2 time, january 16, 2006

By KAREN TUMULTY/WASHINGTON

There were two qualities that jackAbramoff looked for in a prospective lob-bying client: naiveté and a willingness topart with a lot of money. Inearly 2001 he found both in

an obscure Indian tribe called theLouisiana Coushattas. Thanks to thethriving casino that the tribe haderected on farmland between NewOrleans and Houston, a tribe thathad subsisted in part on pine-needlebasket weaving was doling outstipends of $40,000 a year to everyone of its 800-plus men, women andchildren. But the Coushattas werealso $30 million in debt and worriedthat renewal of their gambling compact would beblocked by hostile local authorities and that theircasino business would be eaten away by otherslooking to get a piece of the action. So tribal lead-ers were eager to hear from the handsome, well-dressed visitor who had flown in from Washingtonwith his partner on a private jet, shared some oftheir fried chicken in the council hall, then waitedfor them to turn off the tape recorder that theyused for official business.

William Worfel, then a member of the council,recalls Abramoff saying if the Coushattas gavehim enough money, he could make their problemsgo away. He and his partner Michael Scanlon, aonetime press secretary for congressional leaderTom DeLay who ran his own public relationsfirm, came through, attacking the tribe’s politicalopponents, blitzing the state with television ads

and tapping a grassroots operation of Christianconservatives to help stop any rival casinos. Andby the next year, with elections rolling around,Abramoff had the Coushattas dreaming even big-ger. “You can control Louisiana,” Worfel recalls

Abramoff telling the tribal leaders.“You could help elect Senators andRepresentatives and attorney gen-erals in the state of Louisiana, andthen they’re going to remember thatthe Coushattas helped them. Andthey know that if you helped them,well, they know that you can comeafter them down the road if theydon’t help you, see?” The Coushat-tas went for it. On election night,they watched their chosen candi-dates with excitement and discov-

ered that the $9.3 million they had given Scanlonhad produced … nothing.

That’s probably because much of the $32 millionthat the Coushattas paid Abramoff and Scanlonover two years went not toward increasing thetribe’s influence but toward lining the two partners’pockets. Nearly $11.5 million in secret kickbackswas funneled by Scanlon back to Abramoff, accor-ding to court papers filed in early January, as theman who was once one of Washington’s highest-paid lobbyists pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasionand a conspiracy to bribe public officials.Abramoff’s plea agreement admits to expansiveschemes to defraud not just the Coushattas but alsothree other tribes and the lobbying firm Abramoffworked for, and it acknowledges buying off publicofficials, in part by laundering his clients’ fundsthrough legitimate-sounding think tanks and

P O L I T I C S

The Man Who BoughtWashington, DCFrom deep inside the Republican elite, Jack Abramoff brought new excessesto the lobbying game. Who is he, and how did he get away with it for so long?

time, january 16, 2006 3

public-policy groups, some of which Abramoffand Scanlon themselves set up. The stocky fig-ure in the black fedora who left the federal court-house after telling Judge Ellen Huvelle of his“tremendous sadness and regret for my conduct”was barely recognizable as the flamboyant powerbroker who used to send lawmakers and theirstaffs on junkets around the world and entertainthem back in Washington with golf outings, freemeals at his expensive restaurant, and concerts andgames enjoyed from the luxury skyboxes he main-tained at nearly every arena and stadium in town.

The Abramoff scandal has already taken downthe political player who invented the system thathas helped keep Republicans in power for morethan a decade. The once-feared DeLay, whoseoffice had been Abramoff’s biggest claim to accessand influence on Capitol Hill, announced he wouldresign as House majority leader. Because of DeLay’stightfisted regime that rewarded loyalists and pun-ished detractors, his departure is sure to set offnot just a fight for his old job but also some uglyscore settling.

The Coushattas’ tale is only a small piece of aninvestigation that, with the 46-year-old Abramoff’sagreement to cooperate with federal prosecutors,could become one of the biggest corruptionprobes in U.S. history, possibly putting dozensof lawmakers in legal or political jeopardy. It hasalready netted Scanlon, 35, who pleaded guilty tosimilar charges in November and is also cooper-ating. In an internal e-mail obtained by Time,

the director of the fbi’s Washington field office,Michael Mason, congratulated some 15 agents and15 support staff members under him on the case for“a huge accomplishment” in squeezing Abramoff tomake a deal after 18 months of investigation andnegotiation, one that made “a huge contribution toensuring the very integrity of our government.”But he added that “the case is far from over.”

Another official involved with the probe toldTime that investigators are viewing Abramoff as“the middle guy” suggesting there are bigger targetsin their sights. The fbi has 13 field offices acrossthe country working on the case, with two dozenagents assigned to it full time and roughly thesame number working part time. “We are going tochase down every lead,” Chris Swecker, head ofthe fbi’s criminal division, told Time.

Just following the money that Abramoff spreadacross Washington should give them plenty to do.So toxic are any campaign donations tied to himthat panicked lawmakers from House SpeakerDennis Hastert ($69,000) to Republican SenatorConrad Burns ($150,000) to Democratic SenatorMax Baucus ($18,892) can’t give it away to charitiesfast enough. Even President Bush is giving theAmerican Heart Association the $6,000 that hereceived from Abramoff, his wife and one of theIndian tribes he represented.

