I gather from the numerous previews and reviews, “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight,” is around 600 pages of Rove taking whacks at his critics, attempting to spin the Bush administration’s legacy out of pit for which it is destined. If you’re curious about Rove’s memoir, but you’re not in the market for a new doorstop, here are a few places to look:

• Stephen Levingston, book reviewer for The Washington Post, writes, “Rove has fashioned a portrait of the Bush presidency that aims to shape history in his boss’s favor.”
• Also at WaPo, Dana Milbank offers “… what he learned from Karl Rove’s book” within a Q&A chat with readers.
• The Huffington Post features “The 13 Must-Read Passages From ‘Courage And Consequence’” along with a slide show presentation of relevant material.
• The Daily Beast narrows it down to the “10 best revelations” within Rove’s book, sans the slideshow.

All of the above mention a couple of assertions made by Rove which demand further scrutiny.

Rove posits that his biggest regret from the Bush years was that he didn’t push back harder on accusations suggesting Bush misled the nation into war with Iraq. Further, Rove maintains the tired conservative meme, proclaiming an intelligence community consensus on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as proof of Bush’s honesty.

You can almost hear the incredulous sigh from David Corn — Washington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones and author/coauthor of two books on the subject – as he writes:

Here we go again: Did Bush grease the way to war with lies?..

Let’s cut to the bottom line: prior to the Iraq war, US intelligence generally produced faulty information overstating Saddam Hussein’s WMD capabilities, which were actually nonexistent. But Bush and his crew purposefully and callously overstated these overstatements—and made dramatic and untrue assertions unconnected to the flawed intelligence—in order to whip up popular support for the invasion of Iraq.

Corn suggests checking out Mother Jones‘ extensive timeline of “the false Bush administration assertions. I would add that Sam Smith’s “The revision thing,” originally published by Harper’s Magazine in Oct. 2003, should be required reading for anyone considering Rove’s, or any other Bush lackey’s memoir broaching this topic. Smith’s treatment is remarkable for its being composed entirely from false statements made by Bush administration officials.

Rove also attempts to spin away Bush administration statements connecting al Qaida and Saddam Hussein.

From “Courage and Consequence”:

Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda and about Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information,” according to the Senate Intelligence Committee 2004 report.

But, Rove is leaving out some important information.

From Media Matters Research (emphasis added):

Rove is presumably referring to a June 5, 2008, Senate Intelligence Committee report examining government officials’ pre-war statements about Iraq. (…) Rove is correct that the committee found that some Bush claims — specifically, “[s]tatements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda and about Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda” — were substantiated by the intelligence at the time. But the committee also concluded that Bush’s allegations suggesting “that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership” were “not substantiated by the intelligence”; and that Bush’s statements indicating Saddam was prepared to give WMD to terrorists were “contradicted by available intelligence.”

Should you decide to subject yourself to “Courage and Consequence,” keep in mind that Karl Rove was, and is, in essence, a BS artist. This designation is implied in Bush’s nickname for him: Turd Blossom.  His entire professional life has been spent crafting favorable public perceptions for his employers, often emphasizing, even creating negative memes to hang around the necks of those candidates and critics who happened to be in the way.

The “elections” of George W. Bush are the twin pinnacle achievements of Karl Rove’s life. He has a vested interest in Bush’s historical legacy. And as a professional BS artist, Rove will buff that turd to a fine shimmering shine before conceding anything to his critics.

Knowing full well that Rove’s self interest is woven throughout the pages of “Courage and Consequences” — His positions, crafted for the purpose of propping up the Bush legacy, informed by a lifetime of BS artistry – has the effect of rendering his memoir historically worthless. Put another way, if those responsible for rendering judgment on the Bush presidency are to find Rove’s memoir useful as a source, it will be when they discredit it with other, more objective, sources.

Thus, I see no reason for creating space in my library for it.

Crossposted from Care2.com ~ “Rove’s ‘Courage and Consequence’ Short on Both,” originally published 10 March 2010

                          

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B'bye GOP...

Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash.

And everything that has happened in recent years is a consequence of that decision.

From the New York Times, 1 January 2009 post, by Paul Krugman:

So the reign of George W. Bush, the first true Southern Republican president since Reconstruction, was the culmination of a long process. And despite the claims of some on the right that Mr. Bush betrayed conservatism, the truth is that he faithfully carried out both his party’s divisive tactics — long before Sarah Palin, Mr. Bush declared that he visited his ranch to “stay in touch with real Americans” — and its governing philosophy.

That’s why the soon-to-be-gone administration’s failure is bigger than Mr. Bush himself: it represents the end of the line for a political strategy that dominated the scene for more than a generation…

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more about “The Raw Story | Olbermann: ‘The presi…”, posted with vodpod
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Maddow aptly assesses that the ‘Bush Legacy Project’ is on a fools errand.  Thanks, in part, to the “Google Machine” and the “Internets,” it will be extremely difficult for the  administration to polish the turd that was the Bush presidency.

Rachel is such a gem.  If you’ve got about ten minutes to spare, view the below clip.

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From The Raw Story, 28 November 2008 post, by way of Agence France-Presse:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.

“I’d like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace,” Bush said in excerpts of a recent interview released by the White House Friday.

“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values.”…

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