January
The White House starts the year on the defensive after The New York Times publishes details of a secret wiretapping program authorized by President Bush in the days after 9/11. The program allows the National Security Agency to track phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and foreign countries without first obtaining a warrant. An angry President Bush denounces the Times for exposing the program, which he insists is vital to national security. 'œIf someone from al Qaida is calling you, we'd like to know why,' he says. In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffers a stroke and is replaced by moderate Ehud Olmert, just as the terrorist group Hamas shocks the world, and itself, by winning the Palestinian elections. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declares 'œthe time of bullying and coercion is over,' and orders his scientists to restart work on Iran's controversial nuclear program. Following President Bush's disastrous nomination of Harriet Miers, staunch conservative Samuel Alito is easily confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In New York, 20-year-old starlet Lindsay Lohan'”a regular on the club scene on both coasts'”borrows a stranger's pen to scrawl 'œScarlett [Johansson] is a bloody c---' on the wall of a nightclub bathroom.
February
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After a Danish newspaper publishes a page of cartoons making fun of the Prophet Mohammed, angry Muslims stage riots in cities across the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency votes to bring Iran before the United Nations Security Council for its nuclear program, a prospect that appears to leave President Ahmadinejad unfazed. 'œYou can issue as many resolutions as you like and have fun with it,' he says, 'œbut you cannot prevent Iran's progress.' Vice President Dick Cheney, hunting in Texas, accidentally discharges his shotgun into the face of a friend, Harry Whittington. With his face pocked and bruised, Whittington apologizes for any distress the incident may have caused the vice president or his family. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards publicly complains that he has been dropped from the list of celebrities deemed most likely to die in the coming year. 'œI guess I'm just not rock 'n' roll enough anymore,' says Richards.
March
American athletes underachieve at the Winter Olympics in Turin. Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis blows a 50-yard lead by attempting a showboating board-grab as she hurtles to the finish line. Skater Johnny Weir misses his bus to the arena and later blames a sub-par performance on having lost his 'œinner peace.' Bode Miller, the much-hyped bad boy of skiing, fails to win a medal of any color in his five events, and seems untroubled by his performance. 'œIt's been an awesome two weeks,' says Miller after the closing ceremonies. 'œI got to party and socialize at an Olympic level.' The Bush administration is again put on the defensive when news surfaces that Dubai Ports World, a firm based in the United Arab Emirates, has won the bidding to operate U.S. ports. Lawmakers from both parties trip over themselves in rushing to denounce the deal as a threat to national security. Amid a gathering political storm, Dubai Ports World pulls out of the deal, after Bush advisor Karl Rove suggests in a phone call to the sheikhs who rule the UAE that it would be best for all. The movie Crash wins the Oscar for Best Picture in an upset, disappointing fans of Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee's haunting and lyrical portrait of two plainspoken cowboys who periodically get together to have vigorous sex with each other in a tent.
April
Millions of illegal aliens and their supporters mount a series of massive demonstrations on the streets of U.S. cities. In Los Angeles alone, the crowd is estimated at 500,000. The marches are triggered by a House Republican proposal that would classify illegal immigrants as felons. A former deputy chief of staff to Rep. Tom DeLay pleads guilty to corruption and bribery charges, indicating that he will cooperate with prosecutors. Three days later, DeLay announces his retirement from Congress. Another controversial member of Congress, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, gets into a physical altercation with a police officer who fails to recognize her and tries to stop her from entering the Capitol. 'œThis whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female black congresswoman,' McKinney explains.
May
The Iraqi parliament names Nouri al-Maliki its new prime minister, replacing the more hard-line Shiite Ibrahim al-Jaafari and ending a three-month political stalemate. Al-Maliki, though also a Shiite, is seen as a pragmatist and relative moderate, raising hopes that Iraq might finally be on the road to a stable democracy. The optimism is short-lived. Al-Maliki is unable to name a Cabinet that satisfies all factions in Iraq, and insurgents unleash a brutal wave of bombings, executions, and drive-by shootings aimed mainly at civilians. Germany, France, and Britain offer Iran a package of economic and technological incentives to suspend its nuclear program, but Iran declines. 'œThe enemies of Iran think that they are dealing with a small child,' says Ahmadinejad, whom 'œthey will give a few walnuts and chocolates and take their gold in exchange.' In New York, magician David Blaine spends seven days in a water-filled sphere, then attempts to hold his breath for a record nine minutes. He manages seven before having convulsions and having to be rescued by divers. In Fiji, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards falls out of a coconut tree while drunk and requires emergency brain surgery.
