on Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the 12-year effort to contain its weapon development, and the breakdown of diplomacy since September 2002. The Chronology (Frontline: the long road to war Chronology PBS) is helpful; intermittent videos are included. The 52-minute film of internal Bush Administration debate at Frontline: The War Behind Closed Doors - view the full program online PBS outlines the fundamental arguments over a pre-emptive security strategy (see also above, National Security Strategy, aka "Bush Doctrine.").
    The single key presidential statement is the President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly on 12 September 2002. Since the White House printer-friendly version isn't currently working, see President's Remarks at the United Nations.
    For the war's start in spring 2003, see maps at UT Library Online - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection - Iraq Maps. Maps with descriptive text are at CIA - The World Factbook 2002 -- Iraq. Simplified maps with urban or city sites include Oriental Institute MAP SERIES - IRAQ SITE MAP (150dpi) at the University of Chicago.
    Clickable maps with satellite photography include Washingtonpost.com International Special: Report Iraq. NPR recently posted a site with commercial links, at NPR Have Satellite, Will Spy.

Intelligence Appraisal on Iraq WMDs (31 March 2005): The Silberman-Robb Report text is at the New York Times' 20050331_wmd_report.

War on Terrorism after Iraq:
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy has the December 3-4,2004 conference entitled "The War on Terrorism After Iraq" with Real Media and Windows Media links.

War in Afghanistan - maps:
UT Library Online - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection - Afghanistan Maps has CIA maps that demonstrate the country's current topography, and basic district and city political sites (dated at pre-Taliban 1993). The regional maps from Russian sources include all the major cities hit by the initial October 7, 2001 U.S. and British air attacks. A 1997 ethnolinguistic map is highly useful for understanding the Taliban and opposition centers of influence.
Links to maps from other sites are extensive--and should be carefully reviewed. Included are October 2001 maps with markers for major targets. The Washington Post's Inside Afghanistan is excellent for following some details of the war there. US AID has an excellent map of the refuge crisis, showing the movements and estimated numbers of concentrated refuge populations in September 2001. Data is from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) with numerous briefings and pictorials on the massive Afghan human crisis of fall 2001--this in a country with estimated life expectancy of 46.6 years (male), 45.1 (female), and unknown (Taliban and Al Qaeda).

Foreign Policy - China:
    Official Chinese interpretation of foreign relations with the U.S. is at Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America. American positions are plentiful. The Department of State's International Information Programs has US Dept. of State - IIP The United States and China - a useful clearinghouse of formal statements and documents as well as news reports, arranged by topic and archived back several years.
    For Clinton policy, see US Department of State - Home Page with links to President Clinton's China policy via China Home Page. New York University's Global Beat - China Handbook - Rough Waters Navigating the US-China Security Agenda A Handbook for Journalists - June 1998 addresses Clinton-era security policy.
    Advocacy groups are also numerous. What's in store for the Bush-China era by Christopher J. Szymanski (at multipurpose Inside China Today site) is a commercially oriented argument for the necessity of normal U.S.-China relations. National Committee on U.S. China Relations promotes similar objectives with much less commercial emphasis. A more belligerent tone is evident in American Foreign Policy Council's U.S.-China Relations site.

Disaster Relief (Tsunami of 2004-05):
    The Bush Administration and President Bush were not alone in being caught initially unaware of the scale of this disaster; from Great Britain, see Tsunami: Nature's Timebomb, a 2 January 2005 report from Times Online - Home.
    On the scale of this event, see 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for basics and comparison to past events.
    Photographs from above tell the scale of the event better than other sources. See http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/shownh.php3?img_id=12643 (Mozilla) or EO Natural Hazards Earthquake Spawns Tsunamis (IE) or http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/shownh.php3?img_id=12643 (Opera). So: only IE permits direct pasting with the file name, in Frontpage.
    Also see Guardian Unlimited Special reports 04.01.05 Interactive. Indian Ocean Tsunami - Aceh for photographic testimony of the devastation wrought on the northern Sumatra coastal region. BBC offers Floods from the Air.