The fact that the scandal is breaking at the begin-ning of midterm-election season promises that itwill be amplified in political ads and coveragearound the country. Even though he gave away

the contributions he tookfrom Abramoff and hisclients, Montana SenatorBurns will continue to facequestions about everymove he made that helpedthe lobbyist. “I hope,” saidBurns, “he goes to jail andwe never see him again.” π

Questions

1. What did Abramoff admitin his plea agreement?2. How has this scandal af-fected Tom DeLay?

P O L I T I C S

J.D. Hayworth, Ariz.J. Dennis Hastert, Ill.Thad Cochran, Miss.Conrad Burns, Mont.Richard W. Pombo, Calif.

Jim McCrery, La.John T. Doolittle, Calif.Patrick J. Kennedy, R.I.Patty Murray, Wash.Don Nickles, Okla.*

Charles B. Rangel, N.Y.Dave Camp, Mich.John A. Boehner, OhioHarold Rogers, Ky.Bob Ney, Ohio

Harry Reid, Nev.Billy Tauzin, La.*Tom DeLay, TexasDenny Rehberg, Mont.Byron L. Dorgan, N.D.

Top 20 congressional recipients of contributions from Jack Abramoff, his wife, the Indian tribes that hired him and SunCruz Casinos, from 1999 to 2005

$101,62069,00065,50059,59054,500

52,75050,00042,50040,98040,000

36,00035,50032,50032,00031,500

30,50030,50030,50030,00028,000

Breakdown of all contributions by political party

DEMOCRATS$1.5million

Source: Center for

ResponsivePolitics

34% 66%

$2.9million

REPUBLICANS

*No longera member of Congress

When GeorgeMet JackWhite House aides deny Bush knew Abramoff,but photos suggest there’s more to the story

By ADAM ZAGORIN and MIKE ALLEN

As details poured out about the illegaland unseemly activities of Republican lobby-ist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought

to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair withlittle relevance to them. Peppered for days withquestions about Abramoff’s visits to the WhiteHouse, press secretary Scott McClellansaid the now disgraced lobbyist hadattended two huge holiday receptionsand a few “staff-level meetings” thatwere not worth describing further.“The President does not know him,nor does the President recall evermeeting him,” McClellan said.

The President’s memory may soonbe unhappily refreshed. Time has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President thatsuggest a level of contact between them that Bush’saides have downplayed. While Time’s source refused to provide the pictures for publication,they are likely to see the light of day eventuallybecause celebrity tabloids are on the prowl forthem. And that has been a fear of the Bush team’sfor the past several months: that a picture of thePresident with the admitted felon could becomethe iconic image of direct presidential involvementin a burgeoning corruption scandal.

In one shot that Time saw, Bush appears withAbramoff, several unidentified people and RaulGarza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who wasthen chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, whichowned a casino in southern Texas. Another photoshows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in frontof a window and a blue drape. Three other photosare of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of thelobbyist’s sons. A sixth picture shows several

Abramoff children with Bush and House Speak-er Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tightenlobbying laws after declining to do so last yearwhen the scandal was in its early stages.

Most of the pictures have the formal look ofphotos taken at presidential receptions. The im-ages of Bush, Abramoff and one of his sons appearto be the rapid-fire shots—known in White Houseparlance as “clicks”—that the President snapswith top supporters before taking the podium atfund-raising receptions. Over five years, Bushhas posed for tens of thousands of such shots—many with people he does not know.

Abramoff knew the game. In a 2001 e-mail to alawyer for tribal leader Lovelin Poncho, he crowsabout an upcoming White House meeting he hadarranged for Poncho and says it should be a price-

less asset in his client’s upcoming re-election campaign as chief of Loui-siana’s Coushatta Indians. The e-mail,now part of a wide-ranging federalinvestigation into lobbyists’ relation-ships with members of Congress, offers a window into Abramoff’s will-ingness to invoke Bush’s name to impress clients.

Abramoff was once in better graces at 1600Pennsylvania Avenue, having raised at least$100,000 for the President’s re-election cam-paign. During 2001 and 2002, connections to theWhite House won him invitations to Hanukkah re-ceptions, each attended by 400 to 500 people.

The White House describes the number ofAbramoff’s meetings with staff members as “afew,” even though Bush aides have precise dataabout them. Pressed for particulars, McClellansaid with brio, “People are insinuating thingsbased on no evidence whatsoever.” Senate mino-rity leader Harry Reid of Nevada has demandeddetails, saying in a letter to Bush that Abramoff“may have had undue and improper influencewithin your Administration.” π

Questions

1. Describe the photos of Abramoff and Bush.2. How much money did Abramoff raise for Pres-ident Bush’s re-election campaign?

“The President does not know

[Jack Abramoff]....”

—Scott McClellan,White House

press secretary

4 time, january 30, 2006

W H I T E H O U S E

time.com, october 28, 2005 5

Did Libby Lie?How a smart and loyal aide to Vice President Dick Cheney got indicted for allegedly lyingabout his role in defending the Iraq war

By JEFF CHU

The chief of staff to vice president dickCheney, I. Lewis Libby, has been indicted oncharges of obstruction of justice, perjury and

making false statements. The indictment washanded down by a federal grand jury investigat-ing the leak of the identity of a covert cia opera-tive. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who headsthe two-year-old investigation, believes that Libbylied about how he learned—thenshared with reporters—the iden-tity of Valerie Plame, a covert ciaoperative who is married to JosephWilson, a former diplomat whohas been fiercely critical of theBush Administration’s claimsabout weapons of mass destruc-tion (wmd) in Iraq. “Mr. Libbygave the fbi a compelling story,”Fitzgerald said in a press conference. But thatstory “was not true. It was false … and he liedabout it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.”

Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s senioradvisor and deputy chief of staff, was not indicted,but in a sign that Fitzgerald's two-year investigationis not yet over, Rove remains under investigation.Libby submitted his resignation shortly after the indictment was announced but denies any wrong-doing; the case is expected to go to trial in 2007.

The indictment contains five counts againstLibby—two for perjury, for allegedly lying to thegrand jury; two for making false statements to fbiinvestigators; and one for obstruction of justice, forallegedly impeding the grand jury’s investigation.If found guilty, Libby could face 30 years in prisonand a fine of $1.25 million.

The indictment alleges that Libby made a “false,fictitious and fraudulent statement” when he wasquestioned by the fbi. It also says that he lied in his

testimony to the grand jury. Specifically, he mis-represented his conversations with nbc’s TimRussert, Time’s Matt Cooper, and Judith Miller ofthe New York Times. He told the grand jury thatRussert had asked him whether he knew Wilson’swife worked for the cia and that he was surprisedto learn this from Russert. But according to theindictment, Libby did not in fact discuss this withRussert, and he already knew about the identity ofWilson’s wife. The indictment also alleges thatLibby lied in testifying that he told both Cooper andMiller that he had learned about Wilson’s wifefrom other reporters. Miller served 85 days in jailfor refusing to reveal her source, and, earlier thismonth, testified to the grand jury about her con-versations with Libby only after he granted her apersonal waiver. Plame’s identity was first revealed

to the public in July 2003, byRobert Novak, a syndicatedcolumnist who referred to her as“an Agency operative on weaponsof mass destruction.”

Tensions between the Admin-istration and the cia grew in mid-2003 along with doubts over theAdministration’s claims that Iraqwas seeking nuclear weapons.

Wilson went public with the news that, more thana year earlier, he had privately refuted, on behalf ofthe cia, claims about an African connection toSaddam Hussein’s alleged wmd arsenal. Wilsonsuggested that Cheney knew before the war that theclaims were bogus. People who worked with Libbytell Time that he regarded Wilson’s criticisms as partof a wider effort by the cia to shift blame to theWhite House for the faulty pre-war claims aboutIraq’s wmd.

Libby served as the right-hand man to one ofthe most powerful Vice Presidents in U.S. histo-ry. For the moment, Libby has been thrust into thespotlight. In that glare, prosecutors hope to findanswers. “As soon as we can get it done, we will,”said Fitzgerald. “We need to know the truth.” π

Questions

1. Who is Valerie Plame?2. On what grounds was Libby indicted?

W H I T E H O U S E

“Mr. Libby gave the FBI a compelling story,”Special Counsel Patrick

Fitzgerald said in a press conference. But

that story “was not true. It was false….”

6 time, january 9, 2006

By RICHARD LACAYO

In the aftermath of the september 11 attacks, White House officials were haunted bytwo questions. Were there other terrorists lyingin wait within the U.S.? And, given how freelythe 19 hijackers had been able to operate before

they acted, how would we know where to findthem? It didn’t take long before an aggressiveidea emerged from the circle of Administrationhawks. Liberalize the rules for domestic spying,they urged. Free the National Security Agency(nsa) to use its powerful listening technology toeavesdrop on terrorist suspects on U.S. soil withouthaving to seek a warrant for every phone numberit tracked. But because of a 1978 law that forbidsthe nsa to conduct no-warrant surveillance insidethe U.S., the new policy would require one oftwo steps. The first was to revise the law. Theother was to ignore it.

In the end, George Bush tried the first. Whenthat failed, he opted for the second. In 2002 heissued a secret Executive Order to allow the nsa toeavesdrop without a warrant on phone calls, e-mail and other electronic communications, even

when at least one party to the exchange was inthe U.S.—the circumstance that would ordinarilytrigger the warrant requirement. For four years,Bush’s decision remained a closely guarded secret.In the weeks since December 16, 2005, when theprogram was disclosed by the New York Times, ithas set off a ferocious debate in Washingtonand around the country about how the rule oflaw should constrain the war on terrorism. Thatdevelopment ensures that the President willstart the new year preoccupied for a while witha fight over whether his responsibility to preventanother attack gave him the power to push asidean act of Congress—or, to use the terms of hisharshest critics, to break the law.

The nsa intercepts are just one instance of theBush Administration’s effort to pursue the war onterrorism unhindered by some long-establishedlegal norms. In the White House version of howthat struggle must be conducted, it’s acceptable tohold captured suspects indefinitely without trial,hand them over for questioning to nations knownto torture prisoners, define American citizens asenemy combatants who can be detained withoutcharges, resist efforts by Congress to put limits

on the rough interrogation of detaineesand allow the cia to establish secret prisonsabroad. Any and all of those things may benecessary, but this is shaping up as theyear when we take a long, hard look.

Because they required the Presidentto plainly bypass an act of Congress, theno-warrant wiretaps may be the sharpestexpression yet of the Administration’s will-ingness to expand the scope of Executivepower. When the nsa was established, in1952, there were few legal limits on itspower to spy within the U.S. Then camethe intelligence-gathering abuses of theNixon years, when the nsa as well as the

Has Bush Gone Too Far?The President’s secret directive to let the National Security Agency snoop on American citizens without warrants sets off a furor

W H I T E H O U S E

time, january 9, 2006 7

fbi were used by the White Houseto spy on civil rights and anti-Viet-nam War activists. In 1978 Con-gress passed the Foreign Intelli-gence Surveillance Act (fisa), whichrequired the nsa to obtain a warrantany time it wanted to monitor com-munications within the U.S. (Out-side the U.S., it still enjoys a freehand.) The new law created thefisa court, an 11-member secretpanel whose job it is to hear thensa requests and issue—or deny—the warrants. In the event that thensa comes upon a situation thatseems to require immediate action,the law permits the agency toeavesdrop without a warrant so longas it applies for one within 72 hours.

