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Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight Hardcover – March 9, 2010
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- Print length608 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThreshold Editions
- Publication dateMarch 9, 2010
- Dimensions6.13 x 2.1 x 9.13 inches
- ISBN-101439191050
- ISBN-13978-1439191057
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Product details
- Publisher : Threshold Editions; Original edition (March 9, 2010)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 608 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1439191050
- ISBN-13 : 978-1439191057
- Item Weight : 1.78 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.13 x 2.1 x 9.13 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #727,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #246 in Pasta & Noodle Cooking
- #3,498 in Political Leader Biographies
- #20,993 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.
Karl has been described by respected author and columnist Michael Barone in U.S. News & World Report as “…unique…no Presidential appointee has ever had such a strong influence on politics and policy, and none is likely to do so again anytime soon.” Washington Post columnist David Broder has called Karl a master political strategist whose “game has always been long term…and he plays it with an intensity and attention to detail that few can match.” Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, has called Karl “the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation… He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy.”
Before Karl became known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, non-partisan causes, and non-profit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional, and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.
As a Fox News contributor, Karl provides a “genuine feel of inside knowledge,” says David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun television critic. Megan Garber, of the Columbia Journalism Review, says Karl has “focused his punditry on what he knows best: strategy.” Even the New York Times acclaims that “Rove’s substantive contributions may now inspire a little work ethic among the celebrity talking heads who may be forced to bring to the news a little more data and a little less opinion, a recalibration that would be welcome to its devoted viewers.”
Karl writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist, and is the author of the forthcoming book “Courage and Consequence” (Threshold Editions).
A Colorado native, he attended the University of Utah, the University of Maryland-College Park, George Mason University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
Karl has taught graduate students at UT Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and undergraduates in a joint appointment from the Journalism and Government departments at the university. He was also a faculty member at the Salzburg Seminar.
He was previously a member of the Board of International Broadcasting, which oversaw the operations of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, and served on the White House Fellows regional selection panel. He was also a member of the Boards of Regents at Texas Women's Union and East Texas State University.
Karl now serves on the Board of Trustees for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation and the Texas State History Museum Foundation. He is also a member of the McDonald Observatory Board of Visitors and the Texas Philosophical Society.
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Read Rove to recognize that he is a political operator of the first rank and maybe the best in the last 100 years. He is right up there with FDR's James Farley who put FDR into the Governorship in New York and then the White House in 1932. It's interesting how both Farley and Rove had photographic memories, and both could tell you how each district voted in the last 50 years of each of their lives.
The stories in "Courage and Consequences" are fascinating, and the color that Rove adds to them imparts a knowledge that you won't pick up by reading your daily newspapers. His explanation of the emotion he felt the day of September 11th, and what transpired made the book's purchase worthwhile by itself. As an example Rove takes you through the Secret Service's plans to move the President around once the planes hit the World Trade Center Towers in New York. The moment the President boarded the plane in Florida, the plane started to move. The steward was literally closing the door of Air Force One into the wind as the plane lifted off the tarmac. The angle of ascent was extraordinary, propelling everybody in their seats as the plane attempted to avoid a potential air launched missile. Fighter jets encircled the plane on the sides, and above and below. Rove could see the faces of the pilots. The order had been given that the fighters would use their planes as the last line of defense and physically block an incoming plane or missile by sacrificing their lives to protect Air Force One. Where else are you going to find this kind of narrative? Maybe in Hollywood, only this is real.
Upon landing in Washington after several additional Secret Service ordered stops, the President was transported to his helicopter Marine One, which then flew at tree top level back to the White House darting over streets with buildings on either side. None of this information was ever released until now. You will remember the President was accused of being absent under fire while the buildings burned, but then again, the press seldom gets it right, no matter who the President is.
You may not love the man, but you are going to get a very interesting narrative that will add dramatically to your understanding of how government operates, and how Presidents get elected in the media age that we now all live in. Whether it's beating Ann Richards for the Texas governorship, or failing in the midst of Hurricane Katrina, Rove is going to come at you from a different angle than you expected. In so doing, we may not always get the truth, but in a self serving book like this, you don't always expect the truth. You do expect, and have a right to receive information that you are simply not going to find anywhere else, and Rove does achieve this. You will find this book to be a very good read, and you will finish it quickly. It's a page turner.
Richard Stoyeck
I was especially impressed by Rove's overview of the way in which he used mathematical modeling to help Bush win elections. The precision of his thinking is, I think, quite impressive and even though you may not like what he stands for (I don't) you have to respect his professional abilities and his rigor.
Make no mistake - this is a partisan book. He "cherry picks" the things he wants to discuss (like Bush's conduct immediately after 9/11) and then avoids those things that he doesn't want to discuss (FISA, Terry Schiavo, the "unitary executive," Bush's use of "signing statements," and Bush's role in capital punishment in Texas, just to name a few). He also wants it both ways, in some cases, where he disavows any connection between Bush Campaign's and the disservice done to John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 or the role of the Swift Boat veterans against Kerry in 2004, but I bet he was happy to benefit from the damage they did to his opponents.
But this is a guy who deserved to get his side of the story out to readers like me and he was effective in doing so. Knowing how he looked at the world is useful and some of the experiences he had were unfair and not in the public interest. The burden of legal fees he carried during the Wilson/Plame debacle was not right nor is the way in which public servants, and their often modest financial resources, can become victims of governmental prosecutors (ask Bill Clinton).
The elephant in the room was Bush's decision to go to war in 2003 and on that Rove is unapologetic. He creates a new frame of reference, suggesting that based on the knowledge in place in 2003 he would have taken the same action today as we did then. He fails to make the case for whether the outcome was worth it, deferring to history to determine that. There are those of us who view that decision now, and at the time, as an error and he did nothing to change my mind.
