Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove [Hardcover]

Paul Alexander (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1594868255 | ISBN-13: 978-1594868252 | Publication Date: June 10, 2008 | Edition: First Edition

     Karl Rove has come to personify scorched earth political tactics and merciless, win-at-any-cost trickery. His status as the so-called architect behind Bush’s election victories has elevated him to a mythic kingmaker in the national imagination. Not since Mark Hanna, special assistant to President William McKinley, has someone not elected to public office played such a vital role in the governance of our nation.

     We know the myth, but who is the man? In Machiavelli's Shadow, the full, unvarnished truth about the mastermind of the Bush administration is revealed as swirling scandals and Karl Rove's diminished power have freed people to speak candidly as never before. Acclaimed author and veteran journalist Paul Alexander tracks Rove's journey from consummate outsider to presidential consigliere, conducting firsthand interviews with A-list sources who have never gone on the record about Rove before now. The result is a gripping, no-holds-barred account of the man whose insistence on politicizing any area on which he has advised the president—from the war in Iraq to domestic issues like Social Security, energy, the environment, and hotly controversial judicial matters—has brought about his own fall from grace and an escalating crisis within the government and the nation.

     Drawing on the author's extensive connections in the political arena and delving into all areas of Rove's life—political, business, psychological, and personal—this book stands as the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures ever to emerge on the American political scene.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Paul Alexander is a walking encyclopedia of US presidential history. Smart, savvy, and unflappable, he is one of a handful of investigatory reporters I truly admire. You can always count on him to strip away the veneer and deliver the goods." —Douglas Brinkley

About the Author

PAUL ALEXANDER is a former reporter for Time magazine and has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, New York, The Village Voice, and The Guardian. He is the author of Man of the People: The Life of John McCain as well as biographies of Sylvia Plath, J.D. Salinger, and James Dean.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; First Edition edition (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594868255
• ISBN-13: 978-1594868252
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #703,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Alexander is the editor of the essay collection Ariel Ascending: Writings About Sylvia Plath and the author of Rough Magic, a biography of Plath; Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean, the bestseller that has been published in 10 countries; Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol Empire and the Race For Andy's Millions; Man of the People: The Life of John McCain; The Candidate, a chronicle of John Kerry's presidential campaign; and Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove. His bestseller Murdered was published by Rosetta Books as a Kindle Single.

A former reporter for Time, Alexander has published journalism in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, New York, The Nation, The Village Voice, Salon, Worth, The New York Observer, George, Cosmopolitan, More, Interview, ARTnews, Mirabella, Premiere, Out, The Advocate, Travel & Leisure, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Biography, Men's Journal, Best Life, The New York Review of Books, and Rolling Stone. In Europe, his journalism has appeared in Paris Match, Gente, and The Guardian. He contributes to The Daily Beast.

Shane Salerno's much-anticipated feature documentary Salinger, due out this fall, is based on Alexander's biography of J.D. Salinger, which has recently been republished. Alexander wrote Good Night, Dorothy Kilgallen, an original screenplay about Kilgallen's investigation of the Kennedy assassination, for Twentieth Century Fox.

Alexander is the author of the plays Strangers in the Land of Canaan and Edge, which he directed. Developed at The Actors Studio, Edge, the critically acclaimed one-woman play about Sylvia Plath, ran in New York, where Angelica Torn received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination; London; and venues in other cities, among them Miami, where New Times named Torn Best Actress. Edge toured Australia and New Zealand and enjoyed a second run in New York. In all, Torn performed Edge 400 times. Alexander is also the director of a British revival of Ariel Dorfman's play Death and the Maiden; New York Stories, an evening of one-act plays by Paul Kane that ran in New York; and Brothers in Arms, a documentary film about John Kerry and Vietnam (First Run Features).

Alexander is a graduate of The Writers' Workshop at The University of Iowa and a member of PEN American Center, the Authors Guild, and the Playwrights and Directors Unit of The Actors Studio. In the fall of 2002, he was a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I want you to hurt like I do, July 29, 2008

By 

J. L LaRegina "Jim LaRegina" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove (Hardcover)

At times journalist Paul Alexander's book MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW: THE RISE AND FALL OF KARL ROVE reminds me of psychoanalyst Justin A. Frank's BUSH ON THE COUCH, a study of the emotional troubles that make George W. Bush what he is. As MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW recounts, Rove, the infamous political adviser of Bush, learned the man he thought was his biological father was a stepfather when the stepdad, announcing he was homosexual, dumped the family. Rove's mother then committed suicide.