But the Administration says thatadvances in technology since fisawas passed make the court’s pro-cedures too slow to contend withthe immense flood of electronicchatter that now passes in and outof the U.S. and which the agencyhas much improved means ofcapturing and analyzing. JusticeDepartment officials say a fisa sur-veillance request can take up to aweek to prepare, even for seasonedlawyers. “When you get a terrorist’scell phone and there are 20 num-bers in it,” a former Administrationofficial says, “you can’t fill out oneof these for every one of them.”

The White House insists that thensa is looking into only the com-munications of people who haveknown links to al-Qaeda. If that’s so,the program’s critics ask, then whynot just apply to the fisa court first for a warrant, es-pecially when the court has rarely stood in the wayof any warrant request? According to the JusticeDepartment, from 1979 to 2004 the court approved18,724 wiretaps and denied only three, all in 2003.(Despite the 2002 presidential order allowing the

nsa to work without a warrantwhen it chooses to, the agency hascontinued in many cases to applyfor them. Last year it sought 1,754.)But the court has been subjectingthe applications to closer examina-tion. It substantially modified 94 oflast year’s requests—reducing thescope, timing or targets in the orig-inal application.

The White House says Congressimplicitly gave Bush the power toapprove the no-warrant wiretapsin a resolution it passed on Sep-tember 14, 2001. That measure authorized the President to use “allnecessary and appropriate forceagainst those nations, organizations,or persons” involved in the 9/11 at-tacks. Tom Daschle, then the SenateDemocratic majority leader, saysthe Administration knows it did nothave that implicit authority becauseWhite House officials had soughtunsuccessfully to get congressionalleaders to include explicit languageapproving no-warrant wiretaps inthe resolution. Attorney GeneralGonzales says the Administrationdecided to go forward with the pro-gram anyway because it was con-vinced that the President possessedthe inherent power to act.

When we talk about trade-offsbetween freedom and security, it’sa mistake to assume they will beshort-term adjustments. The emer-gency powers that we agree to nowmay well become the Americanway for years. We may still agree tothem, but it is essential to know

exactly what costs they come with. π

Questions

1. When and why was fisa passed? 2. What two options did the Bush Administrationhave for expanding surveillance in the U.S.?

W H I T E H O U S E

Percentage saying “very negative”:

Policies in IraqHigher gas/energy pricesFederal budget deficitPutting people close to him in high places in the government regardless of their experienceHandling of hurricane- recovery effortsHandling of economyFailure of Social Security initiativeInvestigations and indictment surrounding outing of CIA agentProposals dealing with illegal immigrants

45%45%39%

39%

37%35%

32%

26%

24%

This TIME poll was conducted by telephone Nov. 29–Dec. 1 among 1,004 adult Americans by SRBI Public Affairs. The margin of error for the entire sample is ±3 percentage points

T I M E P O L L

■ Would you like the next President to be similar to George W. Bush in terms of policies and programs or completely different?

Similar

Can recover

Not likelyto recover

Don’t know

Different

Don’t know

36%

60%

5%

■ There will be elections for the U.S. House of Representatives next year. If the elections were held today, would you be more likely to vote for the Republican or the Democratic candidate in your district?

36%

48%

4%

5%

11%

Republican

Democrat

Other

Don’t know

■ President Bush’s approval ratings in the past few months have been among the lowest of his presidency. Do you think the President can recover from recent setbacks and regain his higher approval ratings in the final three years of his presidency?

■ Have any of the following had a negative impact on how you rate President Bush’s job performance?

46%

49%

Looking For Change

8 time, august 1, 2005

By NANCY GIBBS

To listen to people who have knownhim longest, what sets John Roberts apartis not so much his individual virtues buthow they fit together: a great talker wholistens well, a natural talent who works

unnaturally hard, a regular guy who moonlights asa legal star. He was originally nominated to fill thevacancy created by the pending retirement ofJustice Sandra Day O’Connor. But following thedeath of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Presi-dent Bush quickly named Roberts to take over thecourt’s top spot. The Senate confirmed him asChief Justice on September 29, in a 78–22 vote.

Roberts’ resume reads so perfectly that it is easyto find the little flakes of destiny littered through hisstorybook life. Born in Buffalo, New York, he wasraised in Long Beach, Indiana, a small town on thesoutheastern edge of Lake Michigan. He was the

kind of boy whose eighth-grade math teacher kepthis birthday in her birthday book all these years,alone among her generations of students. “I like tothink that was an omen for wonderful things tocome,” says Dorothea Liddell. He was way clever,she recalls, so much so that if he didn’t get a conceptshe knew she had to teach it again, but “he neverflaunted his intelligence over the other kids.” Forhigh school, Roberts applied to La Lumiere, acompetitive Catholic boarding school about 12miles away in La Porte, Indiana. “I won’t be contentto get a good job by getting a good education,” hewrote at age 13 in an application letter. “I want toget the best job by getting the best education.”

Roberts made it through Harvard in three years,summa cum laude, on his way to Harvard LawSchool. Cambridge in the mid-1970s was a lessunruly place than it had been during the height ofthe war protests, and while Roberts was known forbeing personally conservative right down to his un-

varying choice of chocolate-chip ice cream,he was never rigid or doctrinaire.

