FDL Book Salon Welcomes Paul Alexander, Author of Machiavelli’s Shadow Paul Alexander looks back on Karl Rove’s career and finds a remarkable consistency in Rove’s methods: the legal persecution of political enemies, the cynical crafting of policy solely to woo key voting blocks, and the preference for photo ops over real governance. No passage of Paul Alexander’s Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove better exemplifies the central theme of his book–the disaster that results when politics subsumes policy–than this scene from the Katrina aftermath. On Friday, Mary Landrieu had been with Bush and Blanco as they toured the 17th Street Canal, where, at last, major work had commenced to repair the damage that had been caused when the levee broke. “Then, on Saturday,” Landrieu says, “George Stephanopoulos called and asked to do an interview with me, and I said, ‘George, I’m tired of doing interviews. I have to work. And nothing you are airing is accurately showing what’s going on down here.’ He wanted to go to the Superdome, and I said, ‘We still have people stranded on their roofs. If you want to tell the right story, I will help you tell the right story. You get a helicopter and I’ll go up and I will show you what is actually happening. It’s awful what’s happening at the Superdome, but the reason the people can’t understand the story is because the entire region is under 20 feet of water. People can’t get into the Superdome to ...
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FDL Book Salon Welcomes Paul Alexander, Author of Machiavelli’s Shadow Paul Alexander looks back on Karl Rove’s career and finds a remarkable consistency in Rove’s methods: the legal persecution of political enemies, the cynical crafting of policy solely to woo key voting blocks, and the preference for photo ops over real governance. No passage of Paul Alexander’s Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove better exemplifies the central theme of his book–the disaster that results when politics subsumes policy–than this scene from the Katrina aftermath. On Friday, Mary Landrieu had been with Bush and Blanco as they toured the 17th Street Canal, where, at last, major work had commenced to repair the damage that had been caused when the levee broke. “Then, on Saturday,” Landrieu says, “George Stephanopoulos called and asked to do an interview with me, and I said, ‘George, I’m tired of doing interviews. I have to work. And nothing you are airing is accurately showing what’s going on down here.’ He wanted to go to the Superdome, and I said, ‘We still have people stranded on their roofs. If you want to tell the right story, I will help you tell the right story. You get a helicopter and I’ll go up and I will show you what is actually happening. It’s awful what’s happening at the Superdome, but the reason the people can’t understand the story is because the entire region is under 20 feet of water. People can’t get into the Superdome to ...