So - get the book, read it, give Rove a shot at making his case. You won't regret it.
Top reviews from other countries
Wer sich mit solchen Einseitigkeiten und Dämonisierungen nicht zufrieden geben will, dem sei ein Blick in die gut geschriebenen Memoiren von Karl Rove empfohlen. Natürlich ist seine Sicht der Dinge auch nicht objektiv, aber das sind seine zahlreichen Kritiker ebenfalls nicht.
Er beginnt seine Erinnerungen mit einer ausführlichen Schilderung des familiären Hintergrunds. Sein Interesse für die Politik zeigte sich bereits auf der High School, wo er erste Erfahrungen als Wahlhelfer sammelte. Während seines politikwissenschaftlichen Studiums, das er nicht abschloss, engagierte er sich stark in der Studentenvereinigung der Republikaner. Bei dieser Tätigkeit lernte er auch George H. W. Bush kennen und schätzen. Solche Kontakte und Beziehungen, die der junge Rove in den siebziger Jahren knüpfte, erwiesen sich für seine weitere Laufbahn als äußerst vorteilhaft.
Sein Lebensweg führte ihn schließlich nach Texas. Dort gründete er eine Politikberatungsfirma und schaffte 1994 einen großen Karrieresprung, als er dem jungen Bush den Weg ins Gouverneursamt ebnete. In Texas nehmen auch die Verschwörungstheorien ihren Anfang, die Rove seitdem verfolgen. So soll er beispielsweise sein eigenes Büro verwanzt haben, um es dem politischen Gegner anlasten zu können.
Einen legendären Ruf als Meister des Wahlkampfs erlangte er in den beiden Präsidentschaftswahlen der Jahre 2000 und 2004. Im Unterschied zur felsenfesten Überzeugung seiner erklärten Feinde erreichte er diese Wahlerfolge nicht durch schmutzige Tricks und schäbige Manipulationen, sondern durch eine klare Strategie und solide Taktiken.
Als wichtigste Voraussetzung für einen siegreichen Wahlkampf nennt Rove eine politische Idee, die vom Kandidaten möglichst verständlich vermittelt wird. Im Wahlkampf des Jahres 2000 war dies beispielsweise der "mitfühlende Konservatismus“, den George W. Bush glaubwürdig verkörperte.
Daneben ist eine sehr gute Organisation, eine breite finanzielle Basis und eine umfassende Mobilisierung der eigenen Unterstützer und Wähler von Nöten. Der Einsatz von modernen Kommunikationsmitteln, wie dem Internet oder sozialen Netzwerken, ist für Rove gleichfalls von hoher Relevanz.
In zwei zentralen Punkten grenzt er sich allerdings von verbreiteten Ansichten ab. Zum einen ist Rove der Meinung, dass der Kandidat immer ein einheitliches Profil aufweisen muss. Ein Kandidat darf also nicht während des Vorwahlkampfes nur die konservativen bzw. die linksliberalen Stammwähler ansprechen. Er sollte von Anfang an versuchen, breitere Wählerschichten zu mobilisieren, dann kann er im eigentlichen Präsidentschaftswahlkampf ohne weitere Anstrengungen die politische Mitte besetzen.
Zum anderen weist Rove die Vorstellung zurück, ein grundlegendes Element seiner Wahlkampfführung sei der Angriff auf die Stärken des Gegners. Richtig ist vielmehr, dass die vermeintlichen Stärken des Rivalen attackiert werden müssen, die in Wirklichkeit dessen Schwächen sind. So war z. B. der Militärdienst des Vietnamveteranen John Kerry lediglich eine Scheinstärke, da sich der demokratische Präsidentschaftsbewerber selbst immer wieder von diesem distanziert hatte.
Rove verteidigt in seinem Buch weitgehend die innen- und außenpolitischen Entscheidungen der Bush-Regierung. Er tut dies keineswegs nur gegen linke Kritiker, sondern auch gegen solche von rechts. Entschieden weist er etwa den Vorwurf zurück, Präsident Bush habe sich mit seinen expansiven bildungspolitischen Maßnahmen vom konservativen Prinzip einer schmalen Regierung und Verwaltung verabschiedet.
Der Autor räumt zudem selbstverschuldete Fehler und Versäumnisse ein. Als zwei seiner größten Fehlleistungen benennt er zum einen, dass er die Behauptung der Demokraten, Bush habe die Amerikaner bewusst über die Ursachen des Krieges im Irak belogen, nicht frühzeitig und entschlossen genug bekämpft hat. Zum anderen drohte ihn die Affäre um Joe Wilson und dessen Frau zu vernichten, weil er die gegen ihn gerichteten Aktivitäten des Sonderermittlers zunächst unterschätzte.
Zusammenfassend bleibt festzuhalten, dass die Ausführungen von Karl Rove gut nachvollziehbar sind. Insbesondere Leser, die in der Politikberatung tätig sind oder die ein ausgeprägtes Interesse an der amerikanischen Zeitgeschichte haben, sollten seine Arbeit lesen.
Jürgen Rupp
Negativ habe ich den krampfhaften Versuch seine Emotionen zu beschreiben. Er ist kein emotionaler Typ. Auch seine Erklaerung die Politik zu verlassen, ist nicht ganz ueberzeugend.
Ansosnten ist das Buch leicht lesbar, gibt einen Teil der Gedankenwelt der vorigen US Regierung wieder, ohne extrem in die Tiefe zu gehen!