He rose to become the managing editor ofthe Law Review, sometimes sleepingovernight in the office. “There were a fewpeople on the Law Review that were socialconservatives, [with] very strong views aboutabortion and separation of church and state.John was not one of them,” recalls classmateSteve Glover. “John’s approach, as I recallit, was very lawyerly, in the sense that hewas very much focused on case law and theprecedent that courts had set before.” Thatmind-set prepared him well for the appren-ticeship that followed Harvard and that hecherished above all: his clerkship with JudgeHenry Friendly, a Second Circuit judgeknown for his careful, almost handcrafted,opinions and for being mindful of what hislegal forebears had laid out. In some ways

Judging Mr. RightAn inside look at a judge who walked a careful path to the top

S U P R E M E C O U R T

time, august 1, 2005 9

that training was even more informative than the clerkship that followed, with Justice WilliamRehnquist.

Those poring over the Roberts record will havea tough time finding an ideology. Law professorscan afford to offer grand theories; practicing lawyerswant to win. The very best players—and Roberts isunquestionably one—can argue all sides of anyissue, because that is what they get paid to do. Soall the selective readings of his case file obscuredthe point that he argued for and against affirmativeaction, for and against environmental regulations,argued that Roe v. Wade should be overturnedwhen he was representing a Republican Presidentand then described it as settled law when speakingas a nominee to become an appellate judge.

Roberts seemed on a fast track to judicial gloryin 1992, when George H.W. Bush tapped him forthe District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appealsat the age of 36. But he encountered his first set-back when the bid died in the Senate with BillClinton’s victory. Then George W. Bush tried in2001 and finally succeeded in 2003. In the mean-time, Roberts spent most of the 1990s biding histime, getting rich as a corporate lawyer at Hogan& Hartson, one of Washington’s largest firms,where he quickly emerged as the supreme com-mander of Supreme Court battles. Between hisgovernment and corporate jobs, he argued 39cases before the high court and won 25 of them.

At 50, Roberts is by far the youngest member ofthe court. Only Clarence Thomas, 57, is close,while all the rest are over 65, and John PaulStevens is 85. The burning question now, withO’Connor and Rehnquist gone, is, How will thecourt rebalance?

When Roberts spoke during the confirmationprocess of the lump in his throat whenever heclimbed the marble stairs of the Supreme Courtbuilding, it rang true to anyone who had everwatched him in action. And it would match thehistory and mystery of the court if it turned outthat Roberts ultimately alienates conservativesand not those who fear any Republican appointee.Roberts may agree in spirit with those who see thepast 50 years of jurisprudence as too expansiveand too intrusive but respect too much the way

the law is shaped to ride in and blowtorch it. Hemay just prove willing to conserve even opinionshe faults. If that is so, then it will not be the liberalswho come to wonder at George Bush’s choice. π

Questions

1. For what judges has John Roberts clerked?2. Why is Roberts’ ideology hard to pin down?

S U P R E M E C O U R T

ALITO SWORN IN AS110TH SUPREMECOURT JUSTICESamuel Alito was sworn in as the nation’s 110th

Supreme Court justice on January 31 after being

confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 58–42. The vote

was the closest confirmation for a nominee since

Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed 52-48 in

1991. Alito, 55, replaces retiring Justice Sandra Day

O’Connor, a moderate swing vote and the first woman

appointed to the high court.

The confirmation vote came a day after an at-

tempt by some Democratic senators to filibuster his

nomination fizzled. In the end, only 24 of the cham-

ber’s 44 Democrats went along with the filibuster, a

maneuver allowed under Senate rules to block a

vote by extending debate indefinitely. Sixty votes are

needed to pass a motion to end debate, called a

cloture motion; the Senate voted 72–25 to cut off de-

bate, thereby killing the filibuster.

Arguing against cutting off debate, Sen. John

Kerry—who spearheaded the filibuster effort with his

fellow Massachusetts Democrat, Sen. Ted Kennedy—

said Alito’s record during his 15 years on the 3rd

U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has given “the extreme

right wing unbelievable public cause for celebration.

That just about tells you what you need to know,”

Kerry said. “The vote today is whether or not we will

take a stand against ideological court packing.”

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said the

move to cut off debate fulfilled a “very straightforward

principle—a nominee with the support of a majority of

senators deserves a fair up-or-down vote.”

—From CNN.com, February 1, 2006

10 time, september 12, 2005

By NANCY GIBBS

New orleans lives by the water andfights it, a sand castle set on a sponge ninefeet below sea level, where people mademusic from heartache, named their drinksfor hurricanes and joked that one day

you’d be able to tour the city by gondola.A city built by rumrunners and

slave traders and pirates was nevergoing to play by anyone’s rules orplan for the future. So as Katrina,wicked and flirtatious, lingered inthe Gulf with her eye on the town,many citizens decided they wouldstay, stubborn or stoic or too poor tohave much choice. As for the onespacking up to go, officials told themto take a look around before leav-ing, because it might never be thesame again.

By the time President Bush touched down in thetormented region, more than just the topographyhad changed. Shattered too was a hope that fouryears after the greatest man-made disaster in ourhistory, we had got smarter about catastrophe. Is itreally possible, after so many commissions andcommitments, bureaucracies scrambled andrewired, emergency supplies stockpiled andprepositioned, that when disaster strikes, the wholenewfangled system just seizes up and can’t move?

It may be weeks before the lights come back onand months before New Orleans is mopped out, ayear before the refugees resettle in whatever willcome to function as home, even without anythingprecious from the days before the flood. But itmay take even longer than that before the nature ofthis American tragedy is clear: whether the stormof 2005 is remembered mainly as the worst naturaldisaster in our history or as the worst response toa disaster in our history. Or both.