Immigration and Globalization issues: (pending)

Scientists in Dissent:
    The Union of Concerned Scientists has Restoring the Integrity of Science, a strongly adversarial statement against the Bush Administration (2001-2005) practices of altering scientific findings to suit the President and Vice-presidential political agendas. The 19 February 2004 report includes Scientists Sign-on Statement. Science & Technology at Scientific American.com Bush-League Lysenkoism -- The White House bends science to its will is a sharply disapproving editorial from Scientific American in April 26, 2004. In July 2004 the report came forth at Scientific_Integrity_in_Policy_Making_July_2004. Preserving Scientific Integrity from the American Psychological Association collects many of the testimonials on this important dissent.
    A specific dissent targeted The President's Council on Bioethics on stem cell research. (see below) This has semi-official partisan aspects, per the House Democrats' Politics & Science - Investigating the State of Science Under the Bush Administration following dismissal of two Council on Bioethics members who disagreed with the official Bush position on stem cell research. The President's Council on Bioethics - Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry published in July 2002 triggered much of this controversy.
    Another important dissent is on global warming (see below) where this Administration opposes the international climate treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol signed by the U.S. and 54 other nations during the Clinton Administration in 1997. The Natural Resources Defense Council published NRDC: Bush Administration Errs on Kyoto Global Warming Agreement. This has become a worldwide liberal v. conservative issue among democratically elected governments, per Global Warming on the conservative Australia government's 30 September 2004 refusal to sign Kyoto.
    The broad complaints of scientists are disregard for established scientific findings, and intrusion of ideology and politics into selection and retention of science advisors. The latter is cited per Politics and Science in the Bush Administration (a Minority Staff Report from the House Reform Committee in 2003).
    This being 2004-05, blogs play their role, too. See Bush Administration and Science, Abuse of science with ideology.
    A site for dissenting science on this and previous presidential administrations is Federation of American Scientists.

Science Policy - Stem Cell Research:
    Remarks by the President on Stem Cell Research on 9 August 2001 set the current Bush Administration policy. CBHD Federally Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Linda K. Bevington (of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity) analyzed that policy on 12 October 2001 from a strongly sympathetic point of view.   Politics & Science - Investigating the State of Science Under the Bush Administration is a critical look at it from the House Democrats backed by the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research Fast Action!.
    For informative news coverage, see Online NewsHour -- Stem Cell Research.
    A fundamentally opposed position to stem cell research (even the limited plans initiated by the Bush Administration) is Stem-cell Research and the Catholic Church.

Science Policy - Environmental Impacts:
    American Prospect Online - ViewPrint publishes Chris Mooney, "Earth Last", The American Prospect Online, Apr 13, 2004 claiming that Bush Administration political appointees and other conservatives--notably Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma in the Science chairmanship of the U.S. Senate--are complicit with promotion of anti-science findings when science collides with major economic interests affiliated with the Bush White House.

Science and health policy - sexual abstinence, and AIDS:
Abstinence Only vs. Comprehensive Sex Education (from AIDS Research Institute) captures the ongoing debate over the Administration's abstinence-only sex education policy in American schools, and in foreign assistance programs designed to combat AIDS. Endnotes provide abundant links to other major studies and informational sources.

Religion:
    The increased linkage of recent Republican presidents with religious issues and organizations is self-evident by 2004. Survey and documentary evidence at Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Publications includes May 2004 surveys green and green-full conducted by John C. Green with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
    Bush Calls for 'Culture Change' - Christianity Today Magazine is a 26 May 2004 interview between the President and exclusively Christian media sources. ChristianityToday.com does a laudatory review Reviews: George W. Bush Faith in the White House - Christianity Today Movies of the documentary by that name produced by the religious publisher Grizzly Adams. The same is true for BPNews.net - SBC Baptist Press News - Witness the difference (at 'Faith in the White House' documentary tells story behind President Bush's Christian walk).
    This documentary was presented at the 2004 Republican National Convention, per (fill in).
    Direct evidence about the personal faith and practices of President Bush are considerably more difficult to interpret. There are numerous supportive testimonials, per Arthur Blessit, The day I prayed with George W. Bush to receive Jesus. The independent support for these claims is sketchy.
     Frontline: The Jesus Factor, PBS has links to the full program, and to subsections outlining both the Bush connection to evangelical Christians and the growing influence of this group in American politics. Twelve interviews are posted at the jesus factor interviews PBS.

Faith-Based Initiative:
See Faith-Based and Community Initiatives housed in the White House, and U.S. Department of Labor -- Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
FB_Administrative_Presidency_Report_10_08_04 (title: The Expanding Administrative Presidency: George W. Bush and the Faith-Based Initiative, by Anne Farris, Richard P. Nathan and David J. Wright; done for The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy sponsored by The Rockefeller Institute at SUNY at Albany) is an August 2004 exposition of the Bush Administration's extensive first-term use of executive powers to promote its Faith-Based Initiative.