Karl Rove lost two fathers to rejection and a mother to suicide. The homosexual father went on to pose in body piercing magazines. MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW does not suggest what psychological effects all that had on Rove, who toiled in the direct mail business while repeatedly failing to make a name for himself as a political adviser. But with all the rejection he experienced in his family and career, it's as if Karl Rove attempted to deny reality, trying to make winners out of fellow losers such as George W. Bush, as no one with any credibility wanted him around. Rove often proved them right, falling on his face more than he would admit. According to this book:

- the late political hatchet man Lee Atwater, whom Rove claimed to be his mentor, hated him.

- Rove did not have the close relationship with George W. Bush he purports started when they met in the mid-1970s. They spent little time together until Bush hired Rove for his 1994 Texas gubernatorial campaign.

- George Iran-Contra Bush fired Rove from this 1988 presidential campaign for spreading lies about a political opponent.

- Rove was one of the gang that couldn't shoot straight at the Florida elementary school September 11, 2001, as George W. Bush, Andy Card and he froze up after learning the second plane hit the World Trade Center, confirming America was in crisis. No political adviser worth his salt allows a client - a U.S. president, no less - to look as stupid as Bush did those long six-plus minutes after Card whispered the news, yet Rove could not think on his feet.

Karl Rove, the man they deem "Bush's Brain," is in reality Bush's lame brain.

In 2000 George W. Bush seized the White House not on account of Rove's savvy but because of Ronald Reagan's and George Iran-Contra Bush's partisan Supreme Court appointments. Without the five "justices" who stopped the 2000 Florida recount that would have awarded the Sunshine State and the presidency to Al Gore, Karl Rove would have gone back to licking postage stamps for a living, one more failed campaign under his belt.

Naming every egregious Rove/Bush move would be like detailing each home run Hank Aaron hit; there were just too many to elaborate on all. Some that MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW neglects include:

- regarding Hurricane Katrina, George W. Bush knew the storm was to devastate New Orleans, as a meeting videotape proves. But after the warning Bush did nothing and, as MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW reminds us, the Bush White House's inept response was too little too late as flooding killed hundreds and stranded thousands.

- Rove accidentally sent voter caging lists to the wrong e-mail address, inadvertently breaking the story for the journalist Greg Palast, whom the e-mail recipient contacted after getting Rove's unintended missive.

- While MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW says the George W. Bush administration decided to attack Iraq after 9/11, it's well-documented they actually started planning the invasion in January 2001 while the White House staff was still washing egg and tomato from Bush's inaugural limousine.

Karl Rove is not a comic book villain, one who commits crimes alone. While MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW names accomplices as it recounts the offenses Rove orchestrated, the corporate media deserve much blame for not pressing Rove and George W. Bush harder on their scandals. The best example of that does not even involve Bush. Working for a Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1986, a few days before a televised debate Rove calls a press conference to claim he found a listening device in the candidate's campaign headquarters, implying the Democratic opponent was eavesdropping. The reporters promptly laugh in Rove's face, dismissing the stunt for what it was but several nonetheless write about the accusation. The corporate media act as nothing more than "He said, she said" stenographers instead of doing their job by investigating the matter. Rove's candidate wins the election. Too often journalists, like Karl Rove, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

It all reminds me of Michael Moore's 2003 Academy Awards speech, when he said, "We live in fictitious times." Read MACHIAVELLI'S SHADOW.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Expected More, July 11, 2008

By 

FloridA1A (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove (Hardcover)

This book is an engaging, lightning fast read that most political junkies will love. The author clearly has no love for Karl Rove and cherry picks facts and quotes to fit his narrative which basically is, "Karl Rove is a bad guy who did unspeakable things."

The book essentially summarizes Rove's political philosophy as "win at any cost" and "the end justifies the means," then it goes on to offer a survey of Rove's political tactics (the author would call them dirty tricks). The author cherry picks quotes from obscure government functionaries to support his theses which are-- at times-- a little preposterous.

For example, in the chapter about Hurrican Katrina where he posits the theory that the Bush Administration deliberately avoided doing anything to help save lives and render aid in New Orleans so it could embarrass Louisiana's governor (pass the salt, please!) the author begins the chapter by presenting FEMA head Mike Brown as a buffoon, using a quote from an aide to the governer that stated that Brown was "bullsh*&er" and that he had no credibility. At the end of the same chapter, in order to prove his theory about the Administration the author quotes... Mike Brown! (Miraculously, Brown had gone from having no credibility to being a wiseman in just 20 pages or so!)

On the whole it reads like a long New Yorker serial more than a book and, while I had hope for more scholarship than simply "The New York Times wrote...," the author is terrfic writer and the tale he tells will grab your attention--even if it is a little dubious at times.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Machiavelli's Shadow-The Rise and Fall of Karl Rcve, September 26, 2009

By 

Nancy J. Deemer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove (Hardcover)

I am very interested in political history. This is a very interesting book. I like to read different books with different opinions then form my own opinion. This book was well written and very insightful.