The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power

[RamboLiberal]

The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power (Hardcover)
by James Moore, Wayne Slater



From Amazon.com

From Publishers Weekly
This bold follow-up to journalists Moore and Slater's bestseller, Bush's Brain, takes a provocative look at how Karl Rove used George Bush's various campaigns and presidency to engineer nothing less than the assertion of a long-term Republican hegemony and the complete dismantling of the Democratic Party. To make their case, they draw on a wide range of materials, including interviews and reportage done by other journalists to demonstrate how Rove mobilized his party's base, forging an unlikely alliance between religious and economic conservatives, while mounting targeted assaults on gays and lesbians, trial lawyers and labor unions. Yet in this narrative, his bid for a complete realignment of American politics begins to derail with the failure of Bush's Social Security reform plan, the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and, most significantly, the implication of Rove in the leak of CIA employee Valerie Plame's identity. In this damning but scattered account, Rove remains an elusive, almost inhuman figure, despite short digressions about his relationship with his gay stepfather and his weekly brunches with members of the White House and RNC teams during the reelection campaign. The result is a compulsive page-turner that's bound to be divisive. (Sept. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Moore and Slater, authors of the best-selling Bush's Brain(2003), take a scalpel to dissect that brain in this probing look at the personality and political strategizing of Karl Rove. They offer a portrait of a bright, cynical, and manipulative man bent on maintaining Republican political dominance for generations to come. Himself an agnostic, Rove has masterminded a strategy that has helped to broaden the Republican base beyond its pro-business, anti-government heritage to appeal to devout evangelicals. In a calculated effort to weaken the Democratic base, Rove has engineered plans to use the antiabortion stance to attract Catholics, the anti-gay stance to attract black churchgoers, and the pro-Israel stance to attract Jews. Moore and Slater trace Rove's fingerprints on the Bush campaign for Texas governor, where he honed his skills at surreptitious campaigns to smear opponents, often with hints at their sexual orientation. The authors reveal that while gay bashing has figured prominently in Republican campaigns, many of their insiders are gay. Moore and Slater also detail Rove's connections to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff as well as Rove's involvement in the orchestration of the war in Iraq. The authors maintain that these tactics are all part of a scheme to maintain Republican dominance of all aspects of American government for the next 30 years. Riveting investigative journalism. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/New_book_alleges_Rove_agnostic_stepfather_0902.html

A new book by Austin-based journalist James Moore and senior Dallas Morning News political reporter Wayne Slater will report Tuesday that Karl Rove's step-father, Louis Rove, divorced his mother and lived the rest of his adult life as an openly gay man, RAW STORY has learned.

This is one of many bombshells delivered by reporters James Moore and Wayne Slater in The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power. RAW STORY obtained an advance copy of the book.

The book also alleges that Rove held streetcorner meetings with fallen superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, knowing that all visits and phones calls to the White House were logged. Abramoff recently pleaded guilty to tax fraud and conspiring to bribe members of Congress.

"When the latest sidewalk strategy session with Karl Rove had concluded, Jack Abramoff settled into the backseat of his chauffeur-driven car," Moore and Slater write on page 9. "'Like I said, everything that comes out of the White House is logged in. The phone calls he makes. The phone calls he receives. So this is just easier.'"

[lvx35]

1. Sounds really good.

Rove is a pivotal person in all of this...yet for some reason when I look at his face, the term "Mr. Poopyfungus" comes to mind. I guess its easy to take people less seriously than they should be taken. :)

[Kutjara]

2. I think a lot of people have misjudged Rove...

...because of his Elmer Fudd appearance. Most of them have no doubt had occasion to regret their misjudgement, while attempting to pull a firmly-lodged knife out of their vital organs (metaphorically speaking, of course).

[lvx35]

3. Yes, It's true, he's a man not to be messed with, I've seen it first hand.

Rotten.com published an article on Rove which wasn't very flattering:

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/karl-rove/

Which isn't suprising for Rotten.com. But Rove lashed out deeply...He shut down one of their sites due to a legal violation that isn't enforced on other similar sites, and that wasn't all he did... Yet the whole thing also showed that he can be provoked by small things, which is sort of interesting for such a big player... :)

[pnorman]

4. I just spotted this thread, and got interested.

I found where it can be bought and downloaded in ereader format. Here it is: http://ereader.com/product/detail/22910?book=The_Architect:_Karl_Rove_and_the_Master_Plan_for_Absolute_Power

At $10, I'll probably get it. What I like about such ebooks is that they can not only be read off my computer monitor, but they can be loaded into many PDAs. In my case, I can load it into my Sony TH-55 and also my Smartphone (Treo 700p). Another PLUS of such ebooks is that there's a nice and fast search capability. That's light years ahead of any index!

pnorman

[Sequoia]

5. Uriah Heep has risen from the dead.