Watching helpless New Orleans suffering dayby day left people everywhere stunned and angryand in ever greater pain. These things happenedin Haiti, they said, but not here. “Baghdad underwater” is how former Louisiana Senator JohnBreaux described his beloved city, as state officialstold him they feared the death toll could reach ashigh as 10,000, spread across Louisiana, Missis-

sippi and Alabama. No matter whatthe final tally, the treatment of theliving, black and poor and old andsick, was a disgrace. The problemwith putting it all into numbers isthat they stop speaking clearly oncethey get too big: an estimated half amillion refugees, a million peoplewithout power, 30,000 soldiers, upto $100 billion in damage. “This isour tsunami,” said Mayor A.J. Hol-loway of Biloxi, Mississippi.

Around the country, peoplewatched the scene in growing horror, as babiesand old people and diabetics and those worn outsurviving the storm died on live television for allto see. Churches started assembling comfort kits;Red Cross volunteers prepared 500,000 hot mealsa day.

The private response was all the more urgentbecause the public one seemed so inept. SomehowHarry Connick Jr. could get to the New OrleansConvention Center and offer help, but not theNational Guard. Bush praised the “good work” onThursday, then called the results “not acceptable”on Friday. By then, 55 nations had offered to pitchin—including Sri Lanka, whose disaster scars arestill fresh.

But it was in New Orleans where the camerasconverged, a city that had braced for the worst, thenbriefly exhaled when it looked as if the threathad passed. Several hours after the storm movedthrough on Monday, August 29, some streets were

An American TragedyHow the U.S. failed the city of New Orleans in its greatest hour of need

H U R R I C A N E K A T R I N A

time, september 12, 2005 11

essentially dry. Then shortly after midnight, asection almost as long as a football field in a mainlevee near the 17th Street Canal ruptured, lettingLake Pontchartrain pour in. The city itself turnedinto a superbowl, roadways crumbled like soupcrackers as the levees designed to protect themwere now holding the water in. Engineers trieddropping 3,000-pound sandbags, but the waterjust swallowed the bags.

The levee breach left 80% of the city immediatelysubmerged and 100,000 people stranded. CanalStreet lived up to its name. As the temperaturerose, the whole city was poached in a vile stew ofmelted landfill, chemicals, corpses, gasoline, snakes,canal rats; many could not escapetheir flooded homes without help.Among those who could, only afinal act of desperation would drivethem into the streets, where thecaramel waters stank of sewageand glittered with the gaudy swirlsof oil spills. A New Orleans TV station reportedthat a woman waded down to Charity Hospital,floating her husband’s body along on a door.

For the first time ever, a major U.S. city wassimply taken offline, closed down. Food and waterand power and phones were gone; authority was allbut absent. Most of the people left to cope wereleast equipped: the ones whose Social Securitychecks were just about due, or those who made forthe Greyhound station only to find it already closed,or those confined to bed or who used a wheel-chair. “We’re seeing people that we didn’t knowexist,” declared Federal Emergency ManagementAgency (fema) director Michael Brown in a mo-ment of hideous accidental honesty. Rescue work-ers could hear people pounding on roofs from theinside, trapped in attics as the waters rose. Thelucky ones were able to cut holes with knives andaxes to reach the open air. Emergency workershovered from house to house, plucking out theliving, leaving bodies behind.

The seething center of the angry Crescent Citywas the Superdome, refuge of utterly last resort for25,000 people who had waited out the worst of thestorm while the sheet-metal roof peeled like fruit,letting the rains pour in. Soon there was no light, no

air, no working toilets. Reports came that four of theweakest died that first night. Members of the city'sems team made their way there only to find anar-chy. “We tried to start triaging and getting the spe-cial needs in one section,” a technician recalls, buthis team was overwhelmed by the hungry crowdand retreated with armed guards to Army trucks.

Only by Friday did some palpable help arrive, inthe form of thousands of National Guard troops andlumbering convoys of supplies. Virtually alone,Lieutenant General Russel Honore, commandingJoint Task Force Katrina, seemed to be movingpieces into place. He was out in the streets with histroops, directing convoys and telling anxious

Guardsmen to keep their weaponspointed down.

Americans sometimes ask whatthe government does and wheretheir tax money goes. Among otherthings, it pays for all kinds of in-visible but essential safety nets and

life belts and guardrails that are useless right upuntil the day they are priceless. Following Katrina,furious critics charged that the government had notheard the warnings. Instead, it cut the funds forflood control and storm preparations and mangledthe chain of command. An angry debate openedabout how much the demands of the Iraq war,on both the budget and the National Guard, wereeating into the country’s ability to protect itself athome. Just one month after Katrina struck, Hurri-cane Rita devastated portions of Louisiana andTexas, causing an estimated $9 billion in damage.(Read more about Rita and hurricanes on pages

26 and 27.) Republican Congressman Jim Mc-Crery of Louisiana argues that Katrina and Ritahave revealed how much doesn’t work. “Clearly,”said McCrery, “with all the money we’ve spent,all the focus we have put on homeland security, weare not prepared for a disaster of this proportionwhether it’s induced by nature or man.” π

Questions

1. What event caused by Hurricane Katrina led tothe massive flooding in New Orleans? 2. According to critics, what did Katrina revealabout decisions made by the government?

H U R R I C A N E K A T R I N A

Was Katrina the worstnatural disaster in U.S.

history—or the worst response to a disaster?

Or both?