Other Domestic Policy Issues: pending

Presidential Campaigns of 2000 and 2004:
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2004 ! is comprehensive with links, including foreign ones. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections - 2004 has primary results, polls, a mock election, and Electoral College forecasts.

2004 Presidential Campaign:

2004 General Election:
Rasmussen Reports summary is at Prez track 2004. Still up in January 2005 is Gallup's final pre-election summation site Election 2004 -- Gallup Poll News Service.

2000 Presidential Campaign:
C-SPAN Presidential & Vice-Presidential Debates 2000 has the debates. C-SPAN Campaign 2000 - Convention Events has the summer conventions of parties major and minor. C-SPAN Campaign 2000 - Speeches and Interviews includes Bush and Vice-President Cheney.
Dave Leip's Atlas of Presidential Elections has 2000 Republican Presidential Primary Results and 2000 Democratic Presidential Primary Results. Results are shown county by county and in chronological sequence for each state.

2000 General Election:
    Dave Leip's 2000 Election Results show how historically close this election was, as Bush trailed Al Gore by about 500,000 votes in the national popular vote tally. (Post new material on 2004 showing similarity to 2000, via my short paper.)
    Elections 2000 from U of Michigan Documents Center is an ideal starting point for the most bizarre presidential election since the 1800s. The Elections 2000 - Florida Recount has the Florida Election Results; the major legal cases including the Florida rulings and the U.S. Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision of 12 December 2000; the News Media; the Candidate Speeches; and the Civil Rights Probe.
    Election 2000 - course related.IS by Pika and Begleiter at the University of Delaware has numerous links.
    Elsewhere, see C-SPAN Campaign 2000 for links to pertinent sources of controversy. C-SPAN Election 2000 Before the U.S. Supreme Court has pertinent judicial proceedings. For statements from the principals and for court testimony and verdicts on Florida before Bush v. Gore, see American Presidency - Florida 2000 Papers. Subdivision includes Candidates, Courts, Legislature, Spin and Other Voices.

The Butterfly Ballot of Palm Beach County, Florida:
This famous example of a badly designed and misleading ballot during Election 2000 is profiled in Law and Data: The Butterfly Ballot Episode. The six co-authors were in that County as expert witnesses. They provide indisputable 'smoking gun' evidence that this ballot caused thousands of would-be Gore voters in Palm Beach County voting precincts to mistakenly vote for Buchanan or to mistakenly commit an "overvote" error by marking more than one presidential candidate. To accompany, see The Sun-Sentinel Virtual Ballot on Palm Beach County's presidential ballot design.
And for those few partisans of the Florida battle who have kept intact their sense of humor, Salman Rushdie from The Guardian offers his take on it: Guardian Unlimited Special reports: How the Grinch stole America.

Election Law and 2000 Election:
Legal guidance is necessary for navigating this election. See Presidential Election Law - Florida Recount etc. from JURIST: The Legal Education Network. Presidential Election Law - Lawsuits Electoral College Glossary Commentary has the Supreme Court's 5 to 4 verdict and the Per Curiam decision of 12 December 2000 in Bush v. Gore. Bush v. Gore - Web Companion to the Book from The Brookings Institution has the major decisions and advisory opinions, plus a Chronology of events and the 13 December 2000 speeches by George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Electoral College in 2000:
Dave Leip's Atlas - 2000 Presidential Election provides national and state maps of the election outcomes showing state results, county results, and congressional district results. Comparison can be readily made to similar data from 1996 and earlier elections.
Elsewhere, see National Archives and Records Administration's Electoral College-Home Page and scroll immediately to 2000 Electoral Results. The 2000 Presidential Election: Popular Vote Totals shows Florida with a Bush plurality of 537 out of 5,963,070 votes cast and officially counted.

Chronology of Events:
Bush Chronology accompanies The Program in Leadership Studies: The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment conducted at Princeton University in April 2003.

