Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential

Reading about Rove's contempt for fair play from the beginning of his career is absolutely chilling. The book is even-handed and meticulous, but presents so many cases where he damaged lives, careers and democracy with his political ruthlessness. What's frightening is how much influence he has on Bush today, and the fact that he isn't the only Lee Atwater disciple wielding power in the current Republican Party. Read David Brock's Blinded By the Light for a complementary tale of manipulation and dissembling. This book was obviously completed before the Republican ads that defeated Senator Max Cleland by calling him unpatriotic, even though Cleland had lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam--but that approach only buttresses the core points I take from this powerful book: The bullying tactics of people like Rove need to themselves become a political issue, because they represent a direct attack on our democracy. Paul LoebAuthor Soul of a Citizen

The 2 Texas journalists describe Rove as cynical, vengeful, amoral, smart and effective. As one source says, Nixon without the self-destructiveness. Clinton with discipline. A binary, good-guy/bad-guy worldview.Rove views every issue and event in terms of whether it will help or hurt his candidate. That includes trade tariffs, farm policy, the Iraq war, and whether or not to wreck the career of someone who might oppose him. Here is a quote:"...He has created a politics of pretense. Neither Rove nor the Bush administration give the electorate credit for being sophisticated enough to call them to account. If they were concerned about being caught, Rove would reduce the president's exposure to claims of hypocrisy and broken campaign pledges. Instead, Bush signs his education bill, the "Leave No Child Behind Act" with a smiling Ted Kennedy over his shoulder. This is the TV moment the electorate remembers, a president appearing to create bipartisan coalitions and endeavoring to "change the tone" in Washington while helping our children. When Bushed proposed a federal budget, however, funding for education was cut with the president authorizing only $22 billion of the $28 billion the measure called for. American needed money to increase military strength and pay for the president's tax cut." (p296)Bush comes across as a cipher. He is shown as shallow but not stupid. Completely unlike Rove, Bush seems to have principles beyond the expansion of his own power. But Bush's high-mindedness doesn't prevent him from having a right-hand man who uses every tool of the politics of meanness. A typical Rove tactic is to target a staffer in the employ of a political opponent, or someone who might be a challenger in future years, and have a surrogate voice accusations or suspicions about the staffer. Do it at the worst possible time, such as the day the opponent announces his candidacy. The authors cite about a dozen examples of this happening to Rove opponents, more often than mere chance would suggest. The book is well researched and concise, a good read.

First of all...this is a book. People are allowed to let their personal opinions come through in a book. It isn't a news channel that's supposed to be neutral. So anyone that complains about liberal or conservative bias in a book can only be unhappy that the author's views do not match their own. Karl Rove's and George W. Bush's personal views are what's governing the country, give authors a break. That applies as much to Moore and Slater as it does to Bill O'Reilly by the way.Given the fact that there is next to no information about Karl Rove out there right now for the masses, this is an extremely well-needed book. You're not going to fully understand Bush or Rove after reading it, but there's no way that any one book could completely capture the genius that is Karl Rove. I came away with this book with a much better understanding about how decisions are made in the Bush administration because of Rove.Slater is also an ideal person to be writing on the subject as he was a reporter on the campaign trail with Rove and Bush. Karl Rove had every opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings about his past with the author, but he almost always contradicts himself. If Rove can't get the story straight when he knows what he says will be published, you shouldn't confuse bias from an author with unpleasant realities that make your party look bad.

If Texas reporters James Moore and Wayne Slater have it right, the reasonable conclusion to reach after reading "Bush's Brain" is that Bush's leading adviser Karl Rove is a man who lives for political conquest and is devoid of principle. This is not an attack piece and the writers, well grounded in the Texas political scene, use quotes from well connected political operatives and others close to the base of political operations to tell the story of how Rove rose from Lee Atwater's running mate to acquire leadership of the Young Republicans, then launched a soaring climb that resulted in his current heady position as chief political adviser and, from many accounts, top policy formulator to the nation's chief executive. The point that is frequently stressed is that Rove begins with the basic assumption that if you are a Republican you are a potential friend, barring primary competition involving a rival candidate, and if a Democrat an acknowledged enemy. Policies are embraced as an expedient, not as an objective for governing. A classic illustration stressed is the pressure employed by Republican Congressmen from farm belt states to change the Cuban policy supporting an embargo. Realizing that much money can be made both ways through free and open trade, many Republicans sought change and formed a committee to achieve that goal. Rove made a well publicized appearance at a Republican conclave and read these individuals the riot act, holding fast to the current policy. The reason did not stem from any philosophical position Rove holds. It relates to his belief that Bush cannot be reelected without votes from the hard Cuban right from South Florida, who oppose any dealings with Castro. To cover his own flank he has rationalized an argument that Castro needs to be overthrown from within and that we should do nothing to intervene in that process.The authors note that Rove seeks to distance himself from Richard Morris, Clinton's controversial political adviser, who, along with the Democratic president, was denounced for taking positions because they were popular rather from any philosophical underpinning. Rove seeks to create a distinction that does not really exist. He does so through using debating skills he began honing in his high school days in Utah, which enabled him to argue any position in oratorical competitions. It all comes down to the same as the Morris posture, since the positions are taken to coincide with policies shaped to reflect popular voter opinion. This position is out of step with the man called the father of conservatism, Edmund Burke, who, in his legendary speech to the Electors of Bristol in the nineteenth century, proclaimed that a representative in a democratic government must shape positions he believes are best for the public, whether that same public then agrees or not. This should be done with the full knowledge that the individual is risking defeat at the polls. While reporting the many instances of Rove opp

I am a political consultant who has worked in Texas for almost a decade, roughly the same period chronicled in this terrific book, and I am surprised on many fronts. One, there's a lot of stuff in this book that I knew that I can't believe they got people to talk about. Two, there's stuff in this book that I never knew. And three, there's some very sad stories about the lives that Karl Rove has ruined in his single-minded rise to the top of the heap. It's like Robert Caro stopped being repetitive and wrote this book.