12 time, september 12, 2005

LOUISIANA SUPERDOMEAs aid began to trickle into the city,thousands waited for evacuation

17th STREET CANALHelicopters dropped giant sandbagsin an effort to seal the initial breach

Mississippi River

Lakeview

Levee

Levee

TulaneUniversity

LoyolaUniversity

AudubonPark

Metairie

Jefferson

Orle

ans

Ave.

Can

al

17th

S

t. Ca

nal

Water- treatmentplant

17th St.Canalbreach

A N A M E R I CA N T RAG E DY

New Orleans is surrounded by a 350-mile (563 km) system of levees that hold back the waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. When three levees failed, the city filled like a bathtub

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

Floodwaters may have risen past the tops of the levees. The city’s pumping system, designed to handle smaller storms, lost power and failed

1

Canal

Levee walls

OVERTOPPING

Because the flooding didn’t begin until after the hurricane, some suspect the levees may have leaked from within. The water pressure would have turned tiny cracks into gaping holes

2 BREACHING

Crews have been trying to plug the collapsed levees with giant sandbags and concrete barriers. Once the levees are sealed, the challenge of draining the city begins. That job could take months

3 REPAIR

New Orleans Under

St. CharlesHospital

UniversityHospital

MemorialMedicalCenter

MemorialMedicalCenter

TulaneHospital

TIME Graphic byEd Gabel andLon Tweeten;text by Kristina Dell

Sources: Dean Gesch, U.S. Geological Survey; Army Corps of Engineers; Digital Globe; New Orleans Times-Picayune. Inset model of downtown New Orleans “Intelligent 3D Map” provided by ITspatial, imagery provided by Sanborn Mapping

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Interstate 10

time, september 12, 2005 13

More than12 ft. (3.7 m)abovesea level

More than9 ft. (2.7 m)belowsea level

Sea level

CONVENTION CENTERLynn Jackson, 46, hugs her daughterafter being rescued from her home

Lake Pontchartrain

Levee

St. LouisCemetery1 and 2

Mount OlivetCemetery

Fairgrounds

Arabi

FrenchQuarter

GardenDistrict

CityPark

WestBank

FrenchQuarter

GardenDistrict

CityPark

AudubonPark

Metairie

Downtown

London Ave.Canal breach

PontchartrainPark

Universityof New Orleans

London Ave. Canal

Second London Ave.Canal breach

IndustrialCanal breach

Water The storm passed, and the city had survived. Then a levee broke. The worst-case scenario had arrived

Vertical scale is exaggerated

Mississippi River

WHERE WATER IS HIGHER THAN LAND

DOWNTOWN MOSTLY DRY

Approximateextent offlooding French

Quarter

Superdome

Much of New Orleans’ main

business district is built on the highest ground in the

city. The Superdome

wasn’t so lucky

Lake Pontchartrain

New Orleans sits in a wide, shallow bowl, with the levees ofthe Mississippi as one rim and the levees of Lake Pontchartrain as the other. The bottom of the bowl is filled with small ridges, which created small islands when the city flooded

St. ClaudeMedicalCenter

Charity Hospital

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14 Worksheet Prepared by Time Learning Ventures

Name Date ✍WORKSHEET

The Impact of Hurricane KatrinaIn “An American Tragedy” on pages 10 and 11, Nancy Gibbs presents evidence from a variety of sourcesto help readers understand Hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans. Take a closer look at the pieceand use the questions below to see how Gibbs uses statistics, quotes and anecdotes to tell the story.

Statistics: The Power of Numbers

1. As you read “An American Tragedy,” underlineeach sentence in which writer Nancy Gibbs includes statistics. Then look back at the sen-tences you have underlined. In your opinion,which sentence presents the most powerfuland dramatic numbers? Write it here:

Quotations: The Power of Voices

2. Now circle all the sentences in the article inwhich Gibbs incorporates quotations. If youwere trying to tell a friend about Katrina’simpact and had to choose one quotation toconvey the storm’s devastating force, whichquote would you select? Write it here:

3. Why did you select this quotation? Considerthe role of the person being quoted, as well asthe content of his or her statement. Is thisperson an expert? An eyewitness? An ordi-nary citizen? A government official?

Anecdotes: The Power of Personal Stories

4. What is an anecdote? Using a dictionary, lookup anecdote and write the definition here:

5. Now put a box around all the anecdotes thatappear in “An American Tragedy.” Select oneanecdote that particularly stands out to you anddescribe it here:

6. Why do you think Gibbs chose to include thisanecdote in her article?

7. Share your work. Exchange worksheets with aclassmate and read your partner’s choice of sta-tistics, quotations and anecdotes. Then dis-cuss: What does each of these elements add to“An American Tragedy”? Working together,select the one sentence from the article thatyou think best encapsulates the impact ofKatrina. Write it here and be prepared to de-fend your choice:

By NANCY GIBBS

These are not the people you expect tocome to the rescue. Rock stars are designedto be shiny, shallow creatures, furloughedfrom reality for all time. Billionaires areeven more removed,

nestled atop fantastic wealthwhere they never again haveto place their own calls or defrost dinner or fly on com-mercial jets. So Bono spendsseveral thousand dollars at arestaurant for a nice dinner,and Bill Gates, the great preda-tor of the Internet age, has atrampoline room in his $100million house. It makes youthink that if these guys can de-cide to make it their missionto save the world, partner withpeople they would never oth-erwise meet, care about causesthat are not flashy or dignifiedin the ways that celebrities normally require, thenno one really has a good excuse anymore for juststaying on the sidelines and watching.