The Presidential Transition, 2000-2001:
    This was a difficult process for Bush in 2000-2001, considering that the president's election was not formally resolved until 37 days after the 2 November 2000 date of the election.
    The Transition to Governing Project at American Enterprise Institute has transcripts and videos from recent conferences on the appointments process, the Bush transition, and on the earlier transitions of 1980 and 1988. A yearlong archive of events is at www.aei.org/governing/events.htm.
    C-SPAN has transition coverage at C-SPAN Transition 2001.
    From Brookings, The Presidential Appointee Initiative - Presidential Transition Act of 2000 signed into law on 12 October 2000 provides GSA transition funds for new presidents-elect.
    Presidential Appointee Initiative - Home Page from The Brookings Institution under Paul C. Light's direction, has a forceful recommendation for reform entitled To Form A Government: A Bipartisan Plan to Improve the Presidential Appointments Process. A weekly "Confirmation Countdown" tracked the progress of 489 positions in the first Bush Administration. Presidential Appointee Initiative Survivor's Guide for Presidential Nominees: Table of Contents guides would-be appointees facing Senate confirmation First 100 Days Press Release by Paul Light demonstrates that in the first hundred days of the Bush Administration, a great many important posts were yet unfilled. The larger problem is profiled in 10 articles in the Spring 2001 issue of Brookings Review.

The Presidential Transition, 2004-2005:

The Bush Cabinet:
See The Bush Cabinet from the New York Times. This is part of the broader site, The Bush Administration. Or see The Bush Cabinet at the University of Michigan's Political Science Links.
The second term transition witnessed a major overhaul of Cabinet posts, per (fill in).

Appointment and Confirmation of Presidential Personnel:
The White House keeps Bush Administration Nominations by Name for tracking current nominations.

Judicial Nominations:
    Partisan combat over cultural questions now reigns supreme over this topic, as it did in the Clinton Administration. Tracking of 107th Congress judicial nominations is at Senate Judiciary Nominations Central Webpage. Culturally conservative interest groups feature the issue prominently; see, for example, Judicial Nominations Issue Index from The American Center for Law and Justice. The same goes for culturally liberal groups such as People For the American Way. Off the web as on, both use the issue to subscribe citizens and raise money.
     Partisan combat on federal judicial appointments during the Clinton Administration continued into the Bush Administration, with Senate Democrats instead of Republicans producing the holdups. During Clinton's second term, extended judicial vacancies became commonplace. The Constitution Project's Courts Initiative -- Main Page defines the problem. This bipartisan group is devoted to maintaining the traditional independence of the judiciary from direct partisan combat. Its Task Force Reports of the Constitution Project's Courts Initiative provides the case.
    Clinton Administration vacancy data is at Lower Federal Court Confirmation Database compiled by Wendy L. Martinek is available on SPSS. The Senate Judiciary Committee has archived information (This is the Status of Nominations - Statistics Page) for the 106th Congress (1999-2000; see Status of Nominations) and for the 105th Congress (1997-98). Corroboration is provided in the federal Court System's own data via Judicial Emergencies (currently updated through 5 August 2002; see also their Revised Definition for Judicial Emergencies).
    The Brennan Center for Justice - Resources has an October 1999 article on the Senate's policy since 1995 of systematically delaying or denying hearings on numerous Clinton judicial nominees. They claimed that shortages produced judicial emergencies on six of the 13 federal Circuit Courts of Appeal. A leading figure in the delay strategy was Senator John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who became Attorney General in the Bush Administration.

President's Budget:
12th Annual Roundtable on the President's Budget and the Economy from The Urban Institute provides effective policy and fiscal interpretations.

Executive Orders by George W. Bush:
See www.archives.gov/federal_register/executive_orders/wbush.html.

Historians' Evaluation of President Bush:
A blog from historian Robert S. McElvaine, emphatically not a fan of Bush 43, summarizes an informal survey of 415 American historians at Historians vs. George W. Bush by Robert S. McElvaine on 5-17-04. The parent site is History News Network. McElvaine outlines his role on conducting this survey via George Mason University's Department of History in Bush: Gaining on James Buchanan for Last Place by Robert S. McElvaine, History News Service. Statements from McElvaine say the poll is unscientific. Presumably so: I haven't been able (so far) to find the document.

Person of the Year:
    Time Magazine as usual picked the President-elect, this time with an eye to the special difficulty of Florida in 2000: George W. Bush - 2000.
    Four years later upon Bush reelection, Time repeated its recognition via TIME Person of the Year 2004 George W. Bush with link to the Story.   See also TIME Person of the Year 2004 Interview With President George W. Bush by Matthew Cooper and John Dickerson and editor at large Nancy Gibbs (posted 19 December 2004); and related features including The Benetton-Ad Presidency on the Bush Cabinet (from Joe Klein), and The Rove Warrior on White House political manager Karl Rove.
    Time is known for not keeping any story at any one URL for long. See also TIME.com TIME NAMES PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH 2004 PERSON OF THE YEAR from January 2005. When it disappears, use this title to check for a new URL.

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