June
With al-Maliki's 'œunity government' finally in place, a strike by U.S. warplanes kills Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaida in Iraq. But neither event stems the rising tide of violence. Suicide car-bomb attacks against crowds of civilians become an almost daily event on the streets of Baghdad, with an estimated 100 civilians dying each day. In Washington, a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage is narrowly rejected, 49'“48. In the Senate, an amendment to let Congress ban American-flag burning also falls short by a single vote. The Supreme Court surprises the White House by ruling that suspected terrorists and other military 'œdetainees' are covered by the Geneva Conventions, and are entitled to due process. In a rare piece of good news for the embattled Bush administration, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald ends months of speculation by informing Karl Rove that he would not be indicted for having been one of several officials who leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press.
July
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel and kidnaps two Israeli soldiers. Israel responds with a major military assault on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon. As weeks pass with no letup in the fighting, Israel faces mounting international pressure to withdraw, particularly after an off-target airstrike kills 57 civilians, including 37 children. In California, actor-director Mel Gibson is arrested for drunken driving and launches into an anti-Semitic tirade, declaring Jews responsible 'œfor all the wars in the world.' During the World Cup finals in Germany, lowly Italian defender Marco Materazzi provokes French soccer deity Zinedine Zidane by insulting his sister, and Zidane head-butts Materazzi in the chest. With Zidane ejected from the game, Italy goes on to win 5'“3 in a penalty shootout.
August
The U.N. brokers a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Gen. John Abizaid tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that with mounting sectarian violence there is now a very real risk of Iraq sliding into civil war. The presidential ambitions of Sen. George Allen, a rising Republican star, collapse when he refers to a dark-skinned supporter of his opponent as 'œmacaca,' a French racial slur meaning 'œmonkey.' 'œLet's give a welcome to 'Macaca' here,' Allen exhorts the overwhelmingly white crowd at a campaign event. 'œWelcome to America and the real world of Virginia.' The incident, along with other gaffes, later costs Allen his race for re-election, and the Republican Party its control of the Senate. In an unsentimental move, the International Astronomical Union declares that Pluto is not a planet but merely a 'œdwarf planet.' Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and best friend Gayle King go public with the news that they are not gay lovers.
September
Iraq slides deeper into anarchy. A Pentagon report reveals that casualties among civilians and security forces have increased 51 percent since the new government took office in May. Details of another report, a classified National Intelligence Estimate by U.S. spy agencies, are leaked to the press. The NIE suggests that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has backfired, spawning a 'œnew generation of terrorist leaders' and breeding 'œdeep resentment' across the Muslim world. President Bush denounces the leaking of the report as an attempt by unnamed enemies to 'œcreate confusion in the minds of the American people.' Pope Benedict XVI gives a speech in which he quotes a 14th-century Byzantine emperor's opinion that the Prophet Mohammed's ideas were 'œevil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.' His comments spark riots across the Muslim world, prompting Benedict to issue a rare papal apology. In Washington, Republican congressman Mark Foley resigns after a Web site publishes salacious instant-message conversations between Foley and a male congressional page. Foley declares himself an alcoholic and checks into rehab. The mood at the nation's salad bars is grim, as a deadly outbreak of E. coli infections is blamed on tainted spinach.
October
North Korea detonates its first nuclear bomb in an underground test; though intelligence agencies speculate that it's a partial dud, it succeeds in getting a worried world's attention. In one of the nastiest election campaigns in U.S. history, the airwaves are swamped with slow-motion, black-and-white images of political candidates against a backdrop of ominous music. Most controversial is a Republican ad in Tennessee in which a scantily clad white woman reminisces about meeting black Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. at a Playboy Super Bowl party. 'œCall me,' she whispers breathlessly into the camera. Though polls show the GOP behind heading into the midterm elections, President Bush warns Democrats against prematurely 'œdancing in the end zone' and/or 'œmeasuring the drapes' for their new offices.
November
Democrats win control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, ending six years of GOP dominance. Though Harold Ford Jr. loses in Tennessee, the most notable casualties are Republican, including such prominent figures as Sens. George Allen and Rick Santorum. The results are partly seen as a public indictment of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and one day after the election Bush announces that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is being replaced. In Iraq, the slaughter continues. A U.N. report declares October the deadliest month for Iraqi civilians since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and reports that some 100,000 civilians are now fleeing the nation each month. The chaotic, often farcical trial of Saddam Hussein ends with the deposed dictator sentenced to death for having ordered a massacre of Shiite civilians. In Colorado, Pastor Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, steps down from his post after a male prostitute comes forward claiming that Haggard has been paying him for sex for three years. After the death of legendary director Robert Altman, Lindsay Lohan sends a letter of condolence to Altman's family advising it'”and all humanity'”to 'œplease just take each moment day by day and consider yourself lucky to breathe and feel at all and smile '¦ BE ADEQUITE [sic]'
December
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