Such is the nature of Bono’s fame that justabout everyone in the world wants to meet him—except for the richest man in the world, whothought it would be a waste of time. It took aboutthree minutes with Bono for Gates to change hismind. Bill and his wife Melinda, another com-puter nerd turned poverty warrior, love facts anddata with a tenderness most people reserve fortheir children, and Bono was hurling metricsacross the table as fast as they could keep up.“He was every bit the geek that we are,” saysGates Foundation chief Patty Stonesifer, who

helped broker that first summit. “He just hap-pens to be a geek who is a fantastic musician.”

And so another alliance was born: unlikely,unsentimental, hard nosed, clear eyed and deadset on driving poverty into history. The rocker’s jobis to be raucous, grab our attention. The engi-

neers’ job is to make thingswork. 2005 is the year theyturned the corner, when Bonocharmed and bullied andmorally blackmailed the lead-ers of the world’s richest coun-tries into forgiving $40 billionin debt owed by the poorest;now those countries canspend the money on healthand schools rather than inter-est payments—and have nomore excuses for not doing so.The Gateses, having built theworld’s biggest charity, with a$29 billion endowment, spentthe year giving more moneyaway faster than anyone ever

has, including nearly half a billion dollars for theGrand Challenges, in which they asked the verybest brains in the world how they would solve ahuge problem, like inventing a vaccine that needsno needles and no refrigeration, if they had themoney to do it.

For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiringpolitics and re-engineering justice, for makingmercy smarter and hope strategic and then daringthe rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates andBono are Time’s Persons of the Year.

“Katrina created one tragedy and revealed an-other,” Melinda Gates said in a speech after thehurricane. “We have to address the inequitiesthat were not created by the hurricanes but ex-

An Unlikely AllianceBill and Melinda Gates have teamed up with Bono, the world’smost famous rock star, to launch a global crusade against poverty

P E R S O N S O F T H E Y E A R

time, december 26, 2005 15

posed by them. We have to ensure that peoplehave the opportunity to make the most of theirlives.” That just about captures the larger missionshe and her husband have embraced. In the poor-est countries, every day is as deadly as a hurricane.Malaria kills two African children a minute, roundthe clock. In that minute a woman dies fromcomplications during pregnancy, nine people getinfected with hiv, three people die of tb. A vasthost of aid workers and agencies and nationalgovernments and international organizations havestruggled for years to get ahead of the problem butoften fell behind. The task was too big, too com-plicated. There is no one solution to fit all coun-tries, and so the model the GatesFoundation and Bono have em-braced pulls in everyone, at everylevel. Think globally. Act carefully.Prove what works. Then use what-ever levers you have to get it done.

The challenge of “stupid poverty”—the people who die for want of a $2pill because they live on $1 a day—wasenough to draw Gates away from Microsoft yearsbefore he intended to shift his focus from makingmoney to giving it away. He and Melinda lookedaround and recognized a systems failure. “Thoselives were being treated as if they weren’t valu-able,” Gates told fortune in 2002. “Well, when youhave the resources that could make a very big im-pact, you can’t just say to yourself, ‘o.k., when I’m60, I’ll get around to that. Stand by.’ ”

There have always been rich and famous peoplewho feel the call to “give back,” which is where bigmarble buildings and opera houses come from.But Bill and Melinda didn’t set out to win anyprizes—or friends. “They’ve gone into interna-tional health,” says Paul Farmer, a public-healthpioneer, “and said, ‘What, are you guys kidding?Is this the best you can do?’ ” Gates’ standards areshaping the charitable marketplace as he has thesoftware universe. “He wants to know whereevery penny goes,” says Bono, the Irish-bornsinger whose organization data (debt, aids, trade,Africa) got off the ground with a Gates Foundationgrant. “Not because those pennies mean so muchto him, but because he’s demanding efficiency.”

His rigor has been a blessing to everyone—notleast of all Bono, who was at particular risk of notbeing taken seriously, just another guilty white guypestering people for more money without focus-ing on where it goes.

The Gates commitment acts as a catalyst. Theyneeded the drug companies to come on board,and the major health agencies, the churches, theuniversities and a whole generation of politicianswho were raised to believe that foreign aid wasabout as politically appealing as postal reform. Andthat is where Bono’s campaign comes in. He goesto churches and talks of Christ and the lepers, cit-ing exactly how many passages of Scripture

(“2,103”) deal with taking care of thepoor; he sits in a corporate board-room and talks about the role of aid inreviving the U.S. brand. He gets PatRobertson and Susan Sarandon to doa commercial together for his onecampaign to “Make Poverty History.”

Bono grasps that politicians don’tmuch like being yelled at by activists

who tell them no matter what they do, it’s notenough. Bono knows it’s never enough, but he alsoknows how to say so in a way that doesn’t leave hisaudience feeling helpless. He invites everyoneinto the game, in a way that makes them thinkthat they are missing something if they hold back.

This is not about pity. It’s more about passion.Pity sees suffering and wants to ease the pain; pas-sion sees injustice and wants to settle the score.Pity implores the powerful to pay attention; pas-sion warns them about what will happen if theydon’t. The risk of pity is that it kills with kindness;the promise of passion is that it builds on thehope that the poor are fully capable of helpingthemselves if given the chance. In 2005, theworld’s poor needed no more condolences; theyneeded people to get interested, get angry andthen get to work. π

Questions

1. What is the aim of the alliance between Bonoand the Gates?2. According to the writer, what makes Bono aparticularly effective activist?

16 time, december 26, 2005

P E R S O N S O F T H E Y E A R

For rewiring politicsand re-engineering

justice, Bill andMelinda Gates and

Bono are TIME’s Persons